Freelancers can now find work projects on LinkedIn. The popular professional social network is opening up opportunities for professionals to find work on its platform, going beyond merely giving them the tools to advertise their skills and experience.
LinkedIn will do this through Service Marketplace, a new feature to compete with the likes of Fiverr and Upwork, but does Marketplace stand a chance against these platforms? Let's find out.
LinkedIn Launches a Service Marketplace for Professionals
LinkedIn has added a new feature, Service Marketplace, to help professionals get paid on its platform, and compete with popular freelance sites like Fiverr and Upwork.
LinkedIn’s Service Marketplace is a freelance platform that allows users to advertise their services for short-term or freelance jobs. Users can set up a freelance profile that can help recruiters find and contact them for projects. It will make payment via a digital wallet offered by Microsoft.
LinkedIn is now rolling out its Service Marketplace feature to everyone, more than 800 million LinkedIn users, nearly eight months after rolling it out to two million users in a testing stage.
This is a big move for LinkedIn, which is known for helping to find permanent, full-time, and all sorts of jobs for professionals.
What Services Does LinkedIn’s Service Marketplace Offer?
The Service Marketplace is starting off with 250 job categories and will be doubling that to more than 500.
LinkedIn Marketplace is still in its development stage, so LinkedIn has released limited details around the offering. What we do know, however, is that Marketplace will focus on freelance work like consulting, writing, marketing, and graphic design.
As the workforce shifts to more flexible, short-term, and freelance roles, Marketplace could help employers and recruiters find the right kind of talent to fill these roles, and could help jobseekers to secure the right opportunities to suit their needs.
The new platform will be similar to Fiverr and Upwork, which host freelance work and take a cut of each job paid for.
Can LinkedIn’s Service Marketplace Compete With Fiverr and Upwork?
LinkedIn's upcoming launch of Marketplace places it in direct competition with Fiverr and Upwork, both of which are popular freelance platforms.
The marketplace is likely to have features similar to Fiverr and Upwork, but with a unique spin: Businesses can search for freelancers, compare rates, and share job posts. After a job is complete, businesses can leave reviews about the freelancer who completed the job.
But it seems unlikely that Marketplace can, at least as it stands, compete with Fiverr and Upwork because it is missing a few key functionalities. For instance, Marketplace currently does not allow for the negotiation of fees or the sending of invoices.
Also, the job-seeking process is one-sided—employers can seek out freelancers for jobs, but freelancers cannot look for jobs on the platform.
This is frustrating because it means that freelancers have to wait for opportunities to come knocking at their door, or optimize their profiles and hope for the best, which could make it difficult to set personal targets.
Can LinkedIn's Service Marketplace Compete With Fiverr and Upwork?
Whether you’re an established freelancer or just getting started, LinkedIn Marketplace offers new opportunities for you to connect with potential clients.
This makes sense if you're already a LinkedIn user, and might be worth a try, but don't go deleting your Fiverr and Upwork accounts just yet. And don't get excited either, LinkedIn still has to polish up its Service Marketplace platform before it can become a formidable player in the freelance market.