Does LinkedIn Suck? (techcrunch.com) 308
"LinkedIn Sucks" writes TechCrunch's John Biggs:
I hate LinkedIn. I open it out of habit and accept everyone who adds me because I don't know why I wouldn't. There is no clear benefit to the social network. I've never met a recruiter on there. I've never gotten a job. The only messages I get are spam from offshore dev teams and crypto announcements. It's like Facebook without the benefit of maybe seeing a picture of someone's award-winning chili or dog. I understand that I'm using LinkedIn wrong. I understand I should cultivate a salon-like list of contacts that I can use to source stories and meet interesting people. But I have my own story-sourcing tools and my own contacts. It's not even good as a broadcast medium....
LinkedIn is a spam garden full of misspelled, grunty requests from international software houses that are looking, primarily, to sell you services. Because it's LinkedIn it's super easy to slip past any and all defenses against this spam.... I know people have used LinkedIn to find jobs. I never have. I know people use LinkedIn to sell products. It's never worked for me.
The article ends with advice for people trying to contact him on LinkedIn for promotional purposes. "LinkedIn isn't a game. It isn't an alternative to MailChimp. It's a conversational tool. Use it that way." But what do Slashdot's readers think? Is LinkedIn a valuable resource for finding recruiters and job offers, interesting perspectives, and updates on your friends' careers?
Or does LinkedIn suck?
LinkedIn is a spam garden full of misspelled, grunty requests from international software houses that are looking, primarily, to sell you services. Because it's LinkedIn it's super easy to slip past any and all defenses against this spam.... I know people have used LinkedIn to find jobs. I never have. I know people use LinkedIn to sell products. It's never worked for me.
The article ends with advice for people trying to contact him on LinkedIn for promotional purposes. "LinkedIn isn't a game. It isn't an alternative to MailChimp. It's a conversational tool. Use it that way." But what do Slashdot's readers think? Is LinkedIn a valuable resource for finding recruiters and job offers, interesting perspectives, and updates on your friends' careers?
Or does LinkedIn suck?
No shit (Score:4, Insightful)
Was that before or after you found out LinkedIn sends spam on your behalf?
Re: No shit (Score:5, Insightful)
So how do you use LinkedIn correctly? Because nobody has explained it to me, either.
In my experience, if you need it explained to you why you need something after you already have it, then you probably didn't need it.
Re: No shit (Score:4, Insightful)
Start by not accepting EVERY FUCKING INVITATION you receive. My entire network is 250 people. I consider them all a part of my professional resume.
Re: No shit (Score:5, Interesting)
Start by not accepting EVERY FUCKING INVITATION you receive. My entire network is 250 people. I consider them all a part of my professional resume.
DING! DING! DING!
People think it's about your number of connections, but it's about the quality. I'm been using it since 2007 and have a whooping 136 connections. I only accept people that A) I actually know and B) am willing to suggest to others for a job.
I don't use any of the silly social features of it and most of the people I connect to don't either. In fact I only log into the site when I need to update my resume.
Between those two things I don't get anything I would consider spam. I do get invites from random people, but I simply ignore them. There are of course the weekly "we think you'd be perfect for this job that we won't tell you about because we did a keyword search and didn't bother to actually read your profile" BS, but again that is easy to ignore. I also get at least one real (that actually fits my profile) ping from a recruiter a week.
As far as an impact on my career, my current employer (3 years and counting) found me via LinkedIN and my job before that (5 years) came from me being able to use it to see where previous co-workers had ended up and using them as contacts to move there too.
So yeah, as long as you treat it professionally (e.g. skip all the FB-esque garbage) and use it to manage your career, it's a very useful tool. If you treat it as some type of scoring game, then it's going to be garbage.
Re: (Score:3)
I only accept people that A) I actually know and B) am willing to suggest to others for a job.
I feel nearly the same, but add C) those who I think would recommend me for a job.
Re: No shit (Score:4, Insightful)
Start by not accepting EVERY FUCKING INVITATION you receive.
