LinkedIn Explains Why It's Looking to China

Feb. 25, 2014 5:11 p.m. ET

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner says the company’s long-term vision is to create economic opportunity for the 3 billion people in the global workforce. Reuters

LinkedIn Corp. LNKD +5.14% LinkedIn Corp. Cl A U.S.: NYSE $209.84 +10.25 +5.14% Feb. 25, 2014 4:00 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 5.86M AFTER HOURS $208.50 -1.34 -0.64% Feb. 25, 2014 7:52 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): 10,947 P/E Ratio 874.33 Market Cap $24.06 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee $302,982 02/25/14 Boss Talk: LinkedIn Explains W… 02/06/14 LinkedIn Reports Weak Sales Ou… 02/06/14 LinkedIn’s Stock Sinks on Pote… More quote details and news » LNKD in Your Value Your Change Short position wants to be the place where workers of the world unite, but Wall Street isn’t convinced it’s achieving its goals fast enough.
In the past week, the company has unveiled two initiatives that show Chief Executive Jeff Weiner’s ambition to turn the professional networking site into a global bazaar for finding work, recruiting talent and keeping current with industry news.
LinkedIn said last week that its 277 million users can now publish their own articles on the website, a move that potentially transforms a person’s résumé into a portfolio with essays, work samples, video clips and employment history—and fills LinkedIn’s pages with free content.
And on Monday the company unveiled a Chinese-language version of its site. With the new site, LinkedIn aims to bring major Chinese employers and the country’s 140 million professionals onto its networking platform.

LinkedIn’s latest quarterly results showed steady, if slowing, growth. The new initiatives could help the company stretch the amount of time users spend on the site, a measure where it has lagged behind competitors like Twitter and Facebook. According to comScore, visitors spent an average of 23 minutes on LinkedIn during the month of January, a figure that has been largely flat over the last year.
In an interview, the 44-year-old CEO discussed the company’s latest moves, and his vision for a post-résumé world. Edited excerpts:
WSJ: Who are LinkedIn’s potential users in China?
Mr. Weiner: There’s at least three ways to think about economic opportunity in China. One is Chinese citizens—people living in China looking for economic opportunity.

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A second are multinational [corporations] looking to expand their presence and hire the right talent to do that successfully.
And then you’ve got companies that have had significant success in China that are expanding and are looking to identify and hire the right talent to make that expansion successful…It’s not just about multinationals doing business in China but about successful Chinese companies expanding their presence on a global basis.
WSJ: Hiring and recruiting in China is very different from the U.S.; for example, in China, recruiters and professionals are more open about salaries. How will LinkedIn adapt?
Mr. Weiner: That’s one of the reasons we’re so excited about Derek Shen, who is our newly announced president of LinkedIn China…that’s what he’s been asked to do here. He’s very much taken a startup mentality and we’re not just going to be localizing in terms of language…but also thinking about how we can best meet the needs of our members in China.
WSJ: Is there concern on the part of the state that Chinese nationals could use LinkedIn as an organizing tool?
Mr. Weiner: We’ve been able to operate now in China for years. Our vision is well aligned with what the Chinese government is trying to accomplish right now: creating economic opportunity in a thriving middle class.
WSJ: Are there any restrictions for how people on mainland China can access the site?
Mr. Weiner: There may be. We’re expecting requests to filter content. We are strongly in support of freedom of expression and we are opposed to censorship but recognize that in order to obtain a license [in China], there will be requests to filter content and that’s going to be necessary for us to achieve the kind of scale that we’d like.
WSJ: Tell me how that works. Will someone from the Chinese government be in regular contact with you about what can and can’t go on the site?
Mr. Weiner: This is the first time we’re available in a local language in China, and we just recently applied for our license, so we’re going to have a much better understanding in the weeks and months ahead.
WSJ: Is the site hosted in China?
Mr. Weiner: To date, it has not been. For LinkedIn members outside of China, we will not be serving their data from within China. For Chinese members who live within China, we’ll be serving that data [from China].
WSJ: Will a person’s essay or portfolio eclipse the importance of their résumé?
Mr. Weiner: From my own anecdotal experience, when I’m meeting someone for the first time, they’ll say: ‘Hey I read your latest influencer post and thank you so much for sharing,’ or ‘Here’s what I thought.’
In addition to reflecting who you are as a professional, [an article] is a really compelling way to engage with other people and potentially people that you’re going to do business with. It’s not just about a title and a description of your job. It’s about rich media, it’s about a video of that keynote [speech] you did…it’s about the general contractor uploading not a description of the dream house they just completed, but the pictures. It’s about all the expertise and the experience that you’ve gained in that job that you’re willing to share.
WSJ: Updating your LinkedIn profile is often read as a sign that you’re looking for work. Now you’ve got a reason to update it a lot more. Will that raise some eyebrows among employers?
Mr. Weiner: People are updating their profiles when they’re not just looking for jobs. Because of the way the world works today, people seeking to do business with you are going to be doing a search on your name. Your LinkedIn profile is going to show up at or near the top of the search results. That means you get a chance to put your best professional foot forward, completely independently of whether you’re seeking a job.
WSJ: Is all of this new content going to increase the amount of time individuals spend on the site?
Mr. Weiner: We actually generated more posts in the first two hours of the extension of this platform than the team had forecast for that entire day…We’ve continued to see a steady stream of the volume of posts that has exceeded our expectations and the engagement on those posts are doing very well.
WSJ: Advertising accounts for about a quarter of LinkedIn’s revenue. With more and more content, do you expect ad revenue to increase as a percentage of the total?
Mr. Weiner: It’s certainly possible…I think that will be in part driven through engagement and through efforts like the expansion of our publishing platform. We’ve been having some success with sponsored content and specifically sponsored updates.
WSJ: Give us a glimpse into LinkedIn’s long-term future.
Mr. Weiner: With regard to networks, the goal there is to connect all professionals and we’re about 277 million right now…We believe the immediately addressable opportunity is 600 million professionals.
Longer term, the vision is to create economic opportunity for the 3 billion people in the global workforce.
We’re mapping the global economy…a profile for every member of the global workforce; a profile for every company in the world; every job offered by those companies, whether that’s full time or temporary or for-profit or volunteer; every skill required to obtain those jobs; a presence for every university or higher education organization that can help our membership acquire the skills necessary to obtain those jobs.
Write to Reed Albergotti at reed.albergotti@wsj.com

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