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All LinkedIn with Nowhere to Go

thebaffler.com

102 pointsFuturebot69 comments

I think LinkedIn really missed the opportunity to change the way our culture thinks about work and professional communication.

Another commenter called LI a glorified resume service, which really nails the point. Resumes from 20 years ago are no different from the current LinkedIn profile; the only incremental signal is the connection base...and that's only a signal if that information is public.

The fact that LinkedIn's big revenue draw is simply recruiters paying for access to the full network is really indicative of the lack of creativity in changing the paradigm of thought around professional networks.

I wish I remember where, but I recently read something that argued most websites are still very basic in that they are using traditional revenue models. Few sites have innovative models that are unique to the internet. Linkedin is definitely in this category, but so are most businesses.

Selling ads while people reads your content? Sounds like a magazine. Selling a product? Sounds like a brick and mortar store. Even SaaS is really just a service you "outsource".

Sites that take advantage of network size might be an exception to this though.

I don't know. They focus on the professional: marketing themselves, finding jobs, keeping in touch with people...

There's no shame in a resume service with a social component. They bought Slideshare which - in my way of looking at things - forwards how they help people market themselves. Maybe they could probably do more with coding ability tests or partner with online education, but that's probably premature.

Sure, but I just find that focus incredibly uninspiring.

Twitter, FB, Instagram...they changed the way we communicate to those circles. Not that an equivalent parallel exists for LinkedIn, but it's like they're not really trying.

A real world use can often be uninspiring. What would make solving a real world problem more interesting to you?

LinkedIn essentially has the graph of business professionals in the US and abroad. It's not the same as connection on FB or Twitter or elsewhere -- there is greater context.

And yet, the features of LinkedIn are essentially just the connection base, and marketing to the network.

It seems there is much greater depth that could be explored there, and that LinkedIn could be so much more than the Great Public Rolodex that it is.

LinkedIn night Lynda.com, so they certainly intend to try the educational side.

> I think LinkedIn really missed the opportunity to change the way our culture thinks about work and professional communication.

Any thoughts on what this might look like? Not denigrating your point, just curious.

For me LinkedIn is something I use when I search for a job. Actually it is something I update, because I believe HR will crossreference my resume with my LinkedIn. When I'm not looking for a job, I'm not using it.

The other use case I know is collecting leads (sales or headhunting)

Networking with people who want to do business? Reach out into my network to ask people for help? I have done this a lot on Facebook (a lot more on phone or email), but never on LinkedIn.

They could have build the next slack or something. A platform where people communicate.

A few years back, I found myself saying to a friend "I have no choice but to have a LinkedIn account". I realised how ridiculous that was, and within days, I deleted the account. I have not suffered in any way since, and have definitely benefited from not having constant spammy job offers.

I have had the same experience after deleting my account several years ago (for different reasons). I do keep wondering if it will pop up as an issue, so I'm very curious about other people's experiences when not participating in LinkedIn.

My solution to the problem was to simply "connect" with every recruiter and friend on linkedin until I hit the "500+" connections tier, then disabled all forms of notifications from the site. Now my profile is very much idle, but when any business-type person looks me up, I still have a presence of sorts.

You could just filter the mail to spam and save all the effort.

I had a LinkedIn account ages ago but found it useless and chock full of recruiter spam. It was the first of all my social networks to go.

I am always astonished when I hear phrases like "it's required". Really? By whom? I'm glad to hear there are other people out there who don't have it, because all I hear about is the other side: People bemoaning LinkedIn's existence but parroting this idea that their professional career would be all but ruined without it. I just cannot understand this, but I always feel like I must be naive or living in a tech bubble, or just outside the mainstream.

Do people really hurt their job prospects without LinkedIn? (Or did they when this was written in 2013?)

We're u getting 100s a week?

I don't understand fellow coders who view recruiters as a nuisance when u can use them to get a way better deal on your next gig.

With my LinkedIn I am vague re: where I currently work and provide them all with my spam contact info(spam email and spam google voice number that is a voicemail box which messages go to my email).

Maybe it's the volume of recruiters? I get ten a week and enjoy seeing what they can do for me.

I'm getting maybe one a month, but I specified clearly that I'm not looking for career opportunities. Either it's from always the same companies (Amazon and ARM are 80% of it) that won't let me work from home or it's completely outside my domain (web stuff---good companies to work for, but I work on the kernel not on web back-ends).

I did apply for my current job through LinkedIn, that's the only reason why I haven't deleted the profile. That said it was my first job, seven years after I would be able to find another job just through email if I needed one.

> I have not suffered in any way

You don't really know that, maybe you missed out on interesting jobs and you'll never know.

At the very least, receiving recruiter emails from LinkedIn allows me to do networking and meet a lot of influential people at various companies, even if I don't end up landing a job there. It also builds my recruiter network, which is never a bad thing: if I ever need a job one day, I am planning to spam my entire network of recruiter, let them know exactly what I'm looking for and let them do the work for me. It goes both ways.