I have 82 connections. I only accept people that I know and who know me, and I only endorse people that I've worked with.
Next piece of advice?
Re: No shit (Score:5, Interesting)
Curate the information you present, much like a resume. Make sure it lists skills and technologies you'd like to use again, because those are what recruiters are searching on. Put in employment-relevant information about yourself like location and employment history.
The biggest difference between LinkedIn and a resume, from a curation perspective, is the amount of information that LinkedIn can reasonably organize. Where a resume is mostly limited in length, LinkedIn is only limited by your desire for privacy. Online, you can (and probably should) list every skill you hold expertise in, rather than keeping a carefully-pruned list of eye-catching skills. A resume is written to pass a human HR drone's quick review, but LinkedIn searches don't care how irrelevant skills they have to parse to include you as a match.
Re: (Score:2)
Make sure it lists skills and technologies you'd like to use again, because those are what recruiters are searching on.
This.
Developers who put an exhaustive list of every single technology they've ever touched as part of their experience makes me sick and they fully deserve whatever mundane job they end up getting as a result of it.
More to your point; I would never flag Java as being something that I know how to use, because I would hate my life every day at work for having to use it. I have a general idea what kind of jobs I'm missing out on. I don't care.
Currently using C++ mainly and wouldn't want it any different. The t
Re: (Score:2)
As sibling said: Linkedin is a resume site, not a social network; post your sales pitch there. You get about 5 lines per job that doesn't get hidden, so don't wast them with "responsibilities include"; instead describe the coolest thing you did that an outsider would understand.
The only updates worth posting are "my team is hiring" and "my team just launched this cool product, so come work here/come hire me".
It's very low effort, and you will get attention from legitimate recruiters from time to time. I'
Re: No shit (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know why millions of users use it. I believe I already made that clear.
Re: No shit (Score:2, Insightful)
If you don't accept every request and stick to people you know you would get way less spam. You're basically sharing you info and your contacts with every spam bot on the platform.
Re: No shit (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't use LinkedIn, I just have an account. That's because you're discriminated against if you don't. But I've never used it and I've never heard of anyone else who does. It's cyberbling.
Re: No shit (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know about spam on your behalf, but it has a creative way of verifying that people still work where they claim to work.
Yes linkedin send spam on behave of its users. My theory is that if someone hasn't logged in for some time (2 to 6 months), linkedin will start spamming contacts in the hope they will send an invite/connect request, forcing the inactive users to interact with the site. Reason I am really sure about this is that I started getting requests from a dead person about 2 months after his death, to make it even more obvious the spam request is send to 2 emailadresses, firstname@domain.tld and firstletter.lastlast@d
Re: (Score:2)
Really? I have a couple of connections that I worked with for ten years so I know of at least one of their former employers. I receive notices about job openings at other places they've worked stating that "John Smith works there" that pre-date our time together. Note: these say they work there, not worked. Even if it's a goofy grammatical error, the odds of them knowing people that are a.) still there and would be usabl
No it doesn't (Score:4, Informative)
I am a recuiter, linkedin provides about 25% of the people i place. I approach ~200 people per week via the platform.
If you are not getting approaches you should look at what your profile portrays you as. Also you can mark yourself as actively looking which highlights you to recruiters.
Re:No it doesn't (Score:5, Interesting)
Tons of recruiters are constantly trying to contact me via LinkedIn. Its basically the primary tool they use. (Of course I also only actually accept invites from people I at least vaguely know.)
Of course this only started the moment I moved to Silicon Valley. Before that, they basically ignored me. I'm guessing the author doesn't live in Silicon Valley.
P.S. A co-worker once told me that before he moved out here, his friends would fake an SV address on their profiles just to get noticed. They'd then deal with the reality afterwards, but it worked for them.
Re: No it doesn't (Score:2)
Is LinkedIn better or worse because of Microsoft? (Score:5, Interesting)
4 Reasons Microsoft Wasted $26.2 Billion To Buy LinkedIn [forbes.com].
3 Quotes:
1) "... there is no reason to believe that Microsoft has the strategic skills needed to revive LinkedIn's growth."
