LinkedIn · Product sense · Entry · 60 to 90 minutes

Help new graduates land a first job on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a professional networking platform where people create profiles, connect with others, discover jobs, and share work-related content. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

User segmentation
Problem framing
MVP design
Metric design
Tradeoff analysis

The situation

You are an APM on LinkedIn's Jobs and onboarding surfaces. The Director of Product for Early Careers has asked for a proposal before the next graduate hiring cycle. Assume the following numbers are illustrative: among members who joined LinkedIn within the last 12 months and list a graduation date within the last 2 years, 38% have fewer than 15 connections, 44% have no internship or full-time experience on their profile, and their first 30-day job application-to-recruiter-response rate is less than half that of other job seekers. Qualitative research says many new graduates do not know what to put on their profile, which jobs they are credible for, or how to get any signal without a network. Leadership wants LinkedIn to be more useful for people trying to land a first job, especially on mobile. The hard part is that employers already complain about low-quality applications, and recruiters need signals they can trust. You are not being asked to rethink all of LinkedIn. Design one focused product change that helps new graduates get started and improves their chances of landing a first job without creating more spam or unfairness.

What to produce

A 1 to 2 page product proposal.

Your answer must

Define the target user clearly, including 2 to 3 relevant segments, and name one primary segment for the first release.
State the core problem and the main root causes for that user, using the scenario facts and user needs rather than broad claims.
Propose one focused feature or tightly related feature set, and describe the end-to-end user flow in enough detail to understand how it works on LinkedIn.
Explain why this solution should help both the graduate and the hiring side, including how it avoids making application quality worse.
Define success with 1 primary metric, 2 to 3 supporting metrics, and at least 2 guardrail metrics.
Call out the main risks, tradeoffs, and what you would ship first in an MVP.

Constraints

Plan an MVP that could be built in one quarter by one PM, one designer, and up to six engineers.
Use existing LinkedIn logged-in web and mobile surfaces, not a new standalone app.
Do not require employers, universities, or government agencies to join a new program for the first launch.
Respect privacy and fairness policies, and do not use or expose sensitive personal data to employers.

Format

Start with the target user and problem. Then describe the feature, user flow, metrics, and the biggest risks and tradeoffs.