Linkedin.com, the social networking site for professionals, has introduced some very good service that reminds me of Skillpages.com – back then.

It is called ProFinder.

Linkedin ProFinder – professional finder.

A service you can use to find the right professionals to work on your projects, company, organization or business.

It’s almost similar to the services offered on freelance marketplace websites like Upwork, Envato, Freelancer.com, VWorker, Fiverr – yet different – and we are coming to this in a moment.First let’s look at

First let’s look at

Why LinkedIn introduced ProFinder to their website?

Four reasons:

Making it easy to hire

Linkedin is a social network for professionals – and dominated by people with profiles that show you their name, photo, areas of expertise, jobs held (when, in what capacity and in which companies or organizations), experience, achievement – and of course the website is also driven by networks of people who know each other or are brought together by shared interests like particular jobs, Linkedin groups, articles on specific niches, news in specific industries, new developments, innovations and influences in various sectors etc.

Meaning? There are a lot of people who use Linkedin.com.

And the website makes it easy to connect with colleagues, professionals in similar (and other fields), leaders, founders, CEOs, influencers and companies from around the world.

From all these connections come recommendations for new jobs (or posts on a contractual basis) between businesses and businesses and between individuals and businesses.

Hiring on Linkedin has been something that has been going on for a long time. ProFinder now streamlines the process even more and puts more emphasis on making it easier for persons who use the social network to hire (freelancers) and find work (part time, full time or on contract).

Instead of relying only on recommendations from others (including what Linkedin has been able to offer its users in the past), now – with ProFinder, Linkedin can better match your expectations with the right person for the job you want done.

Profits

Many freelance marketplaces have shown that connecting professionals and businesses can be a very lucrative thing.

Good thing for Linkedin is they already have the users ready to work and those ready to hire.

ProFinder, now just tries to make it easier for Linkedin users to pay more attention to the great talent, experience and resources they can find without going out of Linkedin’s ecosystem to find skilled professionals on other marketplaces.

More users

With the massive growth of websites like Fiverr, Linkedin is going to grow its numbers – attracting new freelancers (from other marketplaces) that want to also have their slice of Linkedin’s freelancing pie.

So, Linkedin gets more users who later on can go ahead and start using other Linkedin features – which leads to more revenue and profits for the website and its users.

ProFinder, therefore becomes another great incentive from Linkedin to increase the number of skilled professionals in its network.

These professionals (and businesses) can then easily find themselves paying for more ads, via Linkedin advertising program, to increase reach and visibility of their profiles, groups, pages, websites and even the blog posts they publish on Linkedin as articles.

They are also likely to use Lynda.com (to improve their skills by taking various online courses increasing their chances and suitability for more of what they want e.g . better paying jobs, more clients, better hires) and presentations site Slideshare.net to publish and share their slides, PDF files, documents and videos.

This leads to more shares, more links and increased word of mouth marketing.

For those who didn’t see the need to using a social network like Linkedin, a renewed interest prompted by what the site has to offer users (like access to an already large pool of businesses and organizations looking for professionals they can outsource certain tasks too which equals more money in a user’s pockets for every completed job) is likely to result in increased user engagement – even if by small percentage.

To stay relevant

Linkedin has been around for a long time – and there are many users who signed up and used the site for awhile but then gave up on it – seeing no need in using it anymore.

ProFinder, now is one way to get back some of those professionals back to dust their dormant accounts and spruce up their profiles before they sign up as a pro – and from now on to, hopefully, use the website more – and bring in their friends with them by importing contacts from the email address books, Facebook, Yahoo Mail and Gmail.

ProFinder is an innovation that will, hopefully, get more users to renew their interest in the social network, change their passwords (or login via Facebook), get back in and engage more with other users on the site.

Linkedin ProFinder makes it easier to hire top professionals

Linkedin has dubbed ProFinder as the easiest way to hire top professionals (which they vet by the way – this is according to the information available on their site) like content strategists, freelance designers, strategy consultants, freelance developers, career coaches, photographers, real estate agents, SEO consultants, freelance copywriters among many other services you may need.

Other prominent categories featured on ProFinder’s landing page include: design, writing and editing, accounting, marketing, legal, real estate, software development, IT services, business consulting, financial services, coaching, insurance and photography.

How Linkedin ProFinder works (for those who want to use the service to hire professionals)

You basically state what you need (like a logo designed, a blog post written, a WooCommerce website created or PDF guide created).

How?

By answering a few questions (including stating a time-frame for the project, indicating a budget you have in mind and also including your location).

When you do this, Linkedin then introduces you to a select number of the best local professionals from their curated list.

You will then receive proposals (up to 5) from pros ready to work on your project.

Each proposal will come with a personalized message, price quote and access to the profile of the Linkedin professional who offers to help you achieve your goals.

You can go through the proposals and choose whom to hire at this point (basing your choice on the pro’s experience, portfolio, quote, details in their profile etc.)

To sign up as a freelancer or independent professional with Linkedin ProFinder do the following

1. Spruce up your profile, paying more emphasis to the best skills you can offers users in Linkedin’s new marketplace. Presentation is key.
2. Go to the ProFinder page and click (tap) the blue ‘Sign up as a pro’ button to continue with the sign up process.

Best of luck (hard work and success).

Don’t hesitate to share your experiences with ProFinder in the comments section below.