@Bill Fitzgerald – Your question of “I also wonder if the constant pestering by recruiters will grow old for people who don’t want to be bothered” is already being answered: an increasing number of in-demand candidates are removing themselves or (since I agree with your “may be a little paranoid about potentially being left out” comment) make themselves more hidden by not showing their whole name or changing their name.

@Glen Cathey – another excellent comment. Let’s hope someday soon the distinction between passive and active candidate will become sufficiently blurred so it will stop being used as a point of bias. I’m also hoping the proliferation of free tools to help brand oneself as an expert may help the aspiring unemployed in areas that have not yet recovered to land enough freelance consulting work so they end up looking about as desirable as anyone else.

In my experience, the major current problems related to utilizing LinkedIn for recruiting include:
1. Weak messaging – members don’t respond quickly to InMail sent to them and not everyone has full access to the InMail feature.
2. Weak relationship building – the platform is not the most effective for building long-term relationships with prospects. Facebook and Twitter have a broader range of topics on which to build relationships with non-job seekers.
3. Quality of the groups – the volume of the exchanges and the quality of the content in some LinkedIn groups is inferior to many professional sites and forums.
4. Spamming – the most highly qualified receive too many poorly worded and directed recruiting messages. And that turns them off.
5. Not global yet – the database is not yet truly global.
6. Hourly jobs – the database does not include enough individuals in the trades.
7. Facebook – a lack of integration with Facebook.

John

I’m most interested in your #5 reason for recruiters to use LinkedIn. There, you say LinkedIn makes it easy for recruiters to compare profiles side-by-side because, unlike resumes, they are consistent from person to person. I agree to that comment in part, and I’ll tell you why: LinkedIn is much like the video service we offer at SparkHire.com. Yes, every profile has the same basic structure, but individuals’ videos can differ significantly. Likewise, on LinkedIn, we all have the same basic profile, but we can optimize and insert our personalities in small ways that make a huge difference. Wouldn’t you agree?