Key Points:
- Dan Shapero, LinkedIn’s COO, believes 2024 will be the year AI starts to make our lives easier.
- Shapero has observed an increasing interest among job seekers in using AI effectively in their job search.
- His insights are part of Business Insider’s year-end leadership series, “Looking Ahead 2024.”
Dan Shapero, the chief operating officer of LinkedIn, opines that the year 2024 will mark a significant turning point where the fruits of AI capabilities will start enhancing our day-to-day lives. As part of his role, Shapero is responsible for overseeing how customers utilise the job-networking platform for several tasks such as hiring personnel, staff training, and product marketing.
Shapero suggests that LinkedIn has matured from merely being a platform for building a professional network to a knowledge base that offers content focused on subjects of interest to professionals. He indicates that LinkedIn is aiming to utilise AI further, particularly to assist job search. AI could potentially aid job seekers in contacting prospective employers, self-description, and interview preparation.
However, Shapero acknowledges certain concerns for 2024. The escalating global conflicts and their impact on LinkedIn’s international employees, their families, and friends is a personal concern for him. From a business standpoint, he feels it’s critical for companies to consider their employees’ satisfaction levels to prevent high attrition rates when the economy improves. He believes that companies who fail to understand their employees’ needs and do not strive to engage them may risk losing their top talent to other opportunities.
Reflecting on 2023, Shapero praises LinkedIn’s decision to integrate next-gen AI models into a broad range of products. These AI applications aimed at assisting recruiters, salespeople, job seekers and even profile writing brought profound change. In contrast, he regrets the company’s decision to over-hire in response to significant business growth during 2021 and 2022, which led to layoffs in 2023. Shapero emphasizes the importance of sustaining energy within the working environment and expresses his wish that the leadership team had recognized its importance earlier.