This past May 28th, there was a fascinating article in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal titled, Industry Game Changer. I've read the article a few times - and feel a need to respond (on our Blog). In January of this year, we had a Blog entry titled Is LinkedIn the new Monster in the room? The implication when I read the above-referenced article is that all search is being replaced by Social Networking - specifically LinkedIn.

Page #1 does not tell the entire story

Studies show that most of us, in this very busy world of sound bites, do not read entire articles anymore. (Most resumes are written with bullet points - we do not read paragraphs anymore.) If a person only reads the first paragraph or the first page of the article, they will miss some of the more pertinent (and balanced) points made. Page one leaves the reader with the impression that LinkedIn (and other social networking sights) is simply replacing search.

Is EVERYONE on LinkedIn?

We decided to do a quick check - looking at our list of clients and seeing if their officers are on LinkedIn. Our initial findings were very interesting.

• a large percentage, but not all people at the director and below level, are represented (i.e. - have a LinkedIn profile)
• many profiles are incomplete - with just the person's name, company name and title listed; it is not uncommon for profiles to have just 1 connection
• the percentage of employee profiles at the Vice President and 'C' level drop off significantly

We call it search, not find

Finding a name on LinkedIn is different than searching for and/or having access to all candidates. One of the sayings commonly used at our firm is, "there is a reason they call it search."