LinkedIn launches CheckIn, an app to help recruiters gather and manage information from candidates

LinkedIn has just launched a new global product as part of its Talent Solution division called CheckIn. It was at LinkedIn’s Talent Connect 2013 where Parker Barrile, the company’s Senior Director of Product Management, announced the new product, which is aimed at the college demographic. CheckIn is a mobile app that recruiters can use to better manage candidate information while on the go.

Although not yet available to all of LinkedIn’s customers until July, CheckIn will collect and manage the data making it possible to remember the data without fear of forgetting which prospective candidate a recruiter spoke with. In doing so, recruiters could most likely pay more attention to the prospect instead of trying to remember things that could be simply stored on an app.

Targeting the college crowd

During Talent Connect, Barrile also mentioned that there are 30 million students and recent graduates currently using LinkedIn, making it the fastest-growing demographic on the professional social network. In the state of the global economy, it’s not surprising to see that this number increase. Many students are struggling to find work after graduation and having a resource like LinkedIn may hopefully help them land that dream job.

What this statistic shows is that there needs to be a way to capitalize on the growing student population eager to find work and reach them at an earlier stage. Using LinkedIn’s CheckIn mobile application, recruiters will be able to easily collect and manage candidate information at events.

Each year, college campuses around the world hold at least one job fair and it’s here where recruiters might find it painful to catalog all the people that they meet, either by writing their names down or collecting resumes and business cards — sometimes soon-to-be graduates don’t always come with cards, just a resume.

CheckIn caters towards the expectations of the college student and uses a device that they’re very familiar with. An early beta tester of the app, Maureen Buehler, Autodesk’s Senior Manager of Global University Programs says that “Today’s college students are social, collaborative, and networked 24/7. Their perceptions of potential employers are heavily influenced by the tone, approach, and responsiveness of the recruiters.”

Buehler points out that this app has allowed her team to interact with students “on their terms. We can easily collect their professional information and instantaneously send them a customized email with links to our websites, career portal, and cool videos showcasing our culture and products.”

The additions are to LinkedIn’s Talent Solution service, perhaps the biggest revenue generator for the company. In LinkedIn’s Q1 2013 earnings, Talent Solutions represented 57 percent of the professional social networking company’s total revenue for that period. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner has described it as the company’s “top operating priority”.

➤ CheckIn for LinkedIn Recruiter

Photo credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images