LinkedIn’s API allows developers to access and integrate LinkedIn data and functionality into their own applications. The LinkedIn API provides a wealth of data that can be leveraged to enhance applications with social and professional information from LinkedIn members.
Profile Data
The LinkedIn API provides detailed profile data on LinkedIn members, including:
- Basic profile information – name, headline, location, industry, profile photo
- Contact information – email addresses, phone numbers, Twitter handles
- Employment history – companies, titles, descriptions, dates of employment
- Education history – schools, degrees, fields of study, dates attended
- Skills and expertise – skills added by member to profile
- Certifications and licenses
- Volunteer work and causes
- Publications and patents
- Courses and trainings
- Honors and awards
- Test scores
- Languages
- Projects
Access to member profiles allows developers to enable social and professional context in their applications. The profile data can power personalized experiences based on a member’s background, skills, and interests.
Connections Data
The Connections APIs provide access to a member’s 1st and 2nd degree connections on LinkedIn. This includes:
- Profile details of 1st degree connections
- Ability to retrieve profiles of 2nd degree connections
- Connection invitations between members
Connection data enables relationship-based experiences e.g. allowing members to interact with their trusted networks and contacts on LinkedIn. This creates opportunities for professional social experiences based on the member’s real-life network.
Interests Data
Member interests can also be retrieved via the Interests API. This includes:
- Companies a member follows
- News channels a member follows
- Influencers a member follows
- Schools a member follows
Interest data provides insight into a member’s professional interests and preferences. This allows for personalization opportunities based on the companies, news, influencers etc. that a member cares about.
Group Data
LinkedIn Groups provide forums for members to discuss professional topics and industries. The Groups API provides access to:
- Groups a member belongs to
- A member’s role and engagement statistics within groups
- Posts and comments within groups
Group data enables community-driven experiences by allowing connections between members based on shared group membership and discussions.
Company Data
LinkedIn company pages contain a wealth of data that can be accessed via the Company API, including:
- Company name, description, logo, location, industry
- Statistics like number of employees, followers
- Job listings posted by the company
- Company updates and posts
The company data facilitates business-focused use cases such as employee recruitment, marketing to target companies etc. Developers can leverage the company information and followers to build experiences catered to organizations.
Job Listings Data
The Job Search API allows programmatic access to job listings available on LinkedIn. This includes:
- Details on job postings like title, description, salary, location
- Information on applying for jobs
- Search mechanism to find relevant job listings
Access to job listings allows the development of recruitment and career-focused applications, by matching candidates with relevant openings.
Search Data
LinkedIn provides robust search capabilities to find relevant members, jobs, companies, groups etc. Key search API capabilities include:
- Search members by name, company, title, keywords
- Search jobs by title, company, keywords
- Search companies by name, industry, keywords
- Search groups by name, category, keywords
The search APIs allow developers to integrate LinkedIn’s powerful search into their own applications, enabling users to find relevant professional information quickly.
Share and Social Stream Data
The social stream of updates on LinkedIn can also be accessed via APIs:
- Share API allows posting updates to a member’s network
- Stream API provides access to a members homepage feed
- Likes and comments on updates can be accessed
Social stream data enables embedding LinkedIn’s social capabilities directly into apps and sites. This creates engaging social experiences for users.
Messaging Data
For communication between members, messaging APIs are available:
- Send and receive messages between connections
- Receive notifications when messages are received
- Retrieve conversation history and details
The messaging capabilities facilitate connecting members directly via 1-to-1 and group conversations. This allows professional discussions and collaboration.
Platform Capabilities
Beyond data access, LinkedIn’s APIs provide powerful platform capabilities:
- Simplified authentication via OAuth 2.0
- Robust rate limiting and quotas
- Strong reliability and uptime
- Flexibility to retrieve data in JSON or XML formats
- Detailed technical documentation and guides
- Sample code and libraries to accelerate development
These platform capabilities make the LinkedIn API highly developer-friendly. They enable building robust integrations with LinkedIn data and functionality with minimal effort.
