I work on the team focused on helping job seekers find jobs at LinkedIn. Our team shows up to work everyday energized to find ways to help job seekers with our products. So, we felt a great deal of pain as we saw so many posts on our feeds sharing news of layoffs as COVID-19 hit and upturned our lives.
While some of these stories looked ahead with optimism, others shared real constraints – money/tuition loans, insurance, visas running out, and so on. We also saw so many members on LinkedIn repeatedly reach out to members who’d come forward asking for help with referrals and support.
As we observed all this in our attempts to figure out what we could do to help, we realized that one way we might be able to help is to move quickly to enable those who needed urgent support share this request (with the help of a frame on their photo).
We made #OpenToWork available to all our members yesterday. If you know someone in urgent need of help/are in need of urgent help yourself, we hope they/you find this useful.
And, if you’re looking to be of help, please just make your way to the #OpenToWork hashtag and reach out to folks.
Personally, this product was one in the “this might not work.. but wouldn’t it be incredible if it did?” category. There are many promising early signs so far and I’m really hopeful it’ll help.
Product aside, this also was a deeply fulfilling journey. As a good friend and partner-in-crime on the project nicely put it, it was one of those rare times when wonderful people, meaningful problem, and an opportunity to make an impact came together.
Special.
