Ha$ LinkedIn Gone Too Far?

January 17, 2012 by

Image from MenStylePower

I understand that every company reserves the right to provide returns to their shareholders. I also understand that this is no different for LinkedIn, who went public in May of 2011. Around this same time, I was using LinkedIn to post jobs that I was recruiting for either at OpenView Venture Partners or its portfolio. The cost to post wasn’t exactly cheap, but LinkedIn definitely yielded better candidates than your typical job board, so why not, right? Buying in bulk made sense as I’m always recruiting year-round for numerous roles at any given time and the individual cost per posting would be cheaper.

In 2011, it cost $775 for a 5-pack of job postings with Linkedin. Now that 2012 has rolled around, I find myself needing to renew and was flabbergasted to discover that a 5-pack now costs $1150 to purchase. That’s just about a 50% increase and it undoubtedly confirms that LinkedIn is taking advantage of its customers.

Do I need to post jobs on Linkedin to find top talent? No.

Is it nice to have? Yes.

The higher level my search gets (Manager, Director, VP) the less I even consider posting a job online to find my ideal candidate. Jacking up the price of luxury products will turn off any paying customer (high elasticity) and I can only imagine this will end in some backlash, especially since there are several other options out there. I recruit for a lot of sales positions and I’ve already come across some awesome alternatives — like SalesGravy – that provide you a niche job board at a fraction of the price!

Perhaps LinkedIn is incredibly confident that customers will play (and pay) along as they seemingly have no other viable choice. However, I’m pretty sure that’s what the clever fat cats at Netflix and Bank of America thought as well before disgruntled patrons helped them reverse certain decisions based purely on greed. TBD soon …

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Discussion

  • Anonymous

    As someone who regularly gets recruiting calls from LinkedIn and other sites (Ladders, etc) I think the recruiters from LinkedIn seem more-or-less confused about how to recruit an executive level person.  So there may be some sort of weird impedance mis-match going on at the VP+ level in LinkedIn.

    -XC

    PS – Having said that, I got a hysterical call from a recruiter who wanted to know if I was interested in implementing Oracle Inventory somewhere in the midwest….

    • Vmahillon

      XC,
       
      I wish I had sat in on that call withyou! I do get a few calls from Linkedin as well and wonder who trains them on their pitches because I’m not always too convinced.
       
      Thanks for the post!
      Vic

  • http://www.verticalelevation.com/ Carol Schultz

    Victor,

    I’d assert that what LinkedIn is confident about is the lack of professional recruiters who actually know how to recruit.  Hence, they will continue to post on job boards because they neither know how to effectively find, or even speak to, candidates.  

    • Vmahillon

      Agreed Carol – as usual the big corporations are making money off the weak! Side note – did you know credit card companies call people who pay their bills on time “dead beats” and those who miss payments “hot tickets”?

  • Lgurian

    I am personally appalled by the price increase. Company’s are having to shell out about $295 per job on LinkedIn for it to be up for 30 days. How much does it cost to maintain the posting on LinkedIns part? My guess would be not anywhere near 300 dollars.The other interesting thing is that like Facebook and Google, they have ads running on the sides of the page- we are not even free from adertising for the tune of $300/ post!  It is a great ploy for them to gain profit, but as soon as someone comes along and does it for less, they are going to be left scratching thier heads.

    • Vmahillon

      Surely someone has taken notice of this and is already working on a better solution for all of us :)