Study: A Comprehensive LinkedIn Profile Boosts Job Chances

LinkedIn and similar professional networks have become increasingly important for modern-day job seekers. Just how important has LinkedIn become today? A new study by CV and resume writing service ResumeGo attempted to find out. The research found that job applicants with an extensive LinkedIn profile were 71 percent more likely to get a callback for a job interview than candidates without any LinkedIn profile. The field experiment was undertaken between October 2018 and March 2019 and involved 24,570 fictitious resumes being submitted to job openings on a range of job search websites like Indeed and Glassdoor.

While a third of the resumes did not contain a link to the applicant's LinkedIn profile, another third linked to a "bare-bones" profile with the final third having a comprehensive profile. The latter received a callback rate of 13.5 percent which is 71 percent higher than the callback rate of 7.9 percent for applicants without any LinkedIn profile. The study categorized jobs as entry-level, mid-level or managerial level. It found that as the job level increased, the callback rates fell, suggesting that the importance of the LinkedIn profile fell.