LinkedIn is an essential tool for recruiters, a network where individuals’ professional qualifications are emphasized and easily searchable. But according to Adeyemi Ajao, the co-founder of Identified, a big data and analytics company focused on professional information, there are two glaring problems: First, not everyone is on LinkedIn, and second, the search options are not nearly specific enough. A candidate search on LinkedIn casts a loose net says Ajao, and often returns a list of bad or sloppy fits.
Ajao believes Identified has solved both these issues. Today, the company announced it had created the largest database of job candidates, with one billion professional profiles and an algorithm that applies big data and predictive analytics to match recruiters with relevant, qualified candidates.
LinkedIn, currently the largest professional network, has just over 225 million members, making Identified five times larger than Reid Hoffman’s company. So how did the startup get to a billion? Contrary to LinkedIn, Identified is not limited by a user base, where people need to sign-up to make an account and create a profile. Instead, Identified takes public data from nearly any social media site — Facebook, Twitter, GitHub and LinkedIn, among others — and organizes it into a searchable interface.
