LinkedIn is one of the most popular professional networking platforms, with over 800 million members worldwide as of 2022. Founded in 2002, LinkedIn allows members to create profiles summarizing their professional accomplishments, connect with other professionals, find jobs, and more. With its massive user base and focus on career networking, LinkedIn occupies a unique position in the social media landscape.
Many companies aim to provide similar services to LinkedIn in specific ways or for particular audiences. While no platform has replicated LinkedIn’s scale and breadth, other sites have found success by targeting certain professional demographics or offering specialized features. Understanding LinkedIn’s alternatives can help job seekers, marketers, recruiters, and other professionals find the right tools for their needs.
Networking and Job Search Sites
Some of the most direct LinkedIn competitors are other business-oriented social networks designed for establishing professional connections and searching for job opportunities. These sites provide user profile pages and connection features mimicking LinkedIn, while offering unique twists on the formula.
Viadeo
Viadeo, founded in 2004 and based in France, operates professional networking platforms tailored to various markets. Its global English-language site claims around 10 million members, primarily in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Viadeo gives users similar profile and messaging options to LinkedIn while focusing more on localization for specific countries.
Founded in Hamburg, Germany in 2003, XING has grown into the largest professional networking site in German-speaking countries. It has around 18 million members as of 2022. XING allows users to create profiles, connect with other professionals, search jobs, share content, and find career-related events. The platform is tailored for German-language speakers and features an interface translated into German.
Behance
Owned by Adobe, Behance is a social network oriented towards creative professionals, especially in fields like design and photography. Users can make portfolio profiles to showcase their work and connect with 10+ million other creative pros. Behance also facilitates job searching and allows professionals to discover new projects and freelance opportunities.
AngelList
AngelList specifically focuses on startups and connecting startup founders and employees with job opportunities. In addition to job listings and talent profiles, AngelList provides tools for investors to find and fund startups. The platform has a network of over 3 million professionals and has facilitated over $160 million in funding.
Dribbble
Dribbble is a community of over 6 million designers and other creative professionals who share and discuss their work. The platform functions as both a portfolio site for showcasing visual designs and a social network for commenting, networking, and finding inspiration. Popular among graphic designers, UI/UX designers, and illustrators, Dribbble is a key site for creatives.
Recruiting and HR Platforms
LinkedIn is heavily used by recruiters and HR professionals for attracting talent. Many software companies offer products designed specifically for these use cases.
SmartRecruiters
SmartRecruiters provides an end-to-end talent acquisition platform used by over 10,000 companies. Key features include AI-driven job marketing, candidate relationship management, collaborative hiring tools, and integration with other HR systems. The software can replace some recruiting functionality LinkedIn offers.
Greenhouse
Greenhouse offers applicant tracking system (ATS) software focusing on enterprise recruiting. Companies can use Greenhouse to post jobs, source candidates, manage the hiring workflow, and measure recruiting metrics. Around 4,500 organizations use Greenhouse’s software.
Workable
Workable markets its recruiting software primarily for small and medium businesses. Like Greenhouse, it provides an ATS for managing job postings, screening applicants, tracking hiring stages, and more. Workable claims to have over 20,000 customers.
Lever
Lever is another talent acquisition platform used by leading companies like Netflix and Dropbox. In addition to typical ATS features, Lever provides more advanced analytics for improving hiring processes. Customers can even build customized hiring bots on the platform.
General Social Networks
While not dedicated professional platforms, some popular social networks also compete with LinkedIn for user attention and engagement.
Many professionals maintain a presence on Facebook to connect with colleagues, follow companies, and build an online brand. Facebook provides some overlapping functions with LinkedIn, like user profiles, messaging, and sharing business content. Some smaller businesses even leverage Facebook instead of LinkedIn for recruitment marketing.
Twitter is used by many professionals for networking, thought leadership, and promotion. A Twitter presence can complement a LinkedIn profile when used strategically. When trying to attract candidates, some companies advertise openings on Twitter in addition to more traditional job boards.
| Network | Users | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| 800 million | Professional networking and recruitment | |
| Viadeo | 10 million | International professional networking |
| 18 million | German-speaking professional networking | |
| Behance | 10+ million | Creative portfolio networking |
| AngelList | 3+ million | Startup/investor networking |
| Dribbble | 6+ million | Designer portfolio and networking |
Niche Job Platforms
Some professional networking and job hunting platforms focus on specific industries or geographic regions, providing more targeted networking than LinkedIn.
Mandy
Mandy is a platform tailored for media industry networking and job searching. It allows professionals in fields like film/video, TV, theater, photography, and music to create profiles, connect with others, and find gigs.
Academia.edu
The website Academia.edu aims to be a LinkedIn for academics and researchers. Users can create profiles summarizing their academic accomplishments and interests while following others in their fields. The site also facilitates sharing papers, monitoring analytics, and finding jobs.
Doximity
Doximity is a professional network designed specifically for physicians. Doctors can use it to collaborate with colleagues, find career opportunities, stay updated on industry news, and earn continuing education credits. The site has over 1.8 million members.
Hired
Hired is a job marketplace that focuses on connecting tech companies with skilled tech talent. It uses intelligent matching algorithms to pair candidates with relevant job opportunities. Professionals can create profiles and directly apply for thousands of tech jobs through the platform.
TalentDesk
Based in Africa, TalentDesk brands itself as “LinkedIn for Africa” with a goal of becoming the top professional networking site for the continent. The platform allows African professionals and recruiters to connect, search for jobs, and share content.
Conclusion
While LinkedIn stands in a class of its own, many platforms offer similar networking and recruitment functionality tailored for certain audiences. Sites like XING, Viadeo, and TalentDesk cater to specific regions, Behance and Dribbble focus on creative pros, and networks like Mandy and Doximity target media and healthcare roles.
For marketers and recruiters, using multiple platforms beyond just LinkedIn can help access niche, relevant talent. At the same time, having a strong, polished LinkedIn presence remains important for reaching the massive general professional audience LinkedIn provides.
Professionals seeking to build their personal brand and opportunities online should consider cultivating a presence both on LinkedIn and niche sites matching their field and interests. The right mix of professional networks beyond just LinkedIn can help showcase unique skills to potential employers and collaborators.
While LinkedIn will likely continue dominating the broader space, specialized alternatives chip away at parts of LinkedIn’s functionality for particular audiences. As sites like XING grow stronger in regions like Europe and Viadeo expands further into Asia and Africa, LinkedIn may need to enhance localization or risk losing more users in those markets.
For the foreseeable future, LinkedIn will maintain its leadership in general professional networking at scale. But professionals have an increasing selection of niche sites to choose from in building their personal brand and search for jobs tailored to their industry and geography.
LinkedIn will need to continue improving features and enhancing value for users to ward off smaller competitors biting at the edges of its different product areas. While LinkedIn’s user base is unlikely to unravel quickly, the emergence of strong niche alternatives could present a real threat in the coming years if LinkedIn does not continue to innovate.
For now, LinkedIn and niche competitors generally co-exist, allowing most professionals to maintain profiles on both broader and specialty networking platforms. By selecting the right mix of sites, professionals can maximize the exposure and opportunities for their unique skills and accomplishments.