Dharmik Paramkusham

Product Experience

Our Mission and Objective

I believe the world could be a better place to live if more people understood where others are coming from. This project idea reflects my passion for building solutions for all students seeking professional opportunities. I am a frequent LinkedIn user and aspiring Product Manager. I developed a solution to address untapped opportunities for LinkedIn’s student experience and maximize the platform’s ability to accelerate young people’s careers. I aim to leverage the features to build a better experience for students on LinkedIn.

Key Pain Points and Proposed Solutions

While designing the solution, I conducted user research with 20 students, creating an affinity Map to reveal the main pain points in the following table. I then developed solutions for each pain point, involving 5 students in usability testing. Find my research plan here and the product spec below!  

Compare’s Competitive Advantage

An amalgamation of networks and resources: LinkedIn is a platform that can house all aspects of a student’s professional journey, whereas competitors focus on individual pain points.

Building ahead of competitors with subject matter expertise: Current competitors are startups that lack LinkedIn’s extensive user data and feedback.An existing, growing platform of students: the number of 18-24-year-olds on the platform has almost doubled since 2016, growing 30% more this time than the platform’s overall user base.

Why Improving the Student Experience Should Be a Priority

Direct alignment with LinkedIn’s mission and vision: We’re creating economic opportunity for students and building connections to help them be more productive & successful

The market opportunity: There are 184M 18-24 year-olds on LinkedIn, with ~60% having a WTP of $10/year – 1.1B market that will grow exponentially with the user base