I won't speculate on LinkedIn's practices, although it seems possible they could drive retention by 'rotating' inactive users into a more featured spot (or mayb

I won't speculate on LinkedIn's practices, although it seems possible they could drive retention by 'rotating' inactive users into a more featured spot (or maybe you're correct and they have a feedback loop based around who's 'hot'). On the other hand, it could just be that when larger companies have openings, they're typically hiring for more than one developer. Thus, they might contract multiple recruiting agencies who then converge on the same profiles based off the information they're all getting from the hiring company, leading to a flurry of contacts in short bursts. Aside from looking through LinkedIn's query logs or talking to someone who works there, I'm not sure how you could verify either hypothesis, though.