When he started LinkedIn in his bedroom in the early 2000s, little did Reid Hoffman know that it would become the world’s largest professional network with 722 million global users. Many of those users are job seekers, but you can also learn how to get a job at LinkedIn.
LinkedIn has also become one of the most popular tech companies to work for. In 2020, it ranked 12th on Glassdoor’s list of best places to work, and its support for LGBTQ equality in the workplace earned LinkedIn a perfect rating on the Corporate Equality Index, a yearly report published by the Human Rights Campaign.
If you’re wondering how to get a job at Linkedin, first make sure you have a complete profile, including a professional-looking profile photo. But that’s just the first step. Below is everything you need to know to start your LinkedIn career.
LinkedIn: Company Background
Reid Hoffman launched LinkedIn on May 5, 2003, before Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube got off the ground. It’s one of the oldest social networks still in existence. In 2011, LinkedIn began trading on the New York Stock Exchange at $45 per share. That very same year the company hosted a town hall meeting with President Barack Obama.
Today, LinkedIn has over 15,800 full-time employees in more than 33 cities around the world. The platform is available in 24 different languages, from Norwegian to Malay.
What’s It Like to Work at LinkedIn?
Though one of the first social media platforms, LinkedIn set out early to build a culture of inclusivity and diversity. It has remained ahead of the curve ever since. Below are three aspects of its company culture that distinguish LinkedIn from other workplaces.
Connecting with Colleagues
The company regularly hosts so-called InDays, where employees are encouraged to invest in both their teams and themselves. At a recent InDays event, employees split into teams and engaged in a friendly competition to see which team could learn the most.
Parental Benefits
LinkedIn offers adoption, fertility, and parental benefits. Based on feedback from new moms, it created lactation rooms at all of its offices, designed with an at-home touch. It also has an employee resource group for parents, which hosts talks as part of its Speaker Series.
Health program
A healthy lifestyle is a big focus. LinkedIn gives every employee annual funds to use for goods and services that would make their lives better and less stressful, things like getting a massage, buying a gym membership, and hiring a babysitter. LinkedIn offices are also equipped with onsite fitness centers.
Getting a Job at LinkedIn
Before applying, make sure that you have a complete and fully updated LinkedIn profile. This is especially important if you’re going for an open role.
Even better, work on building your network and interact regularly with your contacts. This will show that you have an active voice on the platform. If you have any contacts who work for LinkedIn, get in touch with them and ask if they can help you find a job with the company.
How Hard Is It to Land a Job at LinkedIn?
As one of the world’s seven biggest social media companies, LinkedIn is a hard place for newcomers to get their foot in the door while looking to land one of the best tech jobs around.
LinkedIn hiring managers want candidates who display entrepreneurial skills on their LinkedIn profiles, in their resumes, and during interviews. That goes for technical as well as non-technical roles. Reid Hoffman, after all, was a true Silicon Valley entrepreneur.
You don’t have to be a LinkedIn expert but you should have a solid understanding of the platform and how its different features work.
Applying for a Job at LinkedIn
Begin your search by going to LinkedIn Careers.
Whether you are applying for a full-time role or an internship, start by reading up on the company’s mission, vision, values, strategy, and culture. Then, browse the news for any updates about the state of LinkedIn’s business.
Head to the Resource Library where LinkedIn’s recruiting team posts even more material. To get full brownie points, take the LinkedIn Learning course, Rock Your LinkedIn Profile.
LinkedIn Application and Interview Process
Whether it’s a technical or non-technical position, the hiring process begins with one or two phone call interviews before you get invited for an onsite interview. Applicants should be prepared to show their problem-solving abilities in real-time.
Usually, the interview process for a software engineer takes between one and two months. It will include phone and onsite interviews where you will be given coding exercises and challenges and asked to participate in a system design session.
LinkedIn Career Opportunities: Job Titles and Descriptions
Technical roles include software engineers, data scientists, and web developers.
LinkedIn hires employees for non-technical roles in its research and strategy, analytics, global sales, and user experience design departments.
Associate Product Manager Intern
- Salary: N/A
- Benefits: N/A
- Level: Intern
- Required Experience: Product management experience, internship experience at a software-based company
- Required Education: Currently enrolled in a college or university program and returning to school the term following the summer internship; currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in a technical or product-related discipline; currently pursuing a MBA, and have a technical or product-related undergraduate degree.
LinkedIn’s small Associate Product Manager Internship program transforms college graduates into skilled product managers. The APM interns are given ownership of important projects while they receive mentorship from some of the industry’s top product leaders and entrepreneurs.
In addition to technical and product know-how, candidates need to show a track record of leadership or entrepreneurial experience. For the intern class of 2021, the position will be remote.
Associate Product Operations Manager
- Salary: N/A
- Benefits: Health insurance; education reimbursement; child, elder and pet care subsidies; free meals
- Level: Associate
- Required Experience: More than two years’ experience in product operations management, management consulting, program management, operations management, product management, or project management; experience with SQL, R, or an equivalent data analytical language
- Required Education: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent relevant work experience
This unique role provides an opportunity to work with multiple global teams and blends detective work and data analytics experience into one.
Product Operations Managers are cross-functional collaborators who shape LinkedIn’s solutions and products. They focus on the customer experience for the company’s over 700 million users and collaborate with Product and Global Customer Operations (GCO) teams to improve the product experience.
Backend Software Engineer
- Salary: $120K – $155K
- Benefits: Health insurance; education reimbursement; child, elder and pet care subsidies; free meals
- Level: Associate
- Required Experience: Expert knowledge of computer science, with strong competencies in data structures, algorithms, and software design; basic SQL query knowledge; Hadoop experience in HDFS/Pig/Hive
- Required Education: Bachelor of Science with more than three years of relevant work experience; Master of Science with more than two years of relevant work experience; or PhD with more than one year of relevant work experience
As part of the company’s world-class software engineering team, employees in this role are responsible for developing, architecting, designing, and supporting LinkedIn’s most visible infrastructures and features.
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To become a software engineer at LinkedIn, you should be prepared to work within many computer science subdisciplines, such as business logic, product design, 24/7 reliability, building APIs and user-centric online applications, and usability.
It also includes producing high-quality software that is code-reviewed, unit-tested, and regularly checked for continuous integration.
Senior Staff Software Engineer – LinkedIn Learning Solutions
- Salary: N/A
- Benefits: Health insurance; education reimbursement; child, elder and pet care subsidies; free meals
- Level: Mid-senior level
- Required Experience: More than ten years of experience in software design, development, and algorithm-related solutions; more than ten years of programming experience in an object-oriented language such as Java, C, or C++; experience with large-scale distributed systems and client-server architectures; experience leading a large organization
- Required Education: Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience
As part of one of LinkedIn’s Learning teams, the candidate will have a thorough understanding of the entire LinkedIn Learning infrastructure and will build the next generation of products and infrastructure.
He or she needs to have experience developing and designing technology to meet both individual team goals and broader business objectives.
What Does It Take to Get a Job at LinkedIn?
When trying for a career at LinkedIn, you should leverage whatever professional network you have at your fingertips. Once you’re happy with your profile, and have begun posting and interacting with your network, watch your profile views soar.
If you’re invited for an interview, go on LinkedIn to research your potential interviewers. Showing that you’ve done your homework will go over well in your interview. After the interview, use LinkedIn to find your recruiter’s email address and send a thank-you note.
The company values an entrepreneurial spirit, so tackle your job search the same way you would if you were to start your own online business or address a technical problem.
About us: Career Karma is a platform designed to help job seekers find, research, and connect with job training programs to advance their careers. Learn about the CK publication.
