Sue Duke | The Future of Linkedin

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0:34Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. Welcome to Jimmy's Jobs of the Future. I'm delighted to be joined by today's guest. I have watched LinkedIn grown substantially over the last few years. Obviously, running a jobs podcast, it's a pretty major driver of listeners for us. But I was thinking back to when I left Downing Street six years ago, I don't think you could even post updates then on it.

1:14Watching its evolution over the last few years has been fascinating. Just a couple of years ago, there was something like 20 % of FTSE directors on it. Now that number's at about 80%. And I think it's a really important social network for young people to be getting on and being able to kind of like connect with leaders. It's like this amazing Rolodex service. I've just written about it in the Daily Mail. I'm about to be writing for the Mail on Sunday about why young people should be on it as well. So I was thrilled and honoured to be joined by Sue Duke, who I think has one of the most interesting jobs at LinkedIn, and if not worldwide.

1:51She is the managing director for the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Latin America. And she's also their head of global public policy. When places like the ONS and the Bank of England have been struggling with jobs data, I think if I was back in my old job at number 10, I would have Sue Duke on speed dial in terms of trying to find out what's happening in the jobs market. And it'd be rude of me not to at this point plug following me on LinkedIn. at Jimmy McLaughlin. On to today's episode. Make sure you subscribe so we can continue to get bigger and bigger guests.

2:33Well, I'm so excited to have you on. Same. Thank you so much for having me. It's so great to be here. Well, I want to find out all about the new role. I mean, you know I'm so enthusiastic about LinkedIn that I might almost be more enthusiastic than you but i think there's this quite interesting thing we are by the way yeah we are on now we are on now good to know you've essentially got like the rise of business comms you've got the sort of the rise of b2b as well in particular so it's almost like linkedin's is like a new sort of trade magazine type thing etc but you've also got the rise of personal brand and like the footsie ceo stat about like 20 being on linkedin five years ago now it's at 80 is um staggering and i can like completely see why but yeah I would just you've been at LinkedIn for a number of years can you tell us about the changes you've seen over that time on the platform I think LinkedIn is such a great example of holding up a mirror to how the world of work has changed like how work has changed how the labor market has changed how things continue to continue to evolve LinkedIn is a manifestation of that.

3:43So going back to when LinkedIn first started, it was all about professional networking. And that was done in a very traditional way, you know, of meeting somebody at a conference and you exchange a business card and then you go and connect with them. And it's quite a formal relationship. It's a very defined relationship. It is a work relationship. And that's the basis on which we connect with one another. And over time, it has evolved into this platform that people go to now every day. We have a billion people on the platform who come day in, day out, and they are coming for advice, those connections for sure.

4:22That remains absolutely key for people. But what they're also getting from the platform is this world of advice, of knowledge. People are contributing as well as getting. That's why the platform works so well. It's this magic ecosystem of people learning from one another, sharing ideas, sharing tips. And then it's also this amazing business platform, as you say, where historically, I would say, people went to look for opportunities, whether it was for a job or a business connection. Now they go on to create their own opportunities, to create their own brand, to create their own business, to create their own leads.

4:58And so it's evolved as the world of work and the economy has evolved into this really dynamic, really rich ecosystem of the world of work, of professional identity, of careers. And I think that will continue to evolve as the economy and the labour market evolves. you just made me think of a memory actually that i have from about 10 years ago which is when people used to add me on linkedin on a sunday night i used to think that is a sign that that person is about to leave their job because they kind of like got to the end of the weekend and logging on to linkedin to think about the next move but like you say now yeah it's like i mean your daily active users must be sort of through the roof right and the reason it's through the roof is exactly that so again historically that's right right people that go well you know we do see it you know you'll see a real surge in January and September when people get back in the new year or they come back from the summer and they're like oh it's your feet I want to do something new and so we'll see a real surge in job activity and job searching activity then but we have seen an enormous surge in people just coming on every day and it is now about what people do what we hear all the time is I log on first thing in the morning it's where I get my professional advice pulse on what's going on I I get my business news.

6:16There's key people I follow. You know, people who use the platform really well, I think are very intentional about how they curate their feed. Members have full control over their feed. And so they choose, I know Jimmy is going to be talking about this area of tech or this area of politics. I'm really interested in that. That's really going to help me with my, whatever I have going on and work at the moment. And so I want to know what is he thinking about? Who he's speaking to? What can I take from that? and that is why that is why the daily engagement is at record levels that's why there's a billion members and why it continues to grow all the time is it really is this partner for you in your career in your everyday working life but also as you build out your career over over months and years and decades one of my friends also said to me over the last few days as well he's been logging on every day because he's become really obsessed with the puzzles oh yeah i hadn't thought what So I tried the puzzles last night for the first time, actually, and I found it really cool.

7:17But like, why have you like, what's the sort of logic behind that? Again, that's part of your daily working life now, right? Where people take a break. LinkedIn is all about how do we integrate and add value to people's working lives? And part of being at work is, you know what? It's 12 o 'clock. I need a bit of a breather. I'm going to do a crossword or I'm going to do a quick puzzle. And actually, it's something really cool to do with a colleague or somebody I know. And so it's that sense of community, that sense of creativity, that sense of doing something different and mixing things up. So is it a bit like the Wordle?

7:50Is it everyone doing the same one each day then? Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So there's a community piece around it as well as the, you know what, I just need a break from the emails for five minutes. And I'm going to do some creative and do something interesting and do something with some community about it. So yeah, that's why it's been so popular. Again, a great example of how work has changed and how those professional relationships have changed so much now. So tell us what your job is. So I have two jobs. I mean, some days I feel like I have 18 jobs, but technically I have two jobs, which is I am our global head of public policy.

8:29So that role is I have a team all across the world. And our job is to work at that intersection between policy and LinkedIn. So really at that very, very interesting intersection between technology and the labor market and government policy. and a huge part of what our team does actually so we've been talking a lot about the just that hugely rich dynamic ecosystem that we have on the platform you can imagine the insights and data that comes from having a billion members on the platform 70 million companies we call it this economic graph basically a digital window into the world of work it updates five million times a minute.

9:09And so if you're in government, as both of us have been, you can imagine how extraordinarily valuable it is to have that pulse check on what's going on in your labour market. So a huge part of the work that I and my team do is work with governments, local, national, supranational, all across the world, as well as multinationals like the UN and the World Bank, to empower them with those insights so that they can understand what's going on, get that richness, get that granularity with a view to obviously the better informed, the more data driven, the more evidence based the policy, the better the outcomes for their citizens and their economy.

9:49And then my other job is I am our managing director for EMEA and LATAM. And so my job is to work with our teams all across the region to work with our customers and our members to advance our mission with at LinkedIn is to create economic opportunity for all of those members across our region. And so that's working with our teams on building out the business, building out our culture, working externally and representing the company externally and making sure that we're doing what we should be doing to add value for our members and our customers all across the region every day. Okay, we'll come back to regions, but I'm really interested in the first one, public policy, obviously, given my kind of background in number 10 as well, because one of the things that I felt was like the important part of my job was to try and get the information for the prime minister at the coalface.

10:39So there would always be a bit of a delay in official statistics. So I could call the CEO of Tesco's or whatever and be like, what are you seeing happening to food inflation? This was particularly important at the Brexit and the Brexit vote, etc. Like what is going on with this? And just to act as that early warning radar system. Now, actually, there's quite a lot of problems in the job market at the moment in terms of the information that the Bank of England and the ONS are collating. They've been talking about what a challenge it is. And as you say, you've got a billion users, right? So you've probably almost got more kind of valuable insight than the old school kind of official data.

11:13What are you seeing happening in the jobs market, in the UK particularly at the moment? Yeah. So I would say if you take a step back and look at the big picture and look back a couple of years, What we've seen have been these, you know, we were just chatting earlier about what a watershed moment COVID was when it came to lots of things, but work for sure. So when you look back to the onset of the pandemic, we basically have seen these big, big swings. So at first, you'll remember well, Jimmy, hiring went off a cliff. So the economy shut down. Lots of businesses were closed. Lots of workers were put on furlough, if not let go.

11:51And so we saw this huge, huge drop. And then very soon after, we saw record levels of hiring off the charts. We've never seen hiring at the level that we saw in that hiring surge after the first early stages of the pandemic. And then since about 2002, we've seen a real correction and normalization of that hiring surge where hiring has really, really slowed down. We've seen that acutely in some sectors, but generally across, I would say, most developed economies, the UK for sure, we have seen this normalization, this rebalancing. That bottomed out about December of last year. And what we've seen since then is not a meaningful, but a slow recovery, I would say, of hiring.

12:37Right. So it's starting to pick up a little bit, but not massively. and that's where we currently are I would say generally there are some hot spots where hiring is stronger health care public sector education would be top of that list but for the broader economy what we're seeing is that more that normalization continuing and that so that that's a big picture when it comes to hiring overall what we see more when we look again one of the real advantages of the data is you don't just get the hiring data and month on month day on day but you can also see at a real granular level what is happening to jobs, to skills, both on the demand side and the supply side.

13:22So again, we can see what skills workers are adding to their profile. So we understand what are the stock of skills sitting in a particular labour market. But we can also see what specific skills are in specific job postings so we can understand where demand is going. And there we see a real, real shift, right? So if we look back a couple of years, we've seen that for the average job, the skills for those jobs have changed about 25%. If we look back pre-COVID, big shift there has been digitalization. Again, we saw a huge surge in digitalization and the demand for those skills with the onset of COVID because, again, we were all in our kitchens, businesses were closed down.

14:06And so we saw this real move online. When we look out to 2030, we think it could change up that average job skill set could change up to 70%. And one of the big, big drivers there is digital and AI specifically, where what we see when we look both on the member side and we look on the job posting company side is a huge surge in AI skills. So, for example, here in the UK, just in the past couple of years, we've seen a 6x increase in the amount of AI skills that members are adding. And what's really important to delineate there, I think, is there's two key areas, right? There's the AI technical skills.

14:48They're the skills you need to build the technology and build the application. But the much bigger picture, the bigger story is the AI literacy skills, which are the skills you need to leverage the technology. and there across the board both when we look at job postings and when we look at what member what courses members are taking what skills they're adding we're seeing a huge huge surge there and we fully expect that to continue and give me more example of what ai literacy skills are because i think that's really interesting the way you draw the distinction there because i think you're right that it can just be chucks in this great big ai bucket um so what are ai literacy skills so they are like one of the really interesting things that we see actually on the on the platform members tell us all the time is that they see this coming.

15:35And so they are actually bringing this technology into work themselves, right? Like we're seeing three out of four of them saying, I'm using it in work all the time. And sometimes I just bring in my own technology. So it is things like working with Copilot, working with Gemini, figuring out like prompting is really important right so how do I ask the technology the question in the right way so that I'm going to get the specificity and the accuracy that I need figuring out how do I how do I use co-pilot to take meeting notes how do I use it to summarize emails how do I use it to do the first draft of a press release it's all about integrating it's called co-pilot and not autopilot for a reason which is all about how do I integrate the technology into the work that I need to do so that it's going to free me up to do the more strategic, more value-add stuff.

16:28So, for example, I have to put out a press release. Nothing harder, I'm sure, than you know better than most than staring at a blank page. So, figuring out how do I use Copilot to get that first draft in a way that that is then what I can work off and I can tweak and finesse and personalize and humanize, that's where we see people getting real value out of the technology and using it more and more. I laugh because you're using Copilot a lot there as a phrase. And I forget that actually Microsoft owns LinkedIn, which is part of our distinct brand should be with some of these things, almost in the same way that you kind of forget that Google owns YouTube, for example.

17:09But what have you used AI for? I'm always interested in what latest things people have actually used both personally and professionally so i use it every day um i use it a lot again i what i think about is what are the very repeatable tasks the stuff i do day in day out that honestly just takes up a ton of time and isn't necessarily adding a ton of value so email summary i think is brilliant right so i come in in the morning i'm sure like everybody of just mountains and mountains of email figuring out what are what what are the urgent ones what are the important ones what do i need to get on top of quickly meeting notes i absolutely love so again like so many of us you can spend your whole week your whole day every day in meetings right and sometimes you don't need to be in all those meetings and sometimes you didn't need to be there for the full hour and so the summary that you can get i don't know if you've used uh the meeting notes it is not as well as we could be to be honest at the moment i mean we're such a small team but yeah like so the smaller the team the more the team needs to be leveraged the more i would say use the tools right because it is you know and you know you literally can spend i'm sure everybody has this experience you get to the end of the day you're like what did i do i was at meetings all day yeah and of course there's value value in those meetings but often a summary you know particularly if you're not necessarily actively contributing just i just need the top line of what came out of that meeting what was the context what was the decision what's my action point I didn't need to be there for an hour that honestly for me that has been a game changer and because again I spend so much of my time on email and in meetings so being able to leverage the technology to take a lot of the time a lot of the drudgery frankly and drudgery out of doing emails, sitting in lots of meetings, that just has freed up enormous amounts of time for me to focus on stuff where I feel it's more strategic, I can add more value, and frankly, spend more time with people, right?

19:14Which is the most strategic, valuable thing I do, day in, day out, is spend time with the team, with our members, with our customers, and has freed me up to do exactly that. I, yeah, it's true. I'm just sort of defending our position in terms of like being a team of four or five it means that we're all sort of in the same meetings and whatever like yeah that will probably really change but i think it's but i also think it's interesting because bruce daisley the kind of workplace expert has this great stat about how workplace meetings increased 30 since the pandemic right and it's one of those things as well as where like being in a meeting i saw you will have seen this in government as well being in a meeting was a real kind of like status yes thing right like it's like yeah were you yeah in the meeting etc so i think it's it's fascinating how that could change you've got my brain about other ideas but let's but come to the second half of your job as well because i'm interested in that of like okay so that's the the public policy side and i can imagine that data for government is invaluable but what what does the sort of like you know regional manager of amir and latam do a huge part of what we're focused on is generating value for members, for customers and for governments all across the region.

20:29Right, and as you know, again, the UK is a great example of this. When we look at where businesses are, where members are and where governments are, we're in quite a tight labor market, but reasonably slow growth as well. And so how is it that we can, you know, there's lots of challenges in the labor market. We hear that from members all the time. we hear from customers. I'm sure you heard it in government day in, day out, where you had companies coming into you and saying, we have this big labor shortage, these big skills gaps in X, Y, and Z region. So what we focus on is how can we help create a labor market that's vibrant, growing, dynamic, inclusive?

21:11What do members need in order to participate actively in that? Again, activation of labor market participation. I don't need to tell you, Jimmy, here in the UK, absolutely like acute, acute challenge that we need to overcome for companies. How is it particularly a lot of companies right now? They're not hiring very much. They're not unless they're not letting go people. So how, again, particularly as so many things are changing and moving, how can we help them when they are hiring? They need to make sure it is the best hire they can get. Right. We hear that a lot from customers right now. I might hire five people this year, especially through of SMBs, right?

21:50Every hire is really, really crucial. Us helping them make sure we get the right match, both on the skill side as well as the cultural side. That's a huge part of what we're focused on right now. But then also when they're so focused on their existing workers, and we know those existing workers need to upskill and reskill. LinkedIn Learning is a massive and increasing part of the conversation. So for example, one of the products I'm most excited about at the moment is our LinkedIn Learning Career Hub, which is all about taking the data from those 1 billion members to figure out what is it you need on the skills side, where is the world of work going, matching it directly and integrating it directly with your own jobs and skills internally and then pulling out of that these are the specific bridge of bridge of specific skills you need your workers in finance or in hr to cross in order to upskill so really being really efficient really dynamic to make sure we're getting workers and organizations to where they need to go and then with governments i'm sure you know this very well a huge part of what we do is figuring out, I'd say, especially across our region here, how is it that we get the workforce ready for that twin transition around digital and sustainability that we're facing, right?

23:12We know there's going to be an enormous change in the skills required and how the economy is made up and how the labor market evolves. How can we inform policy and inform decisions so that we're making the right decisions at that macro level? So it really is from the individual member to the organization SMBs as well as those larger enterprises and on up to governments where we're playing our part in in helping everybody succeed as this economy evolves as dynamically and as quickly as it is today yeah well that's certainly true and what are the sort of like different cultures and so on between them because I suppose like LinkedIn has a bit of a sort of like I always think it has quite an American flavor to it right like in terms of you know people are much more open about sort of celebrating wins successes and so on like you know as Brits and Irish we can be a bit more self-deprecating and so on not quite like that but I'd be fascinated as you cover the EMEA as well as Latam like just what the different things that you see and how people are using the platform one of the things that I absolutely love about the platform is it creates that space for all of that richness those different cultures those different languages those different points of views to be part of the conversation and to have a place.

24:31So it's true. You do still see those cultural nuances and those cultural differences. I see it in our different offices around the region as I visit. But you also see it amongst the members. So it's true, actually, that the British and the Irish, I'm going to put us together. One group, this is now we're on shaky territory here, but I'll go ahead. Actually, they bring a lot of humor. They bring a lot of self-deprecation to the post. And that is, that's the content that does so well on the platform. It is that authentic. This is me. I don't take myself that seriously. I like to have a joke about what just happened this morning, as well as add some insight and some expertise.

25:12Everybody knows straight out the gate that is this person. It's not curated. It's not polished. They've just grabbed their phone and done a video about what's happening, helping share some insight but in their very individual authentic way that is what's magic about the platform and we do see that so the irish and the english it is true that you you'll often see i'm sure you see it if you're on you're on the on linkedin every day like me you'll see that come through um and you just see different cultures all across the region and that's what's fabulous about it and then seeing them interact and learn from one another and engage with one another that is the magic at the heart of the platform no question yeah if you're listening to this episode on linkedin about business content you might be quite interested in the production company that powers jimmy's jobs of the future box light helps firms make engaging business content check out what they might be able to do for your company www.boxlight.io back to today's episode probably need to have a bit more of it on there because i think there can be a feeling sometimes like emulate the americans and so on it was like when i was just thinking when i got appointed to the king's awards for enterprise which was like a huge moment and whatever but i even opened it with like i know that people are thrilled and delighted on linkedin a lot a lot but i really am to be appointed to the king's awards for enterprise like it was sort of a bit of a yeah you kind of trying to be that sort of you know be self-deprecating whilst also being kind of like professional about it as well it's like it's always quite an interesting interesting challenge Who do you think is using the platform well?

26:51Like if somebody's listening to this and perhaps, you know, is of that almost old school LinkedIn, checks it every couple of months or whatever. Like who are some good people to follow? Who's using it interestingly? Check out Ben Francis, CEO of Jim Shark, who I think you've had on here. Such a brilliant example of somebody you were talking about, just the volume of CEOs who are now using the platform. And CEOs are coming to the platform in a very different way, I would say, than historically they've shown up, which is, again, very personal, very authentic, very spur of the moment, grab the phone.

27:29And Ben, I think, is such a brilliant example of that, right? And I think in part, that's why he's emerging as a CEO influencer, because people believe what he's saying. They know this is what's on his mind. They know he'll have something interesting to share, but done in this very, like you're sitting down and having a chat with them. And for everything from I'm opening a flagship store on Regent Street and here's me bringing you around it, to I'm here with the product team and here's what we're up to, to here's what we're doing with different businesses and different customers. that is so powerful because you're getting advice, you're getting insight, but you're also getting a human connection and authentic voice as to what's going on.

28:20So I think he's a really great example of somebody who comes to the platform, generates insight, generates interesting content, does it in such a personal, human way. that is that is how to use LinkedIn that is how to build your network that is how to build out your business that is how to build your brand that is the way to do it yeah no I think he's amazing on it and it's also interesting though that for the first five years of building Gymshark he didn't really do any of that personal brand stuff I mean it was partly a different era back in 2012 when he founded it etc so like it wasn't quite as much available to do them but he He did build Norton products, et cetera.

