At LinkedIn, we like to ring in the new year with a bang. That's why I'm happy to announce that we've extended the LinkedIn API to include more fields of rich profile data for integration with applications using the LinkedIn Platform.
LinkedIn's Profile API now includes additional profile fields for accessing users' publications, patents, skills, certifications, and language fluencies, as documented here. You can access this data by applying advanced field selectors using our API (for example, http://api.linkedin.com/v1/people/~:(id, first-name, last-name, skills)).
Let's take a look at each of the new sections that will be available to access for users who have listed these details on their profiles!
Publications
Find the prolific authors and published researchers in your network. The publications section contains data pertaining to the user's body of published work, including title, publication date, publisher, co-authors, and an abstract.
http://api.linkedin.com/v1/people/~/publications
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<publications total="1">
<publication>
<id>31</id>
<title>PHP Cookbook</title>
<date>
<year>2006</year>
<month>8</month>
<day>1</day>
</date>
</publication>
</publications>
Languages
Ever wonder who in your network speaks Russian? Do any of your connections know three or more languages fluently? Now you can determine the languages spoken by LinkedIn members and their proficiency levels in your application with the languages selector.
http://api.linkedin.com/v1/people/~/languages
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<languages total="2">
<language>
<id>70</id>
<language>
<name>English</name>
</language>
</language>
<language>
<id>72</id>
<language>
<name>Klingon</name>
</language>
</language>
</languages>
Skills
A listing of skills with proficiency levels and years of experience will give you information about a user's areas of expertise and proficiencies. Discover the strengths of your network! For example, need to find the Java experts? Want to visualize which of your connections can help with viral marketing? Look no further than the skills section.
http://api.linkedin.com/v1/people/~/skills
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<skills total="1">
<skill>
<id>38</id>
<skill>
<name>Union negotiations</name>
</skill>
</skill>
</skills>
Certifications
Access the certifications, licensure, and clearances that users have attained by selecting the certifications field.
http://api.linkedin.com/v1/people/~/certifications
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<certifications total="1">
<certification>
<id>32</id>
<name>Series 7 Exam</name>
</certification>
</certifications>
Patents
Is there an inventor in your midst? For users with patents and patent applications listed on their profiles, the patents field will give your application access to information on their inventions. Access links to issued and pending patents along with listed co-inventors, and see how the seeds of innovation are sprouting in your own network!
http://api.linkedin.com/v1/people/~/patents
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<patents total="1">
<patent>
<id>51</id>
<title>BID SYSTEM FOR PRESENTATION OF DATA ITEMS</title>
<date>
<year>2008</year>
<month>7</month>
<day>23</day>
</date>
</patent>
</patents>
These five sections are the first of many more that we will be rolling out on the LinkedIn site as well as our developer API. We look forward to seeing LinkedIn Platform integrations that help bring the richness of LinkedIn profiles to the places you work.
As a reminder, fields returned in a user's profile are subject to LinkedIn's data visibility rules and the member's privacy settings. In certain scenarios, you may receive only the following fields for a user:
<person><id>private</id><last-name>private</last-name></person>
Read more about the specific API behavior here, and make sure your application is ready to handle these situations.
Best wishes in the new year!