Katherine, the Explorer, here with another adventure in social media connecting. It all started with an email from a friend who helps job seekers:
Hi Katherine, Hope all is well. Can you please tell me about these types of LinkedIn solicitations? Ralph
Ralph attached an invitation from a LinkedIn connection to join “Opportunity.com”. The note said:
Hi Ralph,
You have been invited by John Smith (United States) to become part of Opportunity. Use Opportunity to discover sales leads and job opportunities or to network with the exact types of people you would like to meet based on interests, age, gender and more.
Join over 20 million professionals from over 190+ countries who use Opportunity each day to discover hidden business opportunities happening all around them.
My initial bias about these services is if it is too good to be true then it probably is. The reviews on Opportunity describe it as affiliate marketing to grow lists and networks. It is hard to see from the reviews how this kind of service can be useful for job seekers. Also I am skeptical of anything that takes a job seeker away for growing their network around their target job. It is hard enough to get them to do that much less participate in another lead generation service.
But being curious, I signed up to see what happens!!
I entered my email address. Then you are confronted by four choices: “Find sales leads”, “Find a job”, “Find employees”, and “Grow my network”. You can only pick one. Just to see what happens I selected “Grow my network”.
Several screens ask for basic contact information, your interests outside of work, the age group you target and kinds of professions I like to work with. I completed my profile with my LinkedIn URL, added a photo and I have an account.
The algorithm started thinking and suddenly I see a page that says I have 763 “Unlabeled Leads”, 923 local potential leads, 2,388 potential state leads, 5,990 potential national leads and 12,513 potential worldwide leads. I flipped through some of the names and no one sounds familiar.
I notice that in the corner under the picture of me I can add another of the services. In the “Job Seeker” section I can add my profile. In the “Hiring Manager” section I can add a description of the jobs I am filling. So this can be a matching service?
Why use Opportunity.com when you can utilize the Interview Doctor’s Talent Exchange? We put hiring managers and candidates together for an immediate connection over an open position.
It is a little unclear what to do with any of this information. I clicked on “Basic” and suddenly everything makes sense. The Basic package, which is free, offers the ability to connect with up to 10 unlocked leads in 5 regions within a 50 mile radius. That is not much. So really I don’t have 763 or 923 potential leads. I have a list of people but I can only unlock 10 of them with the Basic package.
The ability to connect with more people and do much with this information requires a premium membership of $5 or $10 per month. I don’t want to do that. I don’t pay for LinkedIn today; why pay for another service?
What to do with this info anyway? Connect with people, find common interests, and build relationships. How is this different from LinkedIn? You can do a lot with LinkedIn’s free package, more than you can do with Opportunity.com’s free package.
My number one business goal is to grow my network and list so I can find more clients, build relationships and grow my business. But with limited time and resources, it is unclear to me why I would make connections and build relationships outside of LinkedIn when other services duplicate the LinkedIn’s methodology and so many people are available on LinkedIn.
Getting back to Ralph’s initial question about using this service for job seekers, my point is the same.
Job search is about build relationships with people who can introduce you to other folks as you get closer to your target companies.
We have trouble convincing job seekers to do this in LinkedIn. How in the world could we get job seekers to take these steps in another service too? Or even instead of LinkedIn?
So Ralph, let’s redouble our efforts to convince job seekers that LinkedIn is a great place to build relationships and connections to network for a job!