Newcomers are getting more attention for their alternatives

By George Anders

Talent Sky has raised $10 million and has signed up 16 large corporations as early users of its system. Is LinkedIn losing its weight?

This has been a miserable month for LinkedIn. The company’s stock crashed 45% in a single day, amid news of abruptly slowing growth rates, and investor sentiment remains chaotic at best.

The world hasn’t abandoned interest in LinkedIn’s overall category: providing social networks that build upon users’ professional identities. But there’s a lot more interest in the notion that LinkedIn’s approach isn’t the only way of doing things. Newcomers are getting more attention for their alternatives. Among them is Rick Devine, a one-time executive recruiter who now runs TalentSky.

Devine’s key insight is that LinkedIn’s business is optimized for recruiters. These talent-hunters want to see lots of job candidates’ profiles — particularly capable, contented specialists who don’t look at job ads but might be open to new opportunities if contacted the right way. Recruiters will pay a lot for such access, and LinkedIn has a well-built tier of products to make recruiters’ lives easier.