If you look at it as a tool for recruiters, you won't be searching for specific people. You'll be searching for attributes/skills you're looking for, and then get a list.

If you're an individual applying for a job, you'd link to your profile, so the recruiter who receives your application won't need to search.

If you're connecting with someone you know personally, then you should already have enough information at hand in order to know you have the right person based on their listed work experience.

The only time you might search is when you're doing professional networking and only have a name. But you usually have some other piece of info, like the company they work for, and possibly their broad job function or title. 99% of the time that should be enough to disambiguate people with the same name. And if all you have is a name, maybe you haven't really "networked" with them enough to warrant a connection?

>If you're connecting with someone you know personally, then you should already have enough information at hand in order to know you have the right person based on their listed work experience.

But the point isn't to connect to those people. They're a phone call/e-mail away. It's to connect with and maintain the connection to the randos that you briefly meet.

maybe you see portraits of connections, but something else for those who've yet to connect. Or maybe portraits if it appears that you likely know the person? Similarly, maybe you can search by name or know the names of those you are connected to, but, by default, you don't get a pic or a name. Hmmmm.

The picture still helps to disambiguate which of the three John Smiths that went to University of Foobar was the one that you met at the mixer yesterday.