Amid the pandemic, 28 million Indians joined LinkedIn

India has also emerged as the platform’s fastest growing country in terms of global engagement

In the past two years, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, about 28 million Indians have joined professional networking platform LinkedIn, a senior company official said. India has also emerged as the platform’s fastest growing country in terms of global engagement.

“With 64 million members in 2020, the LinkedIn community today has over 92 million members in India – a 44% increase in membership since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Ashutosh Gupta, LinkedIn India Country Manager. in the interview.

Mr. Gupta also added that the company’s revenue in India, which was the company’s second largest market in terms of users after the US, also grew by 84% between FY20 and FY22.

Speaking about the evolution of conversations on the platform, Mr. Gupta said that when the company started, the value proposition it offered was around jobs, and that remains the biggest value proposition why people come to LinkedIn.

Many other dimensions have been added to this value proposition – such as business networking and learning new skills, which have been greatly enhanced during COVID.

“The way people engage with LinkedIn has evolved as many people’s personal and work lives have blurred during the pandemic. We’re seeing more personal, more vulnerable stories and conversations emerge – but very much from a professional / workplace perspective,” he said.

“When you think about professionals, it’s a very big term. What do you mean by professional? Aren’t cricketers professionals, or if I go on vacation and share it with my business network, isn’t it a professional conversation? So the envelope has expanded a bit…” he added.

Mr Gupta also pointed out that the company has focused on supporting skills-based recruitment through its LinkedIn Learning, which has seen a huge surge in demand during the pandemic. “Traditionally, we’ve hired using a template…I need someone from this college to do this job…We don’t always focus on skills. We’re trying to shift the focus to skills. LinkedIn Learning plays a big role. Once you complete the course, you can add that skill to your profile… But the recruiter side has to change too… Now when recruiters do a search on LinkedIn, the profiles that come up are based on a skill match…”