case W93C96

December 3, 2014

Values-based Candidate Selection at LinkedIn: One

Hiring Manager’s Approach

“What would you do in this situation?” The question lingered over the phone. Prepared for consulting
case interviews, Lindsay Reed had lost track of how many times she asked this same question leading up to
interview season. But in the context of this interview, she knew that the standard case-solving frameworks
she had drilled to proficiency would fail her.

In January 2013, first-year MBA students at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University
of Michigan were fully engaged in recruiting for summer internships. Lindsay’s top choice for her internship
was LinkedIn, a social networking website for people in professional occupations. Not only was the company
doing exceptionally well by all business measures, but it also matched Lindsay’s personal values.

Company Background

LinkedIn was a social network for professionals.1 In 2013, a decade after its 2003 launch, LinkedIn had
reached 225 million members across more than 200 countries and territories and was growing at a rate of
more than two members a second.2 Analysts predicted LinkedIn’s net income would reach $26 million in
2013.3 In the letter to shareholders accompanying the 2012 annual report, the company emphasized the
following4:

LinkedIn remains focused on its mission to connect the world’s professionals to make
them more productive and successful. Our vision, to create economic opportunity for each
of the world’s more than three billion professionals, galvanizes our employees and our
culture. That culture remains one of our strongest competitive advantages and fuels our
product strategy to help members connect, find, and be found through their professional
identities; provide valuable insights making members more successful in their careers; and
enable LinkedIn to work everywhere our members work.

Published by WDI Publishing, a division of the William Davidson Institute (WDI) at the University of Michigan.
©2014 Lindsay Reed. This case was written under the supervision of Jane Dutton, Robert L. Kahn Distinguished University Professor of
Business Administration and Psychology, and Betsy Erwin, Education Lead at the Center for Positive Organizations at the University of
Michigan, by MBA student Lindsay Reed as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling
of an administrative situation. This case is representative of one intern’s interview experience with LinkedIn, and does not reflect the
experience of all interns involved in LinkedIn’s recruiting and selection process.

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 Values-based Candidate Selection at LinkedIn: One Hiring Manager’s Approach W93C96

Reid Hoffman, whose previous ventures included SocialNet and PayPal, launched the professional social
network company in 2002. In its first year, the company attracted an investment from Sequoia Capital. In
2004, LinkedIn Groups were launched as a forum to connect members with common professional interests.
Small business offerings for personal branding, marketing, sales, and hiring were launched that same year.
The company reached 2 million members in 2005. In 2006, the company achieved profitability and became
the “professional profile of record” with the launch of public profiles.5 LinkedIn became truly global in
2008 by launching the first non-English versions of the site in Spanish and French and opening the first
international office in London. That same year, Jeff Weiner joined as president. He became CEO in 2009. In
2010, LinkedIn had 90 million members and nearly 1,000 employees in 10 offices around the world.

With its initial public offering in 2011, LinkedIn was the first social network to go public. After the first
day of trading, the company was valued at $8.9 billion, with share prices closing the first day of trading
at $94.25, initially set at $45. This market response resulted in the largest initial price tag for a tech firm
since Google staged its IPO seven years earlier.6 LinkedIn was considered the most successful of the social
networks in its post-offering period.

In 2012, the company increased the size of its workforce by more than 60 percent and expected hiring
to continue as it aggressively expanded. The risk of such rapid growth was summarized in the company’s
2012 annual report: “We depend on world class talent to grow and operate our business, and if we are unable
to hire, retain and motivate our personnel, we may not be able to grow effectively.7”

The corporate culture had to be developed in a way that would not harm the company’s ability to foster
the innovation, creativity, and teamwork it needed to support future growth. In 2014, LinkedIn had the
number three spot on Forbes’ “The Best Companies to Work For” list. Employees commented that LinkedIn
provided “great colleagues and collaborative work environment, a strong sense of work-life balance, and
attractive benefits and perks8.”