2) "Nadella touted the idea that business people working on projects will love the way the combined company will be able to spam them with more targeted newsfeeds! Is this the kind of magic that $26.2 billion buys? It sounds like a good reason for me to dump my LinkedIn account."
3) "This deal makes no sense to me and in the wake of its efforts to force people like me to upgrade to Windows 10 malware style, I am beginning to question Microsoft's governance."
Microsoft made LinkedIn worse? (Score:2)
A comment on that comment: "uSoft is the kiss of death."
Re:No it doesn't (Score:5, Funny)
... highlights you to recruiters.
And to current employer.
I retired from a law firm and I recommended that the lawyers stay off the platform because none of the lawyers were looking to work somewhere else.
However, I signed up on LinkedIn under an alias so I could snoop -- for my lawyers.
It's incredible what people share out there.
Research gate (Score:5, Informative)
If you write papers then Research Gate is a much more logical social network to belong to since it gives people access to copies of your papers and track how many people grazed and how many people actually downloaded your paper.
Re:No it doesn't (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
They just do keyword searches. If you list something like "staqtracker" as a skill, then you get hit upon by recruiters looking for Qt developers.
Re: (Score:2)
To which I almost always reply with "what makes it stand out", completely ignoring their specific questions.
Re: No it doesn't (Score:2)
I'm a user that only uses it as an address book and a lot of mails that appears are irrelevant contact suggestions along with the fact that the database is aged now means that I could lose it. The management of Linkedin should really consider that to make people stay it should be more strict and not suggest any random contact. It used to require intent to add a contact, but now it's going facebook. And I don't do facebook.
Re: (Score:2)
What other platforms do you use? I've had good luck with Monster
LinkedIn has too many data breeches, and I don't want the social aspects. Monster is just a CV/job listing site.
Re: No it doesn't (Score:2)
Where dost thou purchase thy data breeches sirrah?
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed is the biggest. And don't forget Dice.
Re: (Score:2)
I've had good luck with Monster
Same. I don't see the point of linked in these days. I thought it was interesting in the old days, but these days I think it's more showboating than anything else. I only log in out of curiosity. I plan to delete it again. It's just a time vampire, real recruiters use Monster, and I can't imagine any real recruiter scrolling through linked in drivel looking for candidates.
The only 'It doesn't suck" comments... (Score:5, Interesting)
...will be from people who make money from the platform.
Re: (Score:3)
...will be from people who make money from the platform.
So .. the only people who will say that it doesn't suck, are those for whom it doesn't suck?
Re:The only 'It doesn't suck" comments... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't make money from it but I lower my risk of unemployment for too long. That is kind of a virtual money I am not going to be losing.
Re: (Score:2)
...will be from people who make money from the platform.
Does that include people who have actively gotten recruited and are now working for a company thanks to the jobs they got through LinkedIn?
I'd like to praise LinkedIn but I turned the the job I was offered after the final interview stage in favour of an internal promotion so I'm not on the take enough to recommend them.
LinkedIn is a Facebook clone with a gimick (Score:4, Interesting)
"It's for work!"
OK sure. But why do I need a picture of myself? How I look has no bearing on my ability to do my job, since I'm not a model. But no, every other week, LinkedIn would prompt me to upload a picture, despite repeatedly saying "No". So, I closed me account. I don't want facebook. I sure as hell don't want a cheap facebook clone.
Re:LinkedIn is a Facebook clone with a gimick (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't need a picture. Ignore that if you want.
LinkedIn is not facebook, and it's not social media. Just keep the links, add the necessary info about what sort of jobs you can do and have done, and leave it at that. I get a lot of recruiters contacting me from LinkedIn, which I ignore as I'm not looking for a job (and I can't tell which are recruiting from a company and which are third parties). When I do look for a job it will be handy.
The discussions and groups were somewhat overrated.
