Linkedin has just launched a new app for kids in college to draw them into its professional network. The standalone app called Linkedin Students will help college kids quickly create a profile , find career paths and job postings that relate to their major, and connect with alumni who studied the same topic. This app created to appeal to young people is less cumbersome and simplified than its flagship app. For most students, the word professional is yet to birth and so the need to provide an easy platform. With over 40 million students having a linkedin account, it will help young people find value which they are likely to use later in life.
Students complete the authentication process using their existing LinkedIn account or by entering their name, university, major, and anticipated graduation date. From there, LinkedIn Students provides tailored job-related recommendations. To avoid navigating multiple tabs, the app displays the information in a card-like format that requires you to swipe through a series of options. The first card displays functions you might be interested in. If you are an engineering major but don’t want to be an engineer, you’ll find alternate jobs that someone with a engineering degree could be suitable for. LinkedIn Students also shares recommended articles, written by influencers and displayed based on how close you are to graduating. All of the content is managed through a combination of an algorithm and human curation. The whole idea of this app is not for students looking for news but to build their network, connect with people by means they can best relate to: the school they attended and major they pursued. According to the Ada Yu, a senior prodyct manager at Linkedin, “This is a soft introduction to students who may not know the value of networking and introduce LinkedIn’s value proposition”. The app is available to users now in the US.
