I'm not sure how much one should read into that. I mean, ok, there are probably some guys (and some women, as far as that goes) who click on profiles solely due to the attractiveness of the picture. BUT... there are other reasonable reasons to explain a picture like shown above. For example, note that all of the people listed appear to work in related domains (marketing, event management of some sort). Given the nature of linkedin (business networking, with a heavy emphasis on recruiting) it makes sense that somebody looking to, say, poach an event planner or marketing person, would look at those profiles. And, from what I've seen, those are a couple of domains where women are heavily represented. Recruiting is another one.

Anyway, just as a little anecdotal test, I just logged into LinkedIn and looked at two profiles, both attractive women, where one is a recruiter and the other is a developer. In the recruiter case, every single entry in the "people also viewed" list was female (and also a recruiter), in the case of the developer they were almost completely male (with two exceptions) and are either developers or work for the same company.

I don't know... maybe this is indicative of something that should be considered "creepy" but I have my doubts.

Further, there tends to be a high correlation between someone's success in a field such as marketing and recruiting, and their appearance. I don't want to generalize too much, but most recruiter emails I get are from very attractive women, and I have a feeling that's not unintentional, as gross as that sounds.

Yeah. I guess it says something about society, human nature, etc., but I think you're right. Heck, I can't even remember ever meeting a female recruiter who wasn't at least moderately attractive. And most of the women I've met, who were recruiters, are what I'd describe as flat-out "gorgeous" or "beautiful".

So... are attractive women particularly drawn to recruiting for some reason, or is physical appearance a hiring criteria for recruiting companies? Both? Neither?

I know a woman who was thinking of joining tech recruiting, and she asked me about it. She went for an interview, and most of the to-be co-workers were young women, and also attractive. It seemed like one of the requirements though it wasn't explicitly stated.

She was interested in it primarily for the pay; they were promising something like 45-60k a year, and her current position was only around $30k. You start off as a recruiter, and then you move up into account management, which is better pay and a larger budget for wining and dining clients.

Recruiters and event planners are mostly attractive women, for obvious reasons. So I'm not sure what the above post really signifies...

I get why that makes sense for recruiters, but why event planners?

I've noticed that the "LinkedIn Updates" email spam tend to heavily feature a few attractive women than I worked with some time ago. I strongly suspect Linkedin is using these women's photos to bait people into clicking through to the site (and thus show up in the 'people also viewed' list).

Yeah, I've noticed that quite often. If you happen onto the profile of pretty much any woman that's above average attractive (and quite a few that aren't) you get that. I don't think the same is case for the men, though perhaps I'm just blind to what women finds attractive in men...

I used to get really upset at the large number of local recruiting firms that used a revolving door of attractive women fresh out of college to work as external recruiters. They were energetic, friendly, and it's a lot harder to say no to a sales pitch when they're at your office door and smiling.

Now I can see that there's a secondary use for an attractive LinkedIn profile picture as well. That might have a lot more leverage than cold-calling offices these days.

All of those people appear to be in the Washington DC area. It is possible they are all in the same social circle in which case, it would make complete sense they would all be viewed as a group.