LinkedIn Introduces New Freelancer Connection Tools to Tap Into the Growing Gig Economy

LinkedIn is expanding its Services Marketplace to provide more options for freelancers, which essentially builds on its ‘Services' listings for profiles and is aimed to make it easier for brands and freelancers to interact.

They launched a beta test of its Services Marketplace in February, and the test pool has already grown to 2 million people. Now, LinkedIn will broaden the possibilities globally, making it easier to find and connect freelancers and optimize opportunities. Users who add a Services listing to their LinkedIn profile may now benefit from the advanced discovery, with new suggestion features, search filters, and more that will assist business owners to zero in on what they need from freelance providers, as shown in the above photos.

They also simplified the freelancer connection process by allowing users to place a request for services directly from your service page without having to connect or follow you. This is a huge development since it will effectively open up its freelancing postings to a much wider audience, allowing for more connections to be made using the tool.

LinkedIn created a new dashboard for service providers that will help them keep track of their numerous queries and requests: You'll now have a dashboard to handle project requests and messages directly from LinkedIn when you create a service page. There's no need to keep track of many communication routes. They'll notify you if there are any new requests or communications. Users will be able to manage the customer reviews that appear on their services page through the new dashboard's 'Reviews status' element.

They announced several new job connection features, including new 'Remote,' 'Hybrid,' and 'On-site' filters inside its Job Search and Open to Work features, as well as new company page summaries for job seekers to provide more insight into workforce policies (including vaccination requirements and other return to office information). The new filters will make it easier to communicate personal preferences while also recognizing the specific requirements of each business, especially when COVID limits evolve and the steady move back to the office occurs.

LinkedIn, in particular, stands to benefit from the improving economy. The platform reports in another post on the LinkedIn Engineering blog that job transitions are up 50 percent year over year, and as more individuals are seeking new opportunities, we’re witnessing a record-setting amount of open jobs on LinkedIn. Remote employment is also becoming more common, with one in every eight U.S. positions on LinkedIn now being remote, up from one in every 67 previously. That's a lot of activity and change in the workforce, which LinkedIn is hoping to capitalize on with these new improvements to accommodate as many opportunities as possible.

LinkedIn is also planning a career conference on October 27th, where its Learning instructors will discuss suggestions and tactics for a career change. The Career Summit brings together industry professionals for a day of recommitment to the one thing that will get us where we want to go: gaining new skills. You can attend all of the events, or pick and choose the ones that are most relevant to you, ranging from managing your work with purpose to starting a side hustle.

Given the wide range of career transitions taking place, it makes sense for LinkedIn to capitalize on these shifts to maximize potential and connect more users to the jobs that best suit their interests.