LinkedIn drops age limit to 14 to target ambitious high-school students

In this May 9, 2011 file photo, LinkedIn Corp., the professional networking Web site, displays its logo outside of headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. (AP / Paul Sakuma)

Teens over the age of 14 who are eager to get their careers started as soon as possible will now be able to join the professional social-networking site, LinkedIn.

The site announced Monday it’s dropping its minimum age to 14 in many countries. The new rules go into effect Sept. 12 in Canada, the U.S., Spain and Germany. LinkedIn has set an age minimum of 13 for several other countries.

While LinkedIn has traditionally been a way for professionals to connect, the company says students are thinking about their career prospects at younger ages.

“Smart, ambitious students are already thinking about their futures when they step foot into high school – where they want to go to college, what they want to study, where they want to live and work,” LinkedIn said in a statement announcing the changes.

“We want to encourage these students to leverage the insights and connections of the millions of successful professionals on LinkedIn, so they can make the most informed decisions and start their careers off right.”

At the same time, LinkedIn is also launching a new venture called University Pages, which it says will be a new way for high-school students to learn about universities around the world, to interact with university admissions departments and alumni, and to explore their full range of career and education possibilities.

LinkedIn says 200 universities have already set up pages, and over the next few weeks, thousands more schools will get on board.

Christina Allen, LinkedIn's director of product management, says the idea for the pages came after she saw her daughter and her friends struggle with learning about their career options and about which schools would best help them get the careers they wanted.

“We believe University Pages will be especially valuable for students making their first, big decision about where to attend college,” Allen writes on the LinkedIn blog, noting the pages will also help them “get a head start on building a network of family and friends to help guide them at every milestone.”

LinkedIn currently has more than 238 million members worldwide, two-thirds of whom are outside the U.S. That includes about 30 million college students and recent graduates, which LinkedIn says are its fastest growing demographic.

The company, which went public in May 2011, is free to members. The company makes most of its revenue by charging fees to employers and headhunters for access to member profiles and other data, and to members who subscribe for extra services.