Social network LinkedIn has announced the launch of Talent Pipeline, allowing companies to follow talent leads and keep track of “passive candidates”.

Talent Pipeline forms part of LinkedIn’s existing Recruiter platform and will not incur extra charges for users.

LinkedIn chief executive, Jeff Weiner, says: “Recruiters are actively looking for more talent from more sources and managing all their talent leads across multiple tools. With LinkedIn Talent Pipeline, we’re extending our Recruiter platform and continuing our focus to connect talent with opportunity on a massive scale by providing a single place to manage and update these leads, wherever they are found.”?

LinkedIn says the new service will be available in the first half of next year.