Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, calls his visit after a gap of seven years as a celebration of the next phase of growth from the Indian market. The India market, with around 37 million users, is the second largest after the US. It has come up with special solutions for the Indian market, including a ‘light’ version that can be used on mobile phones and a ‘Starter Pack’ solution for small companies, to enable access, create posts and train staff.

In an interaction with the media, Weiner spoke about ‘localisation’ and how the new services fold into the larger vision of ‘Skill India’.

Till date localisation efforts have been minimal...

For us, this is the second largest market and our efforts have always centred around localisation. Our efforts around LinkedIn placements helps graduates assess their skills, aligned with the private sector so that placements are effective... it minimises the skills mismatch gap better. We have tie-ups with 25 companies that can look at these individuals as prospective employees. They also can get certified around skillsets needed in the workplace, in line with the requirements of corporates. The demand we forecast will come from tier-II cities, where the dynamics are different.

What has driven your push to tier-II cities? How much of it is due to saturation in the metros?

We look at this as an opportunity. What we have understood from our research is that the issue of assessment is critical in these places as unlike colleges in tier-I cities, these institutions do not have dedicated placement officers. Also, internet access in large parts of India outside the metros is different. That is the reason we have launched LinkedIn lite. For example, our new app takes less than 150 KB to load and post that it will consume about 70 KB. It will load four times faster than its previous mobile website and consume less data.

Your focus has been largely around jobs in the tech sector. This sector in India is not creating the same quantum of jobs as in the past...

We are not restricting ourselves to any particular sector. In India, we are tailoring our offering to jobs in banking, consumer package goods and other sectors — in entry as well as middle skilled jobs, vocational training and certification and the gig economy. If I were to draw a parallel, recently we have seen few signs in the US-wherein tech hiring is slowing up a little bit. Currently, there are 5.9 million jobs available and there is a widening skills gap there too.

Fund flow has reduced for the Indian start-ups ecosystem. What do you attribute this slowdown to?

India is exciting. Companies like Flipkart and Ola have been achieving hyper growth. There has been a compression in valuations of some of them as these valuations got ahead of themselves. I think the funding dynamic remains healthy in early as well as late stages. While there has been a drought of tech IPOs , it is starting to build up again.

Also, the Indian government deserves credit for shining a light on investments, which has had a multiplier effect and accelarated the economy.

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