Re: (Score:2)
the folks that 'pay the bills' there want you to have a picture posted so they can casually discriminate based upon appearance, age, gender and race. the site can also, then, match your picture to profiles (and pictures) posted elsewhere, and more accurately add public records data to your profile data as well. a linked in profile with an accurate picture of the user is probably worth 50-100x as much to the site as one without
Re: (Score:2)
The picture is to provide, and allow recruiters to review, information they cannot legally ask for. Age, gender, grooming, and race can can all help with gathering interview requests or gathering candidate requests.
Re: (Score:2)
Hahah, I've steadfastly refused to post a picture of myself just because it apparently is bugging the hell out of them. They even started asking "Why are you not posting a picture of yourself?" at some point, which only made me more determined (I guess I'm a bit contrary / stubborn). Who cares what I look like? None of the recruiters or employers ever seemed to.
Speaking of... a few years ago I got a random-seeming link request from some woman who was unbelievably beautiful, and I mean that literally, as
Re: (Score:2)
But why do I need a picture of myself? How I look has no bearing on my ability to do my job, since I'm not a model.
But it does have a bearing on who you are. I mean people literally recognise each other with their faces. Yes, if you live as a hermit and never network AFK then yes, you photo won't be of any use.
Re: (Score:2)
If the candidate is local, then I try to meet them for coffee somewhere for an initial chat. Much better than a voice or video call. You run out of people you know personally quick, so having a photo on LinkedIn helps tremendously at the coffee shop. Much easier than just saying "Are yo
Re: (Score:2)
Do you have a horrible prison tattoo on your face?
That wouldn't stop me hiring someone. Hell, it might help.
Customer demands to see the data centre, wants assurance we'll protect their data. Invite them over, show them the physical security, the uniformed security guards, the biometric locks on the data halls, show them into one of the halls..
Jim steps out from behind a rack. His tattoo is hard to make out in the low light, but the scar is obvious, the two features blurring together just below his eye which he's using to glare unblinkingly at the strangers
Re: (Score:2)
Dude, just put on a shirt with a collar for ten minutes and get your buddy to take a pic of you. People just want to see that you can present yourself vaguely professionally, and that you are actually the Joe Smith they know and not some other Joe Smith.
Or it's so the recruiters can see you're black/female/old/whatevertheydon'twant and avoid you.
I've gotten two jobs via LinkedIn (Score:5, Funny)
One was the worst job I ever had. One was the best. On average, it is okay.
Re: I've gotten two jobs via LinkedIn (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)ve gotten two great jobs and one crappy one that nevertheless bumped my pay up 30k a year for taking it and sucking it up for 20 months. In 2016, I turned away over 100 legitimate recruiter contacts.
Iâ(TM)ve quit twitter, Facebook, etc. LinkedIn is valuable to me. It is getting infested with chain email level b.s., but they have good filter settings.
It does have some (limited) benefits (Score:5, Insightful)
I pretty much just use the core LinkedIn features. I don't post blogs there, don't really post anything at all on their stream, neither do I take their trainings, or participate at all in any of the many groups I joined years ago.
However:
1) In my career I have had many offers, and actually taken 3 jobs (including my current one and the one right before that) because recruiters found me on LinkedIn. Whether it was my profile, connections through my network, I don't know, but they found me.
I've found many headhunters rely very heavily on LinkedIn.
2) It's a good way to stay in touch with people, if you have the discipline to do so. Professional contacts will stay in touch via LinkedIn, whereas they would be reluctant to connect on Facebook, or to share personal phone #s or email addresses. They'll share business phone numbers and email addresses, but if they leave that job, you can't get in touch with them anymore. LinkedIn connections provide a way to do that.
About once a year I set aside one day on a weekend, and just drop notes to all my contacts who I'd like to stay in touch with. I write up a core letter which gets customized a bit, but it summarizes what I've been up to, and inquires after the recipient. It's a good way to keep the network alive by sending out a ping and just staying in touch with folks.
