- contact information for professional contacts in one place, updated by them
- job offers (yes, mostly good or at least decent)
- can look up people to see their experience and common contacts
- updates on what previous colleagues are up to.
More here: http://henrikwarne.com/2013/08/21/linkedin-good-or-bad/
LinkedIn is great if you just want to endlessly socialize with recruiters. Don't worry about finding them: They'll all try to connect with you and chat you up about one of their jobs that is just like the one you have but at another company. Hell, you might even get an interview out of it, but good luck turning that into an actual job in today's picky environment.
And if any of those LinkedIn recruiters are reading this, Try This One Neat Trick That Candidates Love: Instead of approaching someone with a job posting that's basically what he did 2 years ago or what he's doing today, approach him with what he might want to be doing 2 years from now. You'll get better responses, I guarantee it.
I think it is a language thing. I have noticed that non-native English speakers tend to refer to job ads, recruiter contacts, and such as "job offers". I think it comes down to what sense of "offer" you are using: "to give someone the opportunity to accept or take something" or "to make something available".
As for how they should approach you, I recently got annoyed enough by bad approaches to write a blog post about it: http://henrikwarne.com/2015/11/22/recruiting-software-develo...
Why do you socialise with them? Every few days I check in and accept all connection requests (almost all recruiters). I have email notifications turned off so their messages to me just get ignored. Then when it came time to find a job I replied to three or four of them with my requirements, picked a few companies I liked from each, and had interviews setup. Much more efficient than me having to find these companies myself.
I have gotten to the point that whenever I consider a client, job offer or employee, I:
- google them for general information
- look them up on LinkedIn to see what they've done professionally and/or if we have anyone in common. (Yes, they may see I have checked out their profile--so what?)
- look for them on twitter (much lower hit ratio)
All this gives me a much rounder perspective on a person than I would have without these resources.
> Yes, they may see I have checked out their profile--so what?)
You can actually turn that off - it means you won't be able to see visitors to your own profile, but I don't care about that information either so I have it disabled.
I actually like to see who has looked at me (I guess it is an ego thing), but yes, that's a good point.
Speaking of ego, one of the developers I worked with recently said, jokingly, that LinkedIn is where she goes when she's feeling down, because she has recruiters contacting her all the time (she has a number of years of Angular experience).
Caveat: I'm unfamiliar with the US/EU status quo for this category; maybe there are better options in those markets?
I remember trying to figure out how to unsubscribe to emails from (I think) careerbuilder a few years ago and it was an absolute mess.
>>> maybe there are better options in those markets?
One site that seems most nimble right now would probably be indeed. They are growing a lot particularly here in europe and are more flexible in their partnering agreements. I work at the moment for a SaaS recruiting product, and I know all the big players are a pain to work with for integrations.. just reams of red tape.
Another thing that is far more common in europe is that the job sites are much more fragmented. There are so many craigslist type sites that are driving lots of traffic that recruiters want to integrate with.
Maybe they found you on LinkedIn :)
Your mileage may vary, but as a WASPish male mid-level dev based in London, this is true for me. I can appreciate that people outside that circle may get more value from LinkedIn.
LinkedIn on the other hand gets me maybe one offer per month on average.
I also have a blog at http://henrikwarne.com/ but I have never received any job offers via it.
I go to very few meet-ups, but the ones I've been to have never generated any offers. So in my experience, LinkedIn wins hands down in that respect (I'm in Stockholm, Sweden).