LinkedIn wants to help college students find a job
The professional social network launches an app aimed at getting college kids their first gigs out of school.
LinkedIn's new app is focused on getting college kids employed.
Graduation is coming. You're worried you wasted a lot of money on a fancy piece of paper because you'll never find a job. LinkedIn wants to calm your nerves.
The professional social network on Monday will release an app dedicated to helping college kids find their first job out of school.
The app, called Linkedin Students, has students enter their school, major and expected graduation date. It then connects you with alumni and resources to help your job search.
The app takes you through a 5-step process, where you swipe from screen to screen. (Yes, kind of like the dating app Tinder.) It does things like show you the median salary in your field, tells you what kind of work people who had your major at your school are doing now, and gives you a few actual jobs to apply to.
The first time you use the app, it will show you only one job posting. That's by design.
"Students find the job search daunting," said Ada Hu, the app's product manager. "We never saw them wanting to be in an app that long." The goal is for students to use it in little chunks, like while you are going from class to class.
Apparently, college kids need all the help they can get. For young college graduates in 2015, the unemployment rate is 7.2 percent, compared with 5.5 percent in 2007, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
With the launch of the new app, LinkedIn will shut down some other resources it had for students, including its university rankings and school finder. The company will kill those services on May 16.