I've also in recent years developed a general rule that for the most part, I don't accept invites unless I know the person somewhat substantially ie we worked together, or spent a few days together in some training etc and had meaningful interactions there. I rarely accept "cold call" invites, and am quite selfish about accepting invites from bare acquaintances, that guy I spent 5 minutes talking to at that conference, unless I think there may be something in it for me (he's at a high/senior position at a company I may want to be at someday).
Finally, when applying to jobs, I do like being able to just click on a job on LinkedIn and apply with my profile. Upload resume and done. When they take me to the company's website and I have to register and create a profile or remember the login info from the last time I did that, it's painful. I do like that near one-click experience for the few companies which allow doing so on their LinkedIn postings.
So long story short, I think LinkedIn has some value to me, but not to the extent that they'd like to think they do. All the expansion in features they're doing, I don't use them.
LinkedIn only helps Recruiters, Not Job Seekers (Score:2, Interesting)
LinkedIn is a terrible idea because:
- Recruiters throw useless jobs your way or completely throw your application out if you aren't on it.
- other people use it to stalk you
- Everyone on there just "vouches" for each other like some sort of bizarre prisoners dilemma.
- They've been hacked god knows how many times.
- owned by Microsoft who will data mine the shit out of you and then follow you across the rest of their platforms.
Re:LinkedIn only helps Recruiters, Not Job Seekers (Score:5, Insightful)
- Everyone on there just "vouches" for each other like some sort of bizarre prisoners dilemma.
I couldn't help but think of their "endorsements" when you said this. Thankfully they're not pushing it anymore.
(I mean seriously... When someone who's never seen a line of code in their life endorses you for SVN, that's gotta mean something about the platform.)
Works for me (Score:4)
I get multiple recruiters a month contacting me with decent job offers that align with my skill set. If I were looking to change companies and do the same thing, it would be a great resource.
I am only passively looking at this point though. And I am only interested in moving up, not laterally.
In the middle to late stages of my career with 20 years of experience. It might be different for people who are just getting started.
Unlike the author of the article, I do not just accept anyone who wants to connect. I only accept connection requests from people I have done business with, or want to do business with. I'd say a good 85%+ of the time, I am the one initiating the connection request. I deny most connection requests because they tend to come from people overseas who I do not know and will likely never meet.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm. I'm in a similar position to Dave. Multiple approaches, many of them appropriate.
Two in the last month, one of which was paying more than my previous job, the other of which was paying literally 25% more than that. Both under half an hour commute too.
It's one reason I'm happily booking a three month holiday instead of looking for work. The work will be out there, when I'm ready for it, and I now have a list of recruiters from LinkedIn that I already know will find me appropriate roles.
i ignored it and all invites (Score:2)
until I got an invite from an old friend. Then I set up an account.
After seeing the clickbait-tedium it takes to enter your information, I deleted it again and went back to ignoring invites.
Re: (Score:2)
Who cares? (Score:2)
I have no need for LinkedIn. Despite my boss's recommendation that I create an account, I closed my account years ago. Have never had any feedback from anyone at all about LinkedIn. A mail filter deletes any emails I get that even contain the word LinkedIn. So why should I care?
Re: (Score:2)
No - complaining about ads sucks (Score:2)
Must work for financial analysts ... (Score:3)
The closer I get to retirement, the more link requests I get from "wealth management" or "financial analyst" folks.
I should run an experiment and change my status to retired, just to see if they pounce.
Um (Score:2)
LinkedIn's weird subscription model (Score:5, Interesting)
The value of LinkedIn is vastly diminished by its weird subscription model. You have two choices:
1) Receive about 80% of the Facebook experience for $0; or
2) Receive a few modest but nice premium features, such as messaging and more detailed "who viewed your profile" info, for $$$$$$$$$$. The cheapest plan starts at $30/month.
That's it. There is no in-between.
The costs are such that the only reason I would ever "subscribe" would be when I had a specific, acute need - and once that need was satisfied, probably after one month, I'd immediately cancel. On the other hand, at a price point of around $10/month (which, incidentally, is what Apple Music charges...), I'd just sign up to have the features available at my whim.