Conclusion
In summary, the breadth of professional data available via the LinkedIn API provides tremendous opportunities for developers. By tapping into member profiles, connections, interests, groups, companies, jobs, search, and social capabilities – innovative professional applications can be built on top of LinkedIn’s 500+ million members and engaging platform. Whether it’s creating social experiences, enabling recruitment tools, building marketing campaigns, or facilitating professional networking – the LinkedIn API makes it possible by providing authorized access to LinkedIn’s valuable professional data assets.
Common Use Cases
Here are some common use cases and examples of how different types of apps and businesses can leverage LinkedIn’s APIs:
Recruitment / Career Apps
- Source candidate profiles for open positions
- Enable users to easily apply to jobs posted on LinkedIn
- Recommend relevant jobs based on user’s profile and interests
- Provide salary insights and competitor analysis
Marketing / Sales Tools
- Identify contacts at target companies
- Segment audiences for targeted campaigns
- Create customized lead generation and sales tools
- Analyze advertising and content promotion performance
Social Media Apps
- Stream LinkedIn updates into a consolidated feed
- Enable liking and commenting on LinkedIn posts
- Analyze influencers and brands on LinkedIn
- curate and share industry news and articles
Collaboration Tools
- Built team communication and productivity software
- Integrate work updates and project management capabilities
- Create internal collaboration networks and groups
- Allow coworkers to easily find and connect with each other
Business / Professional Intelligence
- Conduct competitive analysis on other companies
- Track keywords and trends in an industry
- Analyze employee changes and organizational moves
- Get insights into software and technologies used at companies
These examples illustrate just some of the potential for building on LinkedIn’s platform. The API opens up valuable data and capabilities for developers in a broad range of verticals and use cases.
What companies are using LinkedIn API?
Many leading and innovative companies across different industries are using LinkedIn’s APIs to power their applications and services. Here are some examples:
| Company | How They Use LinkedIn API |
|---|---|
| Oracle | Enables users to import LinkedIn profiles into Oracle Cloud applications like human capital management and talent acquisition. |
| Adobe | Leverages LinkedIn data and analytics for account profiling within Adobe Marketing Cloud. |
| Salesforce | Allows users to share content from Salesforce to LinkedIn, sync contacts, and find leads. |
| SugarCRM | Integrates LinkedIn profile data directly into SugarCRM system. |
| CareerBuilder | Job seekers can publish their resume to CareerBuilder directly from their LinkedIn profile. |
| Yellow Pages | Features LinkedIn star ratings, profiles, and reviews on business directory listings. |
| WeWork | Prospective members can sign up via their LinkedIn account and access WeWork spaces. |
As evidenced by these examples, major enterprise software vendors, recruitment firms, advertisers, and other businesses are leveraging LinkedIn’s APIs in diverse ways. The API provides the capability to integrate the power of LinkedIn’s professional data into a wide spectrum of applications and use cases.
What types of permissions are available?
LinkedIn uses the OAuth 2.0 standard for API authentication and authorization. There are different levels of permissions that can be requested from LinkedIn members when using the APIs:
Basic Profile Permissions
Enables readonly access to basic profile data like profile info, connections, interests etc. This allows apps to access a member’s professional profile without being able to post or share on the member’s behalf.
Share Permissions
Allows the app to share content, updates, and media on behalf of the member. This enables posting LinkedIn updates directly from an app.
Company Page Permissions
For apps that need to access, analyze, or manage a company’s LinkedIn page and presence. Useful for social media management, marketing analytics etc.
Account Status Permissions
Allows the app to know whether a LinkedIn member account is in good standing or restricted in any way. Important for apps relying on user-generated content.
Email Address Permissions
Grants the ability to access a member’s primary email address. Can enable connecting external and LinkedIn accounts.
