Over the last several months we have been hiring in several areas. So far the best service has been CraigsList in terms of quality of applicants. However I have just started using Linkedin's new service and it is starting to show what a social network can do. The user interface is dramatically easier than CraigsList (which has completely awful search capabilities - try searching for C# or .Net) and makes use of your social network to get well matched clients.

Is it perfect - no it has a long way to go but it is the first feature in a social network that does something unique to social networking and makes business sense. To early to tell yet if the quality of applicants matches CraigsList but Linkedin has the right demographic for our type of business, technically sophisticated, early adopters and willing to push the envelope. So I imagine that it should evolve into a very good service if they can keep the signal to noise ratio low - I notice a lot of recruiters in there already. While recruiters are a necessary part of our business they are an intermediary that might not work in a social network the same way the work today. It is an area Linkedin should think about to keep the service useful.