Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Why I Like the LinkedIn Student App


By Manny Contomanolis, PhD and RIT Senior Associate Vice President and Director of Career Services

I like the new LinkedIn Student App! There – I said it!


It’s nearly impossible to be involved in college and university career services work today without a strong working knowledge of and appreciation for LinkedIn, and its growing power and influence in connecting job seekers with available opportunities of all kinds. Consequently, when the LinkedIn Student App was soft-launched in April, after having been piloted at three different universities – University of Central Florida, Arizona State University, and San Jose State University – I was surprised that there was not the initial enthusiasm for the new app that frankly I expected. I had questioning colleagues reach out to me to learn more about the app, often with a healthy dose of skepticism about LinkedIn’s real commitment to career services organizations and with concerns about the app’s usefulness given the other mobile applications already out there.



Despite various fits and starts in truly connecting with the career services community, I believe in LinkedIn. In fact, I am even more of a believer now that Microsoft has purchased LinkedIn. I believe that when the deal is actually completed not only will we see a stronger LinkedIn product line more closely integrated with Microsoft products but we will finally see LinkedIn make its enormous data set and related analytics more available to individual higher education institutions. I think LinkedIn has finally figured out career services organizations are truly important to their efforts and is working hard to move forward with renewed commitment.

So why do I like this app?

The LinkedIn Student App is like nothing else ever developed by LinkedIn. It is designed specifically for college students making the job search easier by breaking it down into smaller daily steps of career exploration and action.


[Read complete article on LinkedIn

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