Despite Linkedin’s standing as a serious professional network and its sheer usefulness to those who really manage to dig into it, it’s never had a very user-friendly website. The primary app also hasn’t been exemplary as users are left hunting for the features they really want and are bombarded with those they don’t want.
One thing LinkedIn has tried to do is separate different aspects into standalone apps, such as LinkedIn Job Search, which focuses exclusively on job searches and even lets you track applications and whether they have been viewed.
Now LinkedIn has just released a big update to its main app. The update, code-named Voyager, has been much hyped and is finally available on Android and iOS.
LinkedIn’s app has desperately needed to keep up with the mobile age, being really useful on-the-go and easy to use. The new app does indeed look and feel more like something contemporary. It’s slick, it’s quick, and most importantly, it’s more intuitive. It’s very critical to LinkedIn to become more than just a network you turn to when you’re thinking of quitting or have been sacked.
You sign in very quickly into Voyager – which is to be found on app stores as the main LinkedIn app. You find yourself in Home, where you can see the news feed, showing content in which connections have been featured and stuff they’ve shared. The nice thing is that you can quickly follow and unfollow sources. Something that you were interested in years ago may not be top of mind any longer, after all, and all you have to do is click on it and unfollow. The speed with which you can do this is a relief. The feed is a lot more Facebook-like now.
There’s a Me tab which shows you your profile, recommendations etc and which you can edit some things. Your groups are also listed here and I couldn’t find an easy way to join or leave a group. If the feature is hidden somewhere, it really shouldn’t be.
In the messages area, there’s an easy interface where you just read through messages and respond – including with a big bunch of emojis that say stuff like No Way or Good Job. Then there’s a separate tab dedicated to the updates on your connections; who went where and who has a birthday today. You can respond from within this tab.
A search section lets you look for people, jobs and companies. But to send InMail, you’ll need to sign up for a paid plan, which is how it is on the website as well, of course. But of course, you can follow the account.
Finally, a slide-out displays some of the other LinkedIn apps. It’s not clear why all of them don’t feature and why there isn’t one for Groups. The apps that you already have installed will feature on top and separately so that you can quickly switch to one of those with a touch. Should you see something that makes you feel you’d like a similar job, for example, you can just tap to go to the Job Search app and focus on that activity, clutter-free. The LookUp app from LinkedIn lets you quickly call one of your connections and of course see other information on them.
It would have been nice if the app also had an easy and separate place to create and upload blog posts. The new LinkedIn app is more than just a redesign. It’s an attempt to make the use of LinkedIn a daily habit – to stay in touch with people, to consume content, to participate in groups… But LinkedIn is doing this so late in its 12-year life that it’s difficult to predict whether old habits will die hard or whether people will finally use LinkedIn for more than just a resume on the net.
BW Reporters
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
