Dear LinkedIn,

Some LinkedIn features that could benefit some of us, many of us and possibly all of us.

I’ve been trained as an engineer but I’m writing this post strictly as a user.

I love LinkedIn. It’s one hell of a platform doing exactly what it started out to do: connecting the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.

I use the platform daily and here are some things I’m increasingly observing day after day:

Type 1: Resume

• X is hiring and inbox me your resumes
• I’m going through your messages and I hope to get back to everyone soon. In the meantime, I hope you’re well and hang in there.

Type 2: Interested

• Interested (which speaks for itself, normally, seen in the comments section for a job/internship/opportunity)

Type 3: Content

• I’ve curated a list of X, drop your email ID in the comments section for a copy of X
• DM me for access to X where X= resource or coupon or some content
• I’ll send X soon. Sorry, if I may have missed someone

This is by no means exhaustive. As a good friend pointed out, everyone at some point knows that their ‘Interested’ is gonna get lost in a pool of ‘Interested’(s)

All I see here is demand and a huge supply to fill that demand. Assuming that demand is genuine and not created for publicity/visibility

I also know that:

• a casual user will find it hard to go through the messages /resumes one after the other of potential hires from their inbox (once their post gains enough visibility)
• a job provider will find it hard to reach out to hundreds of ‘Interested’ replies in their comment section
• a content creator will find it hard to fetch all the email ID’s from their comments and release their content

So, to keep it short and to keep it simple:

In these difficult times, it would definitely benefit that talented person to land a job/opportunity of their choice by ensuring that their efforts to reach out are streamlined, recorded, noticed and visible. It would also help those hiring managers to ensure that the messages/comments they receive are readily available for them to act upon.

So, why not we have some features like this :

1. An optional form with fields created by the creator with the post

We’re talking about asking for email IDs, signing up for content or other useful resources. In addition to serving the purpose of the post, it can collect relevant data such as emails and other essentials in bulk with the post

2. To reply to the responders who filled the form/ signed-up for a resource that would deliver it in their LinkedIn inbox or email or wherever with the content/attachment/message

3. A simple add-on feature to ‘drop-your-resume’ with the post by making it easy for hiring managers to collect and store relevant resumes in one-go

As my connection replies to a post with ‘Interested’, I see it on my feed. Similarly, if my connection fills out a form with a post, signed up for a resource or submits a resume to a post, I can see it on my feed and follow suit.

Note: Since, it is completely up to the user to provide data, I don’t see why just collecting it would be harmful. It’s definitely better than your email IDs being publicly visible to anybody who happens to come across such a post. As I believe in LinkedIn and the user’s decision to respond to a post they see and verify the profile of the post-creator, I think this could benefit some users,maybe many and possibly all of us.