LinkedIn and AI: A Match Made in… Purgatory.

Are you a LinkedIn user? Probably. Are you a LinkedIn fan? I’d venture to say probably not.

LinkedIn has been steadily sinking into a cesspool of scammers, junk posts, wannabe influencers, and downright unprofessional content for the past few years. What started out as the Professional Social Network has turned into the veritable LinkedIn Lunatics subreddit.

I’m assuming in an attempt to garner some positive (?) attention and push its name into headlines with other tech giants, LinkedIn has debuted an AI-powered chatbot that apparently will help you get a job.

As of June 2023, LinkedIn has more than 930 million members across 200+ countries worldwide, according to their own reportings. When it comes to job searching, apparently 49 million people search for jobs on Linkedin each week, with 77 job applications submitted every second.

Is that a lot? Well, according to CNBC, a whopping 96% of workers are looking for a new position in 2023. What are they looking for? Surprise: better pay. 

With basically everyone looking for a new job, and tons of them looking for one on LinkedIn, it’s not surprising that LinkedIn would look for a better way (read: cheaper way) to handle that potential revenue opportunity. [FYI: Linkedin makes most of its money from advertisers and paid subscribers, and has reported 8 straight quarters of slowing revenue.]

In comes 2023’s favorite technology: Generative AI.

LinkedIn new AI chatbot, which aims to help users gauge whether a job application is worth their time, is powered by ChatGPT-4 and is rolling out to some Premium users on Wednesday. Another important FYI: Microsoft owns Linkedin and has also invested BILLIONS into OpenAI.]

Just to reiterate: the chatbot will help users determine whether an application is worth their time.

Why would that be the top priority for a chatbot, rather than say, crawling relevant job postings to serve recommendations to users, or even apply for them?

Well if you’ve looked at any job listings on LinkedIn in the past year or so (and statistically, you have), you’ve probably noticed that anytime a job is posted, there’s about 300 applicants within the first 30 minutes. Even if you’ve taken that as a challenge and still applied, chances are you don’t hear back within 3 weeks. 

So, I guess it makes sense that the chatbot would help you determine whether you should even take those 15 seconds to fill out the application? Or is that job posters need help weeding out unqualified candidates?

Apparently, users can select different conversation options in the chat like, “Am I a good fit for this job?” and “How can I best position myself for this job?” If the bot thinks you have some gaps on your profile, they will tell you. 

Again, those of you who have perused the job listing scene on LinkedIn know that LinkedIn actually already does this on their site. As a Premium member, you can already see “How you match” with the job listing by skills you’ve listed on your profile, see which skills you are missing, and even see what additional skills other applicants have on their profiles. You can see “How you compare to other applicants” with respect to seniority level, education level, and location. 

Ok, so that’s not a new feature but a new format. Fine.

LinkedIn also stated that the bot will follow up in your conversation by serving that company’s existing employee profiles, even 2nd or 3rd degree connections, whom the user can then message about the opportunity.

Again, not a new feature. On a job listing, you can already click on the job poster’s profile, click on the company’s page, and see who works at that company and what your potential connection level is.

Conclusion: LinkedIn is trying to get on the ever-hyped AI train by rolling out a chatbot that does the same stuff the site already does, because its parent company invested in the chatbot tech already and is losing money (and laying off people) at LinkedIn.

Is this chatbot a necessary feature for the fading “professional” social network? Probably not. I would have liked to see AI and Generative AI implemented in more interesting and helpful ways on the site like offering better, more accurate job recommendations to job seekers, writing introductory messages to recruiters at “favorited” companies, or even applying to relevant jobs on behalf of users.

Perhaps we’ll see some more useful features rolling out in the near future, but for now, this new format seems, at its best, to be just an attempt to keep up with the big tech companies rolling out AI on their platforms, and at its worst, a desperate play to entice new paid subscribers and generate more revenue (and ROI on OpenAI) for Microsoft.