Why can't I rank LinkedIN Searches by number of contacts anymore?

Hi Phil (and Robin),

The new search engine that we rolled out in testing in September and in full release before Thanksgiving does not support sorting by number of connections currently.

If this is a feature that you are interested in seeing returned to the site, it would be helpful to better understand for what purpose you use the sort for, and how often. In our old search engine, this sort was used extremely rarely (literally a small fraction of a fraction of a percent).

Please let us know.
Adam

The "order by connections" search was used to determine who within my connections was the most influential or most connected within them overall or within the search criteria and might therefore be more able to reach a certain person, solve a certain problem, answer a certain question, and so forth.

1. What I find crazy about your stand on this is - the feature was already there.

2. My feeling about this feature was always "Why is that not set to the default?"

3. You could make the need for the feature go away if you brought back the ability to see how many connections people have.

Thank you

Bill Austin LinkedIn user #15600
Integrated Marketing Solutions

It would be nice if LinkedIn would poll users to find out if they're using specific functionality, before LI takes it away. If such polling exists/occurs, I don't know anything about it (maybe because I'm still on 'training wheels' on LI compared to Bill Austin and Phil Rosenberg).

Adam,

Thanks for your answer. I've sent you a LinkedINvitation separately to discuss LinkedIN topics, and set up a potential interview (let's discuss offline).

Overall, I think LinkedIN is a brilliant application for job seekers. I use it extensively in coaching my clients (I'm a career coach). I've written dozens of articles about inide tips to use LinkedIN to help job seekers.

Like other power users of LiunkedIN, I use this feature extensively. I actively seek to connect to the most influential members of LinkedIN, in order to build my own LinkedIN influence and network.

I have written extensively in Business Week, CIO, Fast Company, and few dozen recruiting and job search sites about using sort by number of contacts as an effective way to build networks for job seekers & recruiters.

Why would you turn off a feature that is so valuable to LinkedIN's top users?

How many comments do you need on GetSatisfaction.com so you'll see that this is a valuable feature that is desired by LinkedIN's user base?

Thanks in advance for your assistance,

Phil Rosenberg
President, reCareered
phil.reCareered@gmail.com
www.LinkedIN.com/in/philrosenberg

Adam,

I didn't answer your question completely. I used the sort by number of connections feature every day. It was an important part of my LinkedIN activities.

Phil Rosenberg
President, reCareered
phil.reCareered@gmail.com
www.LinkedIN.com/in/philrosenberg

Hi everyone,

Lots of answers here! Let me do my best to explain further. Providing the best possible people search is incredibly important to us, so we appreciate the feedback and insights.

Bill: I understand your frustration here, but please understand that in order to support the growth & complexity of LinkedIn, we actually replaced the entire search & network infrastructure (we call it cloud). LinkedIn may actually handle more search queries in the next year than it did in the entire history of the company.

The reason it was never the default is because most people did not use it, and because it doesn't actually fit the most common use cases that people use LinkedIn for. Previously, the default sort for LinkedIn was by keyword. Many people preferred sorting by "degrees away from you", which is what we now call "by relationship". Our new engine can actually combine any number of factors to rank "by relevance". Currently, the engine uses both keyword and relationship by default.

As an improvement for people who may not like the default sort, we made any sort selection "sticky", so that if you change it, it will stay that way until you change it again.

Robin: In preparation for our new search, we not only surveyed many different types of users, but also did many rounds of usability tests and focus groups, including WebEx sessions with many advanced users. We also careful reviewed our internal search metrics for the existing features, which are extremely detailed about which users are using what and how often. Finally, we also rolled out the new search over two months to small % of randomly selected users to compare their usage and to collect feedback. We received over 1000 messages of feedback on the new search which we utilized to make final changes to the product.

This blog post has more detail:
http://blog.linkedin.com/2008/12/02/o...

So far, I've heard two interesting reasons why people liked to use the sort by connections:
1) It was a proxy for "how active" a user was - you could assume that a highly connected user was more active than someone with low connections.
2) It was a way to measure their ability to help you find highly connected people, so you could connect to them also to build a larger extended network.

Are there others? I appreciate all of the feedback and suggestions here.
Adam

Esteban,

If I understand you correctly, the capability to sort by number of connectins is still there, just more difficult to find?

LI Search is temporarily down now, but it sounds like you are saying I can choose views, and from your blog, it looks like there's a drop down box that allows me to display connections.

If you are saying I can then sort by connections, it sounds like a brilliant solution. Is this true?

Phil Rosenberg
President, reCareered
phil.reCareered@gmail.com
www.LinkedIN.com/in/philrosenberg

Adam,

There's another reason that sorting by network size is valuable, and recruiters use this tool all the time. When I ran offices for Robert Half, and actively hired sales people, I always looked them up on LinkedIN and specifically wanted an idea of their network size.

While LinkedIN didn't publish network size over 500, I COULD see if they were in the top 500 in their field, or in Chicago, or a combo of the two. I could gain a sense if they were "hitters" or "wannabes".
.
For a job candidate being considered for a position (especially in something that heavily involves networking, like sales), employers see the size of a candidate's network as a positive attribute.

Might a recruiter searching for a great sales candidate, want to search for candidates who are active LinkedIN users, based on the size of their networks, to gain an idea of how large of a sales Rolodex the candidate has? I did all the time, and actively established relationships with the most active linkers in Chicago. This let me to great candidates as well as outside opportunities.

Finally, Number of connections is a metric I use to evaluate how my own LinkedIN influence is growing, compared to other centers of influence. In what I do, as well as many others in the sales or HR business verticals, how well connected one is adds greatly to a professional reputation.

Given how recruiter and sales centric LinkedIN's audience is, can you not see why this is valuable?

Phil Rosenberg
President, reCareered
phil.reCareered@gmail.com
www.LinkedIN.com/in/philrosenberg

Esteban,

Promise? Will it be the brilliant solution LinkedIN fans are hoping for?

Phil Rosenberg
President, reCareered
phil.reCareered@gmail.com
www.LinkedIN.com/in/philrosenberg

Hi everyone,

We're still working out the final set of features that we'll be launching in the first quarter of 2009, so it is tough to pin down dates at this point. The search team is moving forward with rebuilding sort by number of connections, so unless we hit any snags, we should see this return to the site in the first few months of the year.

As Esteban pointed out, you can actually see number of connections today by selecting "Create a New View" from the brand new "Views" menu.

Thanks to all again for the discussion and information.
Adam

Adam Nash...

I'd like to talk to you on the phone.
Could you make it happen?

email me please: burda.mba [at] gmail.com

- Steven Burda
http://www.cio.com/article/print/470122
http://www.linkedin.com/in/burda

Adam & Esteban,

It's been half a year since you promised to enable this feature "soon".
Has there been any progress?

Hi Alex,

We've been working on some major enhancements to LinkedIn search which we hope to be rolling out quite soon. We've implemented the ability to sort by number of connections as part of the new update, so unfortunately, this enhancement is tied to the release of the other major enhancements.

I apologize for not posting an update on this sooner.

Take care,
Adam

I just found the 'new people search' and it is amazing. The link to enable it is pretty hidden on the bottom of the regular 'people search' result page, but I guess that is because it is not yet ready to go to the production.

The 'sort by number of connections' is there.

Thanks!

Outstanding. Thanks Adam & Linkedin for bringing back this valuable tool!