Linkedin Profinder goes paid: How will this affect designers?
I’m going to tell you right now what people aren’t saying about Linkedin Profinder. A big corporate company turns a successful project into a paid service. The problem with Linkedin Profinder is they have adopted the same model as Upwork. They are trying to convert their users into paid customers under “premium subscriptions.” Once again the company is charging the wrong party to use their Linkedin profinder service. Craigslist did this right. They charge the person doing the listing. They should be charging the companies or people listing jobs, not the people looking for work. Once again I have to migrate to a different platform. I went with Upwork for a while and it was great until the influx of people from other countries who will create logos for $25.
As a freelancer who has their own business, I won’t be subscribing to Linkedin Premium just to access this feature. It’s another $30 out of my pocket every month that I just don’t have to spend on 2-3 emails a month. These emails don’t have a high percentage of success for me. I would say 1 in 3 turns into a hot lead or a client that wants to work with me. The job leads don’t come in often enough to pay for the premium subscription. Even if I did get every job, it still wouldn’t be enough to subscribe. Most of the jobs are between $100-300. I get leads for graphic design projects once every month. Just like Upwork there is no guarantee that these jobs will turn into reoccurring projects/work or even reliable paying clients. The opposite is true. If I apply to a hot lead through Linkedin Profinder, then I have to give the person a free 15-minute consultation.
I was fine with doing 15 minute free consultations until my recent experience. I agreed to a consultation that resulted in a 30-minute job interview that was originally listed as a project, but was classified as “freelance.” I was asked to do a non paid project, to apply through an application that looked like a job application, to sign a non competition agreement, and to complete a free project to see if I was a good fit for the job. This is the exact problem I see with my industry today. I have been working in this field for 13 years now and still companies will ask you to do free work with no guarantee of a job.
In conclusion, I LOVED Linkedin Profinder when it first started. It was a free service that linkedin up freelancers with people who needed work. The platform seemed to be moving in a logical direction by using the professional connections they have to help people find work. I was thrilled that hot leads came to my email inbox. I thought this was a genius stroke until a company approached me asking for a free project. Granted it was a very small project, I don’t do free work and you shouldn’t either. I’ll tell you why in my next post: