Improve LinkedIn's onboarding flow

This question is asking for your thoughts and suggestions on how to improve the user onboarding process for LinkedIn, a professional social networking site. It is a Product Design question and brings your user experience and product management skills into focus.

To answer this question effectively, you should understand what user onboarding is and its importance in a user's journey. It's a process that guides new users to find value in a product, ensure user retention, and help the business grow. Therefore, improvements should ultimately lead to better user engagement and retention.

You should think about the onboarding flow from the perspective of a new user, consider steps that are unclear or inefficient, and offer suggestions for improvement. You should also consider the specifics of LinkedIn's onboarding process, their user base, and their platform's objectives.

Potential key-points for your answer could be:

• Specific issues with the current onboarding flow.
• Solutions to these problems.
• Justifications for these improvements (e.g., how they enhance user experience or engagement).

The current LinkedIn onboarding process does a decent job in the initial user data collection like work experience, education, skills, and so on. However, one area to improve is helping new users quickly find value and engage with the platform.

For instance, LinkedIn could introduce a feature that recommends top influencers in users' fields of interest. This not only helps users start engaging with valuable content right away but also offers a sense of customization.

Additionally, LinkedIn can enhance the 'Invitation to Connect' feature. Currently, it is not always clear why you should connect with recommended individuals. To address this, the platform could provide reasons for each suggestion, like shared skills or common connections, making the decision to connect more informed and valuable.

Upon sign-up, LinkedIn asks for work history, education, skills, etc. But it relies heavily on the users to comprehend the overall ecosystem and starts benefitting from the platform actively. There should be more guided actions for new users.

As an improvement, LinkedIn can introduce a step-by-step tutorial or interactive tour which walks the users through different features. For example, explain 'how endorsements work,' 'how to follow relevant hashtags,' 'how to share posts effectively,' or 'how to engage in LinkedIn learning.'

Another pain point is users often face obscurity in deciding the degree of professionalism required on the platform. LinkedIn can include coaching cues or best practice tips throughout the onboarding flow. Highlighting successful profiling examples or triggering helpful tooltips at complex points can reassure users they’re effectively setting up their profiles.

Improvements in these areas will not only simplify onboarding but also help users understand how they can better engage and extract value from the platform.