Employment data collection just got easier — meet LinkedIn Profile Import
LinkedIn Profile Import empowers students and alumni to import their LinkedIn job history directly into their 12twenty profile during sign-up, login, or at any time from their profile page. It’s designed to enhance profile completeness, reduce manual entry, and improve overall data quality across your platform, without extra work from your team. With more complete profiles, employers gain deeper insights, and Career Centers can focus less on nudging students and more on strategic engagement.
Table of Contents
- Overview & Benefits
- Configuration Requirments
- Where It Appears
- Student/Alumni Experience
- Important Notes & Admin Experience
- FAQs
Overview & Benefits
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The Problem: Students and alumni often sign up with minimal profile information, often skipping the crucial step of documenting their work history. This results in incomplete profiles that limit their visibility in employer searches and hinder their chances of being discovered as top candidates. For Career Services teams, this lack of data poses a significant challenge: Admins are left to send repeated email reminders, create surveys, or conduct one-on-one follow-ups just to fill in the gaps. The time spent chasing down this information could be better spent supporting students in more meaningful ways. Moreover, incomplete data reduces the quality of analytics and outcome reporting, making it harder for institutions to showcase student success. |
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Our Solution: LinkedIn Profile Import directly addresses these challenges by allowing students and alumni to pull their job experience from LinkedIn into their 12twenty profile in seconds. During login, sign-up, or from their profile page, users are prompted to connect their LinkedIn account. Once authenticated, they can import their work history—including job titles, employer names, and dates—and categorize each role for accurate outcome tracking. The import process is fully user-driven and ensures that only relevant, verified information is added to the profile. For Admins, this feature means less manual work, better data integrity, and more complete profiles for employers to review. It also enhances the onboarding experience, allowing new users to feel productive and empowered from day one. |
Key Benefits:
Faster Profile Completion – Students can populate their work history in seconds.
Richer Candidate Profiles – Employers see more complete experience data in Candidate Search.
Cleaner Data for Admins – Reduce manual nudges with a more automated, accurate process.
No Duplicate Overwrite – Existing outcomes remain intact; students can manually exclude duplicates if needed.
Configuration Requirements
Wait! Before users can access LinkedIn Profile Import, the following requirements must be met:
1. Your site must include our Outcome data collection module (ODA). If ODA is not included on your site, please connect with your dedicated Customer Success Manager or reach out to us at customersuccess@12twenty.com.
2. 12twenty must enable LinkedIn Profile Import on your site.
Once enabled, the import prompt appears automatically in the student/alumni login flow and on the student/alumni profile.
Where It Appears
When enabled, the import prompt will appear to students/alumni in two locations:
1. Upon Login or Sign-up
2. In the Profile Completeness section of the profile
Note: The prompt to import will only appear if:
- LinkedIn Profile Import is enabled (this must be done by 12twenty)
- The student/alumni is eligible to report outcomes based on your school's Outcome Survey settings
- A LinkedIn account has not already been connected to their profile
Student/Alumni Experience
During Sign-up or Login:
1. The student/alumni is prompted to connect their LinkedIn.
2. Once the URL is entered, a preview of their LinkedIn profile will appear, containing their name, most recent title, and profile photo. They will confirm that the profile found is correct by clicking Continue, or re-enter their LinkedIn URL by clicking Not you?
3. Once they click Continue, all public-facing roles from their LinkedIn profile will be displayed on the next screen. They can then take the following actions:
- Select a category (job phase) for each role that they'd like to import. A category must be selected in order to import successfully.
- Edit or exclude roles from the import using the three-dot action button to the right of each role.
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- Editable Fields include:
- Job Title
- Employer
- Location
- Current role (Y/N)
- Start Date
- End Date
- Editable Fields include:
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4. Once they've made all desired edits, exclusions, and categorizations, they'll click Save & Continue at the bottom of the window, which will trigger the import. Imported Outcomes will be added to the student's profile, and notifications for approval/rejection will appear for Admins.
Important Notes & Admin Experience
Students/alumni can only see the categories (job phases) that are available to them based on your Outcome survey settings.
If no eligible job phases are available, the import prompt will not display.
The import experience is the same for students/alumni upon login and through the profile completeness view.
Imported data will not overwrite existing outcomes.
- Imported Outcomes are treated like student-entered Outcomes and will be added to the Outcomes notifications queue for Admins to approve or reject.
- The 'Knowledge Source' of imported outcomes will be classified as Student Reported (LinkedIn Import)
- If the student/alumni forgets to categorize an included Outcome during the flow, they will receive the following error message.
FAQs
Can students skip the import when logging in or signing up?
Yes. They can skip the step and revisit it later when they log in again, or within the profile completeness area.
Will this overwrite existing Outcomes?
No, the system will not overwrite existing Outcomes. Duplicates are flagged and can be manually excluded where needed.
Do imported Outcomes require approval?
Yes. The same approval rules apply to LinkedIn-imported data.
Are imported Outcomes classified or tagged as being from LinkedIn?
Yes. All LinkedIn Outcomes are classified as "Student Reported (LinkedIn Import)" in the Knowledge Source field.
What information is imported from LinkedIn?
The following data is pulled directly from the student’s LinkedIn profile:
- Profile photo (if one doesn't already exist)
- Job Title
- Employer
- Employment Dates
- LinkedIn URL (if one doesn't already exist)
Who can see imported outcomes?
Imported outcomes follow your existing approval and visibility rules. Admins can approve or reject them just like other student-reported data.
What happens if LinkedIn returns no data?
Students will see a prompt to skip the step. If they close the window mid-process, they’ll resume from the same step next login.