The company’s website describes the culture and values as:

LinkedIn’s Core Values9

• Our Members Come First. We encourage employees to know and understand our members and to
ensure that we foster the long-term vitality of the LinkedIn ecosystem.
• Relationships Matter. By fostering trust with colleagues and partners, we all succeed. We
fundamentally believe that doing what is right is more important than being right.
• Be Open, Honest and Constructive. We expect our employees to communicate with clarity and
provide feedback with consistency in a constructive way.
• Demand Excellence. Our employees are encouraged to lead by example, seek to solve big
challenges, set measureable and actionable goals, and continuously learn, iterate and improve.
• Take Intelligent Risks. Taking intelligent risks has been paramount in building the company to
date. No matter how large the company becomes we strive to never lose our startup mentality.
• Act Like an Owner. Talent is our most important asset. We expect employees to act as an owner
in each decision they make, no matter how big or small.
LinkedIn’s Culture10
• Transformation. People who work at LinkedIn are here because they seek to make a positive and
lasting impact on the world, help realize the full potential of LinkedIn and fundamentally alter
the trajectory of their careers.
2

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 Values-based Candidate Selection at LinkedIn: One Hiring Manager’s Approach W93C96

• Integrity. We don’t believe the ends justify the means. Rather, we expect employees to do the
right thing no matter what.
• Collaboration. Much like the network effects inherent in our business model, we believe that
as valuable as we are as individuals, we are all exponentially more valuable when aligned and
working together.
• Humor. Fulfilling our mission and vision requires an intense focus, so we believe it is important
to not take ourselves too seriously and try to have some fun while doing it.
• Results. We set clear, actionable goals and have high expectations for our performance.
We count on our employees to consistently deliver excellent results, seek leverage through
greater efficiency and effectiveness, and demonstrate leadership at all levels throughout the
organization.

Values-Based Leader

Jeff Weiner joined LinkedIn as president in 2008 and became CEO the following year. LinkedIn’s
membership had increased sevenfold in his first five years. Revenue in 2014 was expected to approach $1.5
billion, 19 times more than what generated before Weiner’s arrival.

Weiner modeled the corporate values and considered himself a values-driven leader. In October 2012, he
posted an article on the LinkedIn platform titled “Managing Compassionately.” Inspired by the teachings of
the Dalai Lama as told in the book The Art of Happiness, Weiner’s personal mission was to “expand the world’s
collective wisdom and compassion.”11 He wrote, “Wisdom without compassion is ruthlessness, compassion
without wisdom is folly.”12

Not only did Weiner publish the article, but as a featured speaker at the 2012 Wisdom 2.0 Conference,
Weiner explained the difference between empathy and compassion, calling compassion “a more objective
form of empathy.” Compassion is “walking a mile in someone else’s shoes” to understand the person’s
perspective and point of view,13 with an ability to act on it Weiner said. He shared a metaphor from the Dalai
Lama: When an empathic person comes across a stranger on the side of the road being crushed by a boulder,
he immediately feels the other person’s suffering and is overcome with his own suffocation, and is therefore
unable to offer any help to the stranger. A compassionate person, on the other hand, in that same situation,
sees the other person’s suffering and is compelled to help the stranger to remove the bolder so that both
are able to breathe.

According to Weiner, managing compassionately was about coaching as opposed to problem solving.
Coaching requires taking the time to question, to listen, and to understand another person. It keeps managers
from projecting and imposing their own way of performing a task onto the people they manage. A coaching
frame of mind seeks to understand the perspectives of others and the reasons they perform certain actions,
while always assuming their intentions are noble. “Call it out, reinforce it, and that is how you manifest it,”
Weiner explained.

In a fireside chat, an employee asked him, “What is the one thing you would tell every person at
LinkedIn to do?” Weiner redirected the question to the audience, and listened to responses including,
“develop products people love,” “help LinkedIn win,” “be customer-oriented,” and “push the envelope on
technology.” None of these matched how Weiner himself would answer, so he pressed the audience to keep
guessing. Eventually, someone suggested “manage compassionately” as a response. To that, Weiner smiled
and nodded, confirming that he believed managing compassionately to be the most important thing every
employee can do at LinkedIn.

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 Values-based Candidate Selection at LinkedIn: One Hiring Manager’s Approach W93C96

The Interview

Lindsay’s first interview with LinkedIn was conducted by the director of the MBA internship program.
After she passed the first screening, Lindsay was scheduled for three phone interviews. The first interviewer
of the three introduced herself and her job role. She asked Lindsay to introduce herself and explain which
group within LinkedIn she saw herself working in. The interview then proceeded down the path of behavioral
interview questions around her leadership style, strengths, and weaknesses. None of this was particularly
atypical.