Advertising Permissions
For apps involved in managing LinkedIn advertising, analytics, and audience targeting capabilities.
By requesting the minimum necessary permissions, apps enable a streamlined user experience during onboarding. Granular permissions also reassure users by only allowing access to specific profile data as needed for the app’s functionality.
What are some alternatives to LinkedIn API?
Here are some alternative professional data APIs developers can also consider leveraging:
GitHub Jobs API
Enables posting software developer job listings and searching GitHub candidates. Useful for technical recruitment.
SmartRecruiters API
Allows programmatic integration with the SmartRecruiters talent acquisition platform. Includes job listings and applicant data.
Entelo API
Recruitment intelligence API providing filtered candidate search and profiles from Entelo’s database.
HiringThing API
API for the HiringThing Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Allows importing and managing job applicant data.
Clearbit Enrichment API
Business information lookup API providing employee counts, technologies used, contact details and more for company profiling.
FullContact API
Contact management API offering person and company data enrichment from a variety of sources.
Recruitee API
API for the Recruitee recruiting software. Contains candidates, jobs, activity feed data.
Bullhorn API
Integration API for Bullhorn staffing and recruiting platform. Contains CRM, candidate, and other recruitment data.
While these provide useful data sets, none match the scale and professional focus of LinkedIn’s 500+ million members. LinkedIn remains the go-to platform for developer APIs enabling professional and social experiences.
What are some use cases leveraging multiple LinkedIn APIs?
Many impactful applications combine data from several LinkedIn APIs to provide enhanced experiences:
Talent CRM
A recruitment CRM that uses:
- Profile API – source and analyze candidate profiles
- Connections API – discover mutual connections
- Jobs API – match candidates to relevant openings
- Messaging API – enable recruiter-candidate communication
Social Selling Tool
A sales tool that leverages:
- Profile API – research prospects’ backgrounds
- Interests API – identify prospect interests
- Share API – share relevant content with prospects
- Companies API – research target accounts
Marketing Analytics
An app providing analytics on:
- Share API – track content engagement
- Followers API – analyze audience segments
- Interests API – categorize audience interests
- Ads API – report on campaign performance
By combining multiple APIs, developers can create truly industry-leading products that bring together LinkedIn data and functionality in a powerful way not otherwise possible with a single API. The breadth of the LinkedIn platform enables rich, integrated professional applications.
What are some best practices for using LinkedIn API?
Here are some recommended best practices when leveraging the LinkedIn API:
- Request only the minimum scopes and permissions needed
- Use robust rate limiting to avoid throttling
- Follow the branding guidelines for LinkedIn
- Ensure transparent user consent during authentication
- Validate and sanitize any user-generated content
- Follow SEO best practices for any public content
- Store access tokens securely and enable token rotation
- Monitor API usage and errors to catch any issues
- Continue innovating within the terms and intent of the API
- Maintain clear communication with LinkedIn around compliance
By following these best practices, developers can build apps that provide value to users while respecting both technical and branding guidelines. This creates better experiences all around.
Conclusion
The LinkedIn API opens up a diverse range of professional data and capabilities that can empower developers to create the next generation of smart business applications.
With member profiles, interests, connections, company pages, jobs, search, and social streams – the potential to enrich apps with LinkedIn’s professional graph is immense.
Complimented by LinkedIn’s platform features like standardized authentication and robust rate limits – the API provides the ideal mix of data, functionality, and developer-friendly infrastructure.
Whether trying to enable professional networking, recruitment tools, sales automation or marketing analytics – the breadth and quality of LinkedIn data accessible via the comprehensive API makes it an unparalleled resource for developers aiming to integrate professional context into their apps.
By also considering use cases, integration examples, permission requirements and following best practices – developers can fully tap into LinkedIn’s APIs in an effective, compliant and sustainable way.
The volume of innovative companies and entrepreneurs already leveraging the LinkedIn API validates the enormous power it provides to build out the next generation of intelligent applications the world needs.
