Thanks for the concept 'premature rejection'. Especially between some connections, premature rejection becomes a risk no one wants to take.

I'm a hiring manager. There are a number of connections on LinkedIn that I would happily interview if they expressed interest. There are also a small number of connections I would love to interview me for a role at their company. The current model does nothing to allow me to differentiate.

You are right in pointing out the asymmetric nature of job interviews, namely "You may want to work for this person" vs "You may want to hire this person".

In the current model we wanted to keep things simple and leave as much as possible to them to decide or know. With a check box, we may ask them to select exactly what they want with this particular person.

Do you think, for every selection, asking whether you want to hire or you want to work for a particular person is really necessary, or is it enough to leave this to them, of course with a certain risk of misunderstanding in some cases. I would be pleased to hear your opinion.

I certainly believe that being given the option would be a significant improvement. How you execute that appropriately is better answered by a UX expert which I'm definitely not!

Initially we implemented hiring and applying as the same action, assuming our users would implicitly know how they position each other. After a week of feedback, we now allow you to choose to select to hire or get hired by someone.

We appreciate your feedback.