Ryan Giles conducted Lindsay’s second interview. After introducing himself, he provided an outline of
the call, which was to include introductions, a few questions about her background, and a case. “It’s a case
I like to give everyone I interview. We will have a chance to talk about it after you respond,” he explained.
With that, he introduced his background, his relationship with other interviewers, and his role at LinkedIn.
Consistent with the phone screen and first interview, he allowed Lindsay to provide information on her
background, probing deeper into why she chose Michigan for business school and asking which area she saw
herself working in. They also briefly discussed her leadership style in the context of work situations she had
been in prior to business school.

Then, Ryan introduced the case by saying, “Pretend you are a business partner, like me, visiting Chicago
[from Mountain View] for a very important meeting with top managers in the global sales organization. You
step out of the meeting to use the restroom, and one of your managers stops you on the way, saying, ‘One
of my employees in California just had a baby. The infant is in the ICU at a hospital that is an hour away
from her home. Is there anything we can do to help her?’” Then he asked her directly, “What would you do
in this situation?”

Lindsay had been listening with a pencil in her hand and her typical starting framework drawn on
a sheet of blank paper. Based on what she knew about LinkedIn, however, she knew that her standard
approach to tackling cases wasn’t going to work.

How should Lindsay respond?

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Ryan Giles at LinkedIn for his assistance and insights in the creation of this case. The
authors would also like to thank Betsy Erwin, Education Lead at the Center for Positive Organizations, at the
University of Michigan for her contributions to this case.

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 Values-based Candidate Selection at LinkedIn: One Hiring Manager’s Approach W93C96

End Notes
1
A Brief History of LinkedIn, LinkedIn Corporation. http://ourstory.linkedin.com/, April 9, 2014.
2
A Brief History of LinkedIn, LinkedIn Corporation. http://ourstory.linkedin.com/, April 9, 2014.
3
Liedke, Michael (2013, May 13). “CEO Jeff Weiner Has a Big, Audacious Goal For LinkedIn’s Next Decade.” Business Insider.com.
4
2013 April. Letter to Shareholders. http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-69T44N/0x0x665814/6F886EB6-2C01-4284-
B43D-8684D46046FE/LinkedIn_2012_10-K_Annual_Report_bannerless_PDF_for_posting_.PDF. LinkedIn Corproateion.
5
A Brief History of LinkedIn, LinkedIn Corporation. http://ourstory.linkedin.com/, April 9, 2014.
6
G. M. (2011, May 19). LinkedIn’s Initial Public Offering. The Economist.Com.
7
2013 April. 2013 Form 10-K. LinkedIn Corporation.
8
Smith, Jacquelyn (2013, December 11). “The Best Companies to Work for in 2014”. Forbes.com
9
2013 April. 2013 Form 10-K. LinkedIn Corporation.
10
2013 April. 2013 Form 10-K. LinkedIn Corporation.
11
Weiner, Jeff (2012, October 15). “Managing Compassionately.” Linkedin.Com.
12
Weiner, Jeff (2012, October 15). Managing Compassionately. Linkedin.Com.
13
2013. “The Art of Conscious Leadership: Jeff Weiner.” [YouTube Video]. Wisdom2Conference.com, http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=2x0fOLqj2Zw

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 Values-based Candidate Selection at LinkedIn: One Hiring Manager’s Approach W93C96

Notes

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 Values-based Candidate Selection at LinkedIn: One Hiring Manager’s Approach W93C96

Notes

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 The Center for Positive Organizations, based at the Ross School of Business, is a
world-class research center that brings transformational research to students and leaders
through articles, books, events, tools, teaching, and organizational partnerships. Since
2002, the Center has been the hub of research on Positive Organizational Scholarship. Our
domains of research are Positive Meaning & Purpose, Positive Ethics & Virtues, Positive
Relationships, Positive Culture, and Positive Leadership in an organizational setting.
http://positiveorgs.bus.umich.edu

Established at the University of Michigan in 1992, the William Davidson Institute

(WDI) is an independent, non-profit research and educational organization focused on
providing private-sector solutions in emerging markets. Through a unique structure
that integrates research, field-based collaborations, education/training, publishing,
and University of Michigan student opportunities, WDI creates long-term value for
academic institutions, partner organizations, and donor agencies active in emerging
markets. WDI also provides a forum for academics, policy makers, business leaders, and
development experts to enhance their understanding of these economies. WDI is one
of the few institutions of higher learning in the United States that is fully dedicated to
understanding, testing, and implementing actionable, private-sector business models
addressing the challenges and opportunities in emerging markets.

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