LinkedIn is one of many companies that just doesn't seem to understand how people view its features. It could really boost its user base *and value* by making its subscription plans not suck.
Re: LinkedIn's weird subscription model (Score:2)
In the EU you may be able to throw the GDPR at them for not showing who's looking at your profile.
No matter what their privacy policy says.
Re: (Score:2)
On what basis? There is absolutely nothing in the GDPR that requires that companies share these specifics, only that the control lies in the users hands and that the sharing of information is consented to.
Re: (Score:2)
The costs are such that the only reason I would ever "subscribe" would be when I had a specific, acute need - and once that need was satisfied, probably after one month, I'd immediately cancel.
I did exactly this when it was announced that the plant I was working at was due to close and everyone was being made redundant. It was interesting being able to see which recruiters I dealt with were actively looking me up.
Re: LinkedIn's weird subscription model (Score:3)
FB originally wante
Sucks less than Careerbuilder/Monster (Score:2)
The paid version can rank you and you can rank yourself with the job to see if the recuiter will even waste his or her time? If you are high you can also send a message directly.
The problem is HR today uses filtering or ATS systems that turn your hard worked resume into a black hole. You compete with 1 to 500 other people and you NEVER hear back! It is ridiculous.
LinkedIN helps you go around this problem by contacting the manager directly.
"If you are high you can send a message directly" (Score:2)
Never send recruiters messages when you're high...
Not on Facebook... (Score:2)
Since I do t use Facebook, LinkedIn is the only tool for people to find me. But, it is pretty much worthless for anything useful. I am forced by my marketing person to like and comment on shit, and to reject recruiters.
It did import my contact list years ago... and I never delete anyone. Fun to see what people I met 20-30+ years ago are doing now...
Useless? Yes.
I think Betteridge owes me an apology (Score:2)
Didn't Used To, But It Does (Score:4, Insightful)
It started going downhill about six months after Microsoft bought it. Now TFA gives an accurate description. I used to have browser tab open there all the time. Now I go there once or twice a year. And respond to (almost) all connection requests with, "Have we met?" Usually the last I hear from them.
Yes, it does suck (Score:4, Informative)
I have a profile, mostly because I just want to have one if old friends/colleagues want to reach out to me to say hi (I don't make myself really available on other social networks). I've set it up mostly specifically for that, and to avoid getting recruiter emails (no picture, no access to my email, no real "advertising myself to get a job" thing).
So why does it suck? Because despite trying to avoid recruiters and other spam, once in a while I'll get a spam to my work email about seminars, job fairs, services, etc. that I never signed up for (I never, ever put my work email out anywhere for getting contacted).
So how did these spammers get my email? The only way I can think of is them having 'guessed' my email address based on my name and employer, which is only available together on..... (drumroll....) LinkedIn! I've never checked the email server logs, but I'm convinced they try several variations of my contact email when generating their spam.
So it's obvious that LinkedIn is just basically another place for the usual spammers to get a fresh list of people to pester about their services/products, which makes it pretty much useless as a social network.
John Biggs Sucks (Score:2, Interesting)
John Biggs is an egotistical writer who is so needy of attention that he has accepted all "friend" requests on the LinkedIn social network and currently has 16,000+ "friends". Yet he writes an article on TechCruch, LinkedIn, and Medium whoring for agreement that LinkedIn sucks so that he might drive up his readership.
I'm posting as A/C because I have a life, don't need the karma, and Slashdot - you are better than this - don't give that attention whore a front page article!
PS. I'm happily receiving leads fo
YES!! (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, it is useful (Score:2)
I've gotten plenty of requests from recruiters on LinkedIn, so it certainly has been useful for me for that. Can't say I've found a job that way, but it is one of many tools. It is also useful to keep track of people I used to work with, to see where they are now and if I need to contact them again in the future. Otherwise, I rarely go on the site, other than to update my profile.