29:00And I think it's actually something. He's also interesting because he's not a particular kind of extrovert in terms of it. But yeah, the content he posts is brilliant. But also in the last four years, you've had a huge amount of FTSE CEOs kind of move on to it as well. It's come from like 20 % to 80%, I believe. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, so it's over 50 % increase in the last two years. And again, I would say the reason it's so successful is those CEOs see the real value of there are the set pieces and those more corporate platforms. But what people really want to hear, what people being customers, being members on the platform and the broader community out there, they want to hear not a, they don't want to sit down and read a corporate press release.

29:46They want to hear from the people who are running the business, what they think, how they're thinking about the future, how they analyze what has just happened and they're speaking about, how they're feeling about it you know you really do get that sense again the ceos who use it really ben is such a great example he use it really well you really do have a sense of this is how he feels about what's going on right now and that deep human connection that is very unique to linkedin that is again that's why we've seen this huge increase and the other thing to think about is video i would say there right where you see more and more so a ceo might do an earnings call yeah and they will literally walk out and grab the phone and again they're walking out of the room grab the phone it's not curated it's not in any way polished they're just walking with the phone in front of them just out of an earnings call here's what we announced here's here's how i'm thinking about it here's what i think it means for the next couple of quarters here's here's here's how you should think about it that is so so powerful right because you feel i am hearing directly from ceo of this major organization i can feel this connection i'm really getting a sense of what's going on there there's no substitute for that um yeah i think it's interesting with the likes of people that own private companies like ben does is kind of in charge of his own fiefdom etc so it's easier for him to sort of do a bit more of this stuff and say what he thinks sometimes i i wonder about the future in terms of where it will go in terms of like um publicly traded companies have obviously got a lot more kind of like stakeholders i.e shareholders to kind of like answer to so i think that'll be an interesting thing but like you say if you come off an earnings call you're probably pretty prepped on what you can and can't say anyway in advance of it but it's just that sort of it's funny the kind of like the sort of collision between content and authenticity as well because obviously you see authenticity particularly in the political world become a much bigger thing.

31:48Yeah. You have got politicians using it a bit more as well, right? Like, I wouldn't say it's a massive grave area, but you are, there are people using it there. Where we see politicians use it really well is when they are quite substantive, often policy focused conversations, typically honestly about the economy or the labour market. Members are coming to LinkedIn every day to get insights about work, about labour market, about the economy. And so politicians, what you see happening more and more is there's a new white paper out on some area of the economy or some initiative. And a politician will come in, come on and talk about what it again might grab the phone and do a video or there might be a longer forum post giving an overview of what's happening.

32:36And what's really interesting is how substantive of the engagement is in the comments. And when I speak to politicians, that's what they love, right? Is they have, because you can have a longer form conversation, because it's people who are very focused on this particular area, because they're coming to the platform to get insights and have a conversation about financial services in the economy, politicians then hear from people working in that area, engaged in that area, interested in that area. So actually, when I meet politicians, what they'll say is, What I absolutely love about LinkedIn is I put out X white paper on financial services, as you know, typically not front page news.

33:18And I have people who are super engaged, super expert, super interested in it, giving me feedback, drawing me out in certain areas, giving me suggestions. And that makes the policy richer, it makes the conversation richer, it makes the understanding deeper. so what does really well are those I would say longer form more substantive quality conversations about policy yeah it's um all that is interesting when you sort of like verge into the kind of like political side of it I posted yesterday about like just for context this will be out in a couple weeks can we be not gave a speech and sort of promised to scrap stamp duty and I was like maybe the Conservative Party isn't dead after all.

34:05And it's interesting. I've got loads of people saying, yes, but they don't deserve to be back in government yet. They don't deserve all the 14... I was like, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that perhaps they aren't finished like some of the sort of metrics have been saying. So it's kind of... It's interesting when you get into that sort of space because you can end up getting people kind of riled, which is obviously one of the things that these platforms sometimes kind of like, you know, like and so on. But moving away from that, um how what's the danger around ai slot though because there's and and you touched on video with this as well which i think in a way could be a way to counter some ai slot but i'd just be interested to hear how you're thinking about that because we all know it's got easier to write content in the past couple of years so how is the platform going to try and counter ai slot So it does make a lot of things easier, AI, as we discussed, right?