LinkedIn hits 500 million users as it remains the quiet giant of social media

LinkedIn just hit a big milestone — the social networking platform now has more than 500 million users, according to a statement the company sent out on Monday.

In other words, you can now easily peruse the resumes of half a billion people.

While it may not make as much noise as Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat, LinkedIn's got close to seven percent of the world's population tied into its network. The platform passed 400 million users toward the end of October 2015, and crossed the 450 million mark about nine months later.

Hitting the 500 million member mark another nine months after hitting 450 million shows the company's rate of growth has stayed pretty consistent over that time.

That said, it's not all rosy news for LinkedIn — while the company's membership has ticked upward, their monthly active user base has sat at about 25 percent of that membership for more than a year. Sure, active users will increase as long as the overall membership increases, but that still leaves a massive chunk of users who only check the network occasionally. (Like when you accidentally open one of those LinkedIn emails and say to yourself "Heh, sure, I'll see what these 412 notifications are about.")

But for those who do actively use LinkedIn, the network is also home to around 10 million jobs at around nine million companies. And LinkedIn can be a bit more useful for people who live in certain areas. Londoners, for example, average more LinkedIn connections than residents of any other city on the planet, followed by Amsterdam, San Francisco and Jakarta. The United Arab Emirates has more average connections than any single country. Sadly for stateside users, the United States doesn't make the top five countries for generating LinkedIn connections.

Ultimately, though, the 500 million member milestone demonstrates on big point — LinkedIn remains a quiet giant of social media.