LinkedIn Software Crisis (a Summary)

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A few days ago, many functions on LinkedIn broke for several hours (you can always – and hopefully will be able to – check on Twitter whether something is going on globally). LinkedIn mostly got it back together to the previous state. This post is about what remains broken. A lot, unfortunately – I don’t think it has been that bad before.

I do not know of workarounds for some of these problems. Whether you use a business account or LinkedIn Recruiter, incorporate X-Ray into your sourcing. Google’s search is reliable. And back up your data.

Broken Functions

The Strange Numbers in LinkedIn Recruiter

[update: fixed, as a result of this post!!!]
  • As of today, LinkedIn Recruiter shows 1.4B+ total members, a jump from the recent 1B+ and unexplained discrepancy with LinkedIn.com, which comes up with under 900M.
  • LinkedIn Recruiter finds 620M+ people without locations, a jump from 84K+. Some of them do have locations, though, and shouldn’t be found.

  • On the other hand, searching for these locations gives us 25 members – I think there should be more:

 

  • LinkedIn Recruiter finds 1B+ people without years of experience. I have no idea how this happens. Two weeks ago it found 600M+.
  • Both LinkedIn and Recruiter will incorrectly miss 910M+ (i.e., 65%) profiles if you search by Industry.

The above is not a complete list of misbehaving functions; I could go on. The broken filter functions and strange numbers in Recruiter are new.
It is a shame since we, as well as job seekers and clients, are affected by the site’s health.

I have made multiple attempts to report problems to Customer Support. It has not made a difference. I am hoping to find another channel of communication. [Edited: since posting, I have heard from two managers at LinkedIn and am hopeful.]

This post is to bring some awareness to the state of things. If you see something unexpected on LinkedIn, it is likely not you (and please share what you observe).

X-Ray, I say!