Hari Srinivasan
VP of Product, Talent Solutions at LinkedIn
VP of Product at LinkedIn leading the Talent Solutions team (LinkedIn's biggest business) including all hiring and learning products, who has been at the company for over eight years driving the shift toward skills-first hiring and improving the platform's content quality.
Dimension Profile
Key Themes
Episode Summary
Hari Srinivasan explains how LinkedIn's Talent Solutions team drove the shift toward skills-first hiring after watching COVID create massive imbalances in the job market where people in hit industries couldn't see adjacent opportunities. He reveals how LinkedIn's feed improved from cringey to genuinely useful by focusing on two things people actually want — staying connected to relationships and getting knowledge and advice — and shares how a clear mission of connecting people to economic opportunity simplifies decision-making across a complex ecosystem product.
Leadership Principles
- → Every decision at LinkedIn is made through the lens of connecting people to economic opportunity — everyone knows how decisions will be made because of that shared mission
- → Skills-first hiring translates people's experiences into a set of skills to rebalance the marketplace — people used to looking for specific titles couldn't see that others could do the job
- → A connected ecosystem product requires understanding how the whole system fits together — how you make decisions in a complex ecosystem is actually not difficult when the mission is clear
Notable Quotes
"We started seeing that hospitality was getting hit, but customer service couldn't hire enough. You'd think the marketplace would balance, but it wasn't happening. People are used to looking for certain titles, and they didn't realize other people could do this job."
— On how skills-first hiring emerged during COVID to rebalance the job market
"Everything at LinkedIn is a very connected ecosystem. Everyone knows how that decision is going to be made. It's all about how we're connecting people to economic opportunity."
— On how a clear mission simplifies decision-making in complex products
"I'm always hesitant to say we've ever hit that bar. There is always some piece of friction. There is always something we could be doing better."
— On continuous improvement mindset for a platform serving hundreds of millions
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