Kothari said that majority of the users access LinkedIn via mobile devices.
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The initiatives, designed in India, include expanding LinkedIn Placements to students across colleges and universities in the country; a stripped-down mobile website called LinkedIn Lite that is meant to work even in areas with poor connectivity; and a LinkedIn Starter Pack, targeting startups and small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs).
The company has followed the footsteps of Facebook, which picked up India as a testbed for the lighter version of its app.
The company has more than 37 million users in India, making the country its second biggest market.
Akshay Kothari, the company’s manager and head of product for India, said LinkedIn Lite will be available in a couple of weeks’ time.
LinkedIn’s counts prominent thought leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Piyush Gupta (Group CEO, DBS Bank) and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (Chairman and Managing Director, Biocon) among its users.
Weiner, who was in his first visit to the country post the acquisition of the company by Microsoft in June, said LinkedIn plans to create a global economic graph which will digitally map the global workforce of 3 billion people, a digital presence of every company and digitally representation of all jobs.
The company has also announced the launch of LinkedIn Placements and LinkedIn Starter Pack to target segments like students, professionals and companies. These new initiatives will help us keep pace with the rising demand for knowledge and access to opportunity.
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But why did LinkedIn pick these four startups from India? And we think it’s good that LinkedIn, rather than pursuing the path of making everything on their own, has made a decision to partner with the ecosystem. Students can now log on to the site to take an online assessment test, which gives them direct access to job postings across 35 top companies in India. The test was built through a partnership with HackerRank, Aspiring Minds, Wheebox and CoCubes. “This package will be provided to 100 promising SMBs and startups, on a first-come, first-serve basis, in the initial pilot launch phase”, LinkedIn said in a statement. The product is now live. “We are committed to India and to boosting our ability to deliver value to even more members and be a part of their professional growth journey, by investing and innovating locally”.
