LinkedIn Quick Tip: New Free Tool Matches Users to Job Openings

LinkedIn announced a new beta feature this week, Real-Time Profile Matches, intended to help make it easier for users to find the right jobs, and for hiring companies to find the right talent.

When a LinkedIn user posts a job opening on the site, LinkedIn’s new proprietary technology searches its database of more than 60 million professionals for profiles that best match the job description. It then returns a list to the job poster of up to 24 matches, displaying candidates in a business-card-style format and rating them on a scale of 1 through 10.

Because the search technology is proprietary, Parker Barrile, director of product management at LinkedIn, could not say what the technology looks for in a profile to deem it an appropriate job match. But Barrile does say that it “goes a level deeper than just keyword matching.”

[Want more LinkedIn tips and tricks? Check out “LinkedIn Tips: Getting More from the Social Networking Service.”]

If you’re looking for a new job, Barrile suggests two things to ensure that your profile is appearing as an appropriate job match. First, be sure that your profile is up to date and complete. That means filling out the experience, summary and professional headline sections, and including comprehensive details about your past and present work positions. Second, utilize the Status Update feature, which can alert your network that you’re job searching and inform a job poster that you’re an available candidate.

Right now, Real-Time Profile Matches is a free feature, but Barrile couldn’t say for how long.

Staff Writer Kristin Burnham covers consumer Web and social technologies for CIO.com. She writes frequently on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google. You can follow her on Twitter: @kmburnham.