Per *month*?

[jducoeur]

I just got a come-on from LinkedIn, offering me one month free of their "premium" service. Of course, I know the pusher-in-the-playground business model perfectly well, so I'm not signing up for anything without a little more research, but it did make me curious.

I go to the LinkedIn homepage, which I pretty much never use: I'm a passive consumer of LinkedIn, treating it as a useful Rolodex and accepting connections from people I know, but not doing much with it. I look around a little, and am immediately struck at how hard it is to find *prices* anywhere. Indeed, I can't find the prices listed on any page that I can access without logging in and selecting the "upgrade" button.

Boggle.

The plan they're trying to push at me costs $40 per month? Seriously? I mean, $40/year is around what I was expecting, and I might even think about it if I actually used LinkedIn much -- the tool would be mildly useful if I was job-hunting and didn't have as good a personal network as I do. But $500/year is pretty outrageous -- and moreso considering that that's only the middle-tier plan. (Yes, really: there's one that's even more expensive.)

I repeat: boggle.

Does anybody actually subscribe to this? I suppose headhunters probably do, and I can see it being worth the investment for them. But I'm hard-pressed coming up with a reason why anyone else would. Is it priced to take advantage of the desperately unemployed? I guess that makes sense -- they're probably targeting people who are actively job-hunting, and pricing it on the assumption that they will pay almost anything for a month or three until they find a job, and then drop it again...

Comments

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Except that typically, folks who are desperate for a new job these days are also economically pinched - they are apt to be out of work for a while - so are not very likely to pay out such a cost for questionable gain. Maybe it depends a bit on what job sector you're looking in...

There are others that do prey on the job seeker. Jobfox, for example - I think their real revenue comes from "professionally written" resumes, as the darned things cost hundreds of dollars.

[meranthi.livejournal.com]

My company has a couple of premium accounts which we use to check the premium content for, but for myself. Ummm, no thanks.

[greatsword.livejournal.com]

I came to exactly the same conclusion; triggered by "x people have viewed your profile" messages. The premium plan allows you to retain anonymity and see who's browsing your profile.

I do get job offers through LinkedIn; I think that's how the first contact on my current gig came up. I don't think premium plans help the job seeker, though; mostly you just have to mention that you're looking for work and the recruiters in your network contact you.

I could check with some of my recruiter contacts to find out if they think it's useful, but their prices seem way too high.

[calygrey.livejournal.com]

*Boggle* was exactly my reaction to their prices too.

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

I have an old college friend who sent me an invitation to LinkedIn just this week, but I'm not interested in the network at all. And there's no easy way to block repeat messages about the invitation without joining. I've sent a request to LinkedIn support asking for my email address to be blocked from invitations, but we'll see how long that takes.

[fairdice.livejournal.com]

(1) I think headhunters are exactly the target audience, yes.

(2) Don't be fooled by the "only the middle-tier plan" gambit: the expensive one is there primarily to make the $40/mo one look reasonable by comparison.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

Anchoring!