The OP makes the mistake of adding anyone who requests. I personally only add people I know, or recruiters I want to do busines
basic logic (Score:2)
This isn't hard. If you accept everyone into "your" network, it's no surprise that all the messages you get are marketing.
It's worth spending a few minutes to think about how the platform works. People connected to people you allow in your network can send you messages for free. People outside that network effectively have to pay to be able to send you messages.
If your network is limited to people you actually know, you'll get many fewer nonsense messages.
But ... Betteridge? (Score:2)
For once, perhaps Betteridge was wrong?
For me, LinkedIn = possible New Carreer. (Score:2)
LinkedIn worked great for me (Score:2)
I get lots of recruiters, even now that I am no longer looking, who approach me.
Before I got my current job, I had plenty of good leads on positions through recruiters, but as I was gainfully employed (not desperate), I passed on a number of positions I interviewed for, or was considered too high-priced for employment at some companies. My current job came as an HR recruiter contacted me - that was two years ago, and I got the salary I was looking for, at a company I enjoy working for.
A lot of it depends on
LinkedIn Can Be Scary (Score:2)
Thinking it was a mistake, I looked a little closer, and on the line after the password request, the said, I quote "Don't worry, we'll only hold onto it for a minute."
I am absolutely serious.
"Please give us your password, but don't worry, we'll only hold onto it for a minute"
Please give use your password, but DON'T WORRY WE'LL ONLY HOLD INTO IT FOR A MINUTE!
It sucks bigly - massive spam attempts from them (Score:2)
They started spamming one of my accounts many years ago. After the fuckwits ignored multiple nasty grams, I promptly firewalled their entire netblock, and solved the problem permanently.
They're still hammering away, even though I've probably had them blocked for 10+ years now.
Even the Designer ... (Score:2)
Even the guys who designed LinkedIn says we're all using it wrong. Invite people you actually KNOW. Don't invite everybody in your address book. Don't accept links from people you don't know and work with. Don't recommend people for a skill unless you KNOW that he has that skill. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to refuse skill recommendations for skills that you either know you don't have, or don't want to be known FOR.
It all sucks, because we've been using it in a sucky way. At this poin
Like anything else its all in how you use it (Score:2)
Stop accepting every single request, thats the first thing. My connections are all basically colleagues, others I know in the industry, or actual friends. I do get the usual amazon recruitment spam, to which I got part way through the interview process from until they decided to waste my time scheduling a phone interview and never calling.
However my current job where Im very happy at came from a recruiter from linked in. It was a place where former coworkers worked, and I had heard good things and had been
Re: (Score:2)
It used to suck less. (Score:4, Informative)
Remember when there were job postings that were exclusive to LinkedIn? They're gone. Have been for some time now.
Want to have your news feed set to only the recent news? Forget it. It defaults to "Top" (i.e., the "Popular") posts by default. In fact, you can't change that default. You have to view the Top posts before you can change it to Recent. This tells me that LI has decided that it wants to cater to Facebook users more interested in what's popular today. That's not why I joined years ago.
What's up with the news feed only showing you 10-20 posts before prompting you to show more, and then when you click on "Show more" you can see more but you're sent back to the top of your feed so you have to scroll through the original set of posts before you get to the new ones. Similarly, what's the point of indicating that there are a small number, say, four replies to an article, only showing three, and making the user click on show more to see the fourth?
Want to see who visited your profile? Sorry. 99% of the people who visit it are people who don't want to be known to you. So please stop the damned come-ons to "upgrade" to a Premium membership so I can see who those visitors were. Because I did that once and, guess what... I still couldn't see who those visitors were. The histogram telling me that 21 of the 25 visitors were recruiters, and that the other 4 were members with the job title "[fill-in-the-blank]" and that I'm not allowed to know who they were is oh so helpful to people who might be trying to tend to their career by using LI. Oh wait... no it's not.
Please, please drop the damned posts about what's "trending in my geographic area". The vast majority of the time, it's not something that would likely be of interest in my geographic area.
