Hacker News Reader

Comment by FussyZeus | Hacker News Reader

I have a LinkedIn profile because I was led, back in the day, to think that was the best way to put myself out there for businesses to find and hire me. I don't think I've gotten more than 50 views in the entire time I've had the thing, which is blown away by my personal website (which is still a tiny number of views, but swamps LinkedIn).

That and every time I connect with someone or make the mistake of clicking on their emails, I end up with 20 more bloody emails over the next few days for job offers I don't want (drywall contractor this past one, no joke) or people I don't know who are trying to connect with me (most likely recruiters).

I really don't know why I don't delete the thing.

View on HN

On the flip side, I get a ton of views of my profile. I indiscriminately accept recruiter requests, because it increases the spread of second and third-degree connections who'll see me in searches. I get two orders of magnitude more profile views than does my website, and I've turned off every email LinkedIn wants to send me.

But, then, I'm a consultant, and having people find me is important. A lot of the messages I get are useless--but enough aren't that I effectively don't need to advertise.

How much of that communication would you say is useful? If it's not prying too much, how much of that would you say leads to actual business?

It's no worse than most sales channels, but my situation has been complicated in that I haven't really had the available bandwidth for more work. I spend maybe twenty minutes a week on LinkedIn and I ignore every message that doesn't mention a walrus (my profile explicitly says "mention a walrus"), so my effort level is very low.

I agree. I'm also a consultant and my biggest disappointment is how LinkedIn is aligned almost exclusively with full-time employment. It's really a waste of my money as I get all my gigs via real-world connections from previous clients. I've been wishing for years that LinkedIn would add more consulting-specific features (this is the era of the "gig economy" after all, right?) but it doesn't happen. I only maintain a profile because in the U.S. not having one means you don't exist (to too many people anyway).

LinkedIn is actually going into precisely that sector, but it hasn't been publicized very well. See LinkedIn Profinder.

I live in the US. I get connection requests from Nigerian princesses and London bankers. Not sure which set of people would be more fun to hang out with on a Saturday afternoon.

This is really fascinating to me. Since they are fraudulent anyway, why wouldn't they just say they are a recruiter from Google and get you to accept their connection request. Do they get more responses by claiming they are Nigerian Princesses?

No, they get less, but they are all qualified leads!

There was a study (sorry I can't find the link) few months ago that discussed how spam looks bad intentionally. The idea is to weed out the smart or even average guy and just get the person that are a good target for this kind of con.

I think you're looking for "Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They are From Nigeria?" by Microsoft Research.

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=1677...

Edit: Here's a particularly illuminating quote: "By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor."

When you try to delete it, that's when the nightmare starts.

Would you mind explaining why? I've been considering deleting mine for quite some time now. My google+ profile gets substantially more views, and I rarely use that either.

Well I've never done it, but my understanding is that they will never stop emailing you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com