LinkedIn CEO: Still a Strong Job Market for Some

Linked In

Engineers and quants are still in high demand despite a dismal overall job environment, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner tells CNBC.

LinkedIn, the largest social network for professionals and job seekers, now has 85 million registered users, adding about one per second, he said. That scale gives the company insight into trends in white-collar employment.

Weiner said LinkedIn is seeing high demand in a few sectors, most notably technology, pharmaceuticals and financial services. Companies in those industries are focused on hiring specialists who can give them an edge in their core business.

In an interview at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, Weiner also talked about how LinkedIn's approach to its platform is evolving in the age of smartphones.

I mentioned that Facebook mobile chief Eric Tseng told me earlier this summer that one third of Facebook's users now access the service through phones, and those users are twice as engaged as those who access the service through a PC only.

Weiner said he sees similar trends at LinkedIn, and that the success of the mobile app has begun to influence the design of the main website.

Though he remains coy about when LinkedIn might go public, we did talk about how the rise of pre-IPO markets for startup shares has changed the environment in Silicon Valley. With SecondMarket, startups face less pressure to go public from early investors and employees, and can wait until the company is more mature and earnings are more consistent.

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