It could become a marketplace for candidates, employers and evaluators. but it's a few thousand, not hundreds of millions. The most difficult problem will be creating credibility for these assessments. But, again, the problem is not insurmountable. You just need a critical mass of candidates interviewed by recruiters who have such a need for talent that they could risk it. The interview performance of these candidates creates a feedback mechanism, which creates credibility and continuous improvement. Opportunity 2: Create a reputation ecosystem with incentives Skill endorsements from those you have worked with is a good idea. It's just a shame that LinkedIn is optimized for quantity and not quality. And it is too late for LinkedIn to resolve the problem as the platform is flooded with meaningless endorsements. But, it could be done well. The key is to create a reputation ecosystem with the right incentives. One way to do this is to create a referral network powered by endorsements.

Here's how it could simply work. Like on LinkedIn, you can recommend anyone you Email Data know. The sum of the recommendations gives the candidate a score and candidates with the highest scores are introduced to suitable employers. It’s a weighted sum: your reputation determines the weight of your recommendations. If someone you recommend is hired, you earn a share of the referral fee, based on how much your recommendation contributed to the candidate's score. Finally, your reputation rises or falls depending on employer feedback on the candidates your recommendations sent them. This system aligns incentives. You have a financial incentive to refer people. But you want to keep a good reputation so your recommendations carry weight, so you only recommend people you think employers will like. This example is simple and creating such a reference network requires some nuances.



Endorsements and reputation should be skill specific. Employer comments could be interpreted differently depending on the employer and employers themselves could have a reputation. This simple example shows that a reputation ecosystem with the right incentives can create a strong signal of quality. LinkedIn's disruption will be difficult, but it is inevitable It's always difficult to overtake a leader. LinkedIn, for all its faults, has established itself as a staple of the online recruiting market and will continue to remain the market leader for some time to come. But people have long wanted something better, a way to narrow the gap between what people say they can do and what they can actually do. It is possible to do it. Whatever the means, someone will discover how to shake up LinkedIn by creating a strong, quality signal. So go ahead: help people recruit and get recruited.