Fix whatever "algorithm" decides that the content of my profile detailing several decades of UNIX experience is going to make me the least bit interested in seeing an ad for an elementary course in shell scripting.
Seriously... who designs this crap? LI was once known as "Facebook with a tie". Now it's just a Facebook wannabe.
Finally...
I doubt that any of these types are reading this article and its responses but I don't "live" in LI. I come in, I look around, and I exit. (I'm betting that I'm far from being the only one who uses LI this way.) If you want to send me private messages about job postings via LI's InMail feature, you'll more than likely miss me. My profile has my email address. Use it if you want to get in touch with me. Sending me an InMail tells me you didn't look at all of my profile. I'm not going to have a browser window/tab devoted exclusively to LI all day and visible on all my virtual desktops on the off chance that someone might send me a message. Yes, LI usually sends a regular email to let you know you have an InMail but this mainly ticks off the person who now has to go back onto LI to reply. Frankly, InMail is one of the dumbest features of LI. (Same goes for the private messaging feature on FB.)
Canâ(TM)t we link to real articles? (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)m sure there are some kind of studies out there that have been done on the utility of LinkedIn. Maybe something that looks at who gets the most value out of it, whether certain roles are more sought-after via the platform, that sort of thing. Instead, we have a fluff piece, an attention-whoring bit of tripe that does not serve the geek intellect of Slashdot readers. I want 1997 back, please.
That said, I get use out of the platform. I have the job title of CISO, and recently have been contacted th
Yes! (Score:2)
Next?
I got my last 2 jobs on LinkedIn (Score:2)
I'm serious, I also had my doubts when joining it, and yes the spam is annoying as hell.
But I managed to land 2 jobs now thanks to it (and in the 2nd one I did not apply, I was contacted by a recruiter) so I wouldn't call it useless, at least in my personal experience.
A giant waste of time (Score:2)
Location (Score:2)
Yep, it sucks! (Score:2)
Maybe you're in the wrong field? (Score:2)
By comparison, I've found ladders.com to be pretty damned worthless. I applied to a job there once and then they started sending me info on all kinds of irrelevant postings (I recall they once notified me of an opening at a local railroad switch yard conducting trains). After a whi
You might be using it wrong (Score:2)
LinkedIn email is blocked from my network (Score:2)
...Because it's LinkedIn it's super easy to slip past any and all defenses against this spam.....
No email from LinkedIn domain(s) is allowed. The excessive amounts of spam I received is the reason why.
Chinese Oak table (Score:2)
You know what a Chinese Oak Table is, right?
It looks like Oak. It has texture. It has grain. It even feels like Oak to someone who doesn't really know what Oak is. It's fucking heavy too and resonates when you knock on it. And for a few weeks after you sit it in a kitchen it's happy and people love your new oak table until, one day, a few weeks in, you spill your tea on it.
And wiping the tea off, some of the painted on wood-grain comes off on the cloth too.
As time gooes by, the texture plastic surface that
Here's my take (Score:2)
I use LinkedIn. My current job I would not have were it not for LI. The recruiter for the company found me through key word searches (I asked him after the fact out of curiosity). I find that it's a good way of keeping in touch with former coworkers. It's sort of the "professional" version of Facebook.
I know this is going to sound terrible but I never accept invitations from Indian recruiters unless I know them personally. I have nothing against people from India it's just that in my experience every recrui
I got a really awesome job applying through it (Score:2)
I had the opportunity to be the 2nd employee of a company that later had an evaluation over over a billion dollars at some point. It allowed this start-up to find people quickly without spending too much money. It's a tool like any other that allows you to be in the driver seat .
I tend not to accept recruiter invitations, but I do like keeping tabs on former coworkers. 70% of all jobs are found through personal contacts.
It's doing what it needs to do... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yet here we are...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Yes. (Score:2)
Did MS file for chapter 9?
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, no shit! It''s for staying in touch with colleagues who are not friends, after your employer gets acquired.