LinkedIn Professional Network  ·  View 06 of 30  ·  2 · People and journeys

Journey — Recruiter, Search to First Reply

The paying customer's journey, where search relevance, member privacy and metered messaging meet.

Editable source SVG draw.io All views
Recruiter agency or in-house, paid seat Goal — Fill a hard-to-fill role from people who will answer Trigger — A new requisition with a deadline Done when — A shortlist of interested, qualified people in a week 1 · Define 2 · Search 3 · Shortlist 4 · Reach out ◆ moment of truth 5 · Get a reply ◆ moment of truth What they do Sets title, skills, place Runs the search Saves 20 profiles Sends InMail Waits for answers Where Recruiter app Recruiter search Project pipeline InMail composer Inbox How it feels Confident Neutral Frustrated Behind the glass Query builder Galene people Privacy filter Projects · MySQL Messaging Credits · MySQL Messaging ATC Where it hurts Skills named ten ways Hidden profiles leak Duplicates across seats Credit spent on a block Most InMails ignored What would fix it Standardised skills Filter at index + query Shared team pipeline Check block before debit Rank by open to work How we know Query refinements Search p95 ≤ 300 ms Saved per search Credits refunded InMail response rate User Journey — Recruiter, Search to First Reply The reply is the trough, and the fix is a ranking signal, open to work, that privacy rules must let through. v 1.0 · owner Product + Enterprise Architecture · date 2026-09

What the trough decides

  • Open to work is a ranking and filter signal that recruiters see and recruiters at the member's own company do not. That rule lives inside the search index
  • An InMail credit is debited in the same MySQL transaction that records the send, and refunded by rule. The block check runs before the debit
  • Profiles opted out of recruiter search are dropped at index time and filtered again at query time, which is defence in depth for a privacy promise

Numbers

  • Recruiter search p95 under 300 ms at an assumed 5k queries a second peak
  • InMail send p95 under 500 ms
  • The credit ledger reconciles daily with zero drift

Where the set answers it

  • Search and privacy filtering: views 19 and 29
  • Messaging and delivery: view 18
  • Credits and projects in the data model: views 10 and 13
◀  Journey — Creator, Draft to Reach All views Layered Architecture  ▶
Solution Architecture v1.0 · LinkedIn's own stack in LinkedIn-run colos · Enterprise Architecture · 2026-0906-journey-recruiter