LinkedIn has always put an emphasis on the importance of mentorship within their online community. From their #ThankYourMentor campaign, to partnering with The National Mentoring Partnership (MENTOR) to conduct studies, there’s been a clear investment on LinkedIn’s part to highlight the practice. Now they’ve taken their relationship with mentoring to the next level.
This week it was announced that LinkedIn would commence with rollout of a free service that pairs LinkedIn users looking for mentorship with other LinkedIn users looking to donate their time as mentors.
Likened to the format of popular dating app Tinder, LinkedIn will allow both potential mentors and potential mentees parameters to narrow down the type of mentorship experience they’re looking for (i.e. area of interest, degree of LinkedIn connection, alma-matter, etc.) then provide both sides of the equation the opportunity to match with like-minded people.
Once matched, users will have the ability to message each other, with communication able to be terminated at any time. Very much, LinkedIn’s take on Tinder.
With LinkedIn having a ‘corporate’/’business’ brand, adapting elements from a much edgier counterpart from the dating world in Tinder is sure to turn some heads, but LinkedIn are confident this new feature is something that will resonate with their users.
“We have done research and found that among the senior ranks of our user base, nine out of 10 people have said they want to give back,” says Hari Srinivasan, Head of Identity Products at LinkedIn. “Paying it forward is a powerful force. All of them received help on the way up and now want to find a way to give that help back to others.”
And so LinkedIn’s love affair with mentorship continues; the new service will initially be available to users in Australia and San Francisco before rolling out further so keep an eye out for its availability in your area.