I respect deciding to opt out of LinkedIn but there is an opportunity cost to such a decision that you seem to have overlooked.

If his current situation is good who cares what other jobs he missed out on? More options isn't always worth the sacrifice of being distracted

Not always, but how distracting is it really?

Obviously, everyone will be different but I get 2-3 emails from recruiters on LinkedIn per week. Managing them takes me about one minute per week.

Compared to the number of times where I ended up on a phone call or having lunch/coffee with a CTO, VP of Eng, architect or senior engineer, it's totally worth it to me.

My suggestion: don't cut out that option until it really becomes unmanageable. Chances are you'll find it's worth the occasional disturbance.

Well, unless you're actually really happy with your current employment and income. In that case, why even bother looking for something "better"? At that point that's just greedy.

The best time to interview is precisely when you're happy with your job.

You have zero pressure, you can practice interviewing, network and you can make extravagant requirements. If it doesn't work out, no big deal, you like where you are. But if it does, your career can make quantum leaps.

A quantum leap is the smallest possible state change

Free time is limited. I'd like to spend it doing something more rewarding than job hunting.

You know what could give you more free time? A better offer from a different job. Or more money. That can typically be exchanged for free time too.

Job hunting can be a life changing moment. Something that will, literally, affect the rest of your life. If only because salary increases compound over an entire lifetime of working.

In other words, a $10k increase in salary might not seem much but it will add up, and not only will raises compound as well but future jobs will start at a higher negotiation level as well.

Of course, spend your time wisely but I think it's really short sighted to think "I'm happy at my job, I am going to completely block out all the recruiters out there".

I'm very happily employed anyway, and at no point in the 4 years since I quit LinkedIn have I struggled to find meaningful, well paid employment. If I had stayed on LinkedIn just maybe some amazing job offer would have appeared that otherwise hasn't - but I doubt it. For 8 years as a member of LinkedIn I never had one interesting conversation. And I could say "what if I moved to New York?" or "what if I learned to speak Spanish?" There's an opportunity cost to not doing those things as well.

I understand that some people can find value from LinkedIn, but I just don't feel that I'm one of them. I attend lots of meetups in London, and participate in online discussions, and that's good enough for me.

Don't underestimate the network effort. Maybe that recruiter you just connected with won't find you something interesting but they will share your resume with their colleagues. Present and future. And these colleagues will look for things on your behalf. And so on.

LinkedIn didn't invent the network effect, nor do they exclusively own it. In my opinion, for my situation, they don't even have the best implementation of it.

I recognise that I could belong to LinkedIn as well as those other networks, but I get enough value out of my existing tools that LinkedIn isn't worth it.

The scummy data collection practises and the constant recruiter spam are what drove me away from LinkedIn. There is nothing pulling me back.

Perhaps purely anecdotal, but in the years I've been working, I can't say I or anyone I've talked to has perceived an opportunity cost in not having / ignoring LinkedIn (especially the folks who had one and then got rid of it)

I've really only ever received an inordinate amount of entry level recruiters "connect" with me using the same canned email they send everyone. I thought the references feature was nice, but the past few places I've been at have officiously discouraged using the feature because of PR issues (I might personally give someone a recommendation which could then not actually represent the company's perspective of the person)

In my opinion, LinkedIn is just a very creepy and annoying service.

I don't buy your line of reasoning. There's also an opportunity cost to wasting time on LinkedIn instead of focusing on other avenues of finding employment. The end-result is the same, these are unknowables that you can never account for. The only real question is, does LinkedIn provide you value? Y/N and proceed from there.

That's a silly position. You could have said "I disconnected from the internet, and haven't suffered in any way since, and have definitely benefited from not having constant spammy job offers".

You just don't know what you missed.

It doesn't really work like that.

To do anything right, you need to devote time and attention to figuring it out. If you won't or can't devote that time and attention, then you're way better off just not doing it.

This is how you rapidly sift through all the myriad opportunities the world offers you to find the most salient ones. You can't devote your time and attention to just anything, so first you select for those you can reasonably see yourself putting in the time and effort to actually get something out of it.

Returns follow a power law distribution, it's tempting to think that there are activities that you can do that provide returns on the same scale as the effort you put in, but in reality 80 percent of the returns on practically anything go to the 20 percent of the people that take the time to do them effectively. The rest get the other 20% divided amongst them, basically nothing.

Spammy job offers is precisely what LinkedIn offers those who can't or won't take the time to do LinkedIn effectively. What does it offer those who do take that time? I have no clue. My guess would be a slightly accelerated path up the career ladder. Not really worth it. I have a tough time even imagining a possible return that LinkedIn could offer me career-wise that would offset the opportunity cost of working out how to get it.

You could say the same for not learning Swahili (which I presume you don't speak) or going into Biology rather than computer science.

In other words, the argument from ignorance is useless -- reminds me of a very weak version of Pascal's wager.

Not only because he's still doing OK, but also because statistically I can assure you that the people I know who still have the LI account haven't gotten anything worthwhile out of it career wise.

Besides, the whole argument is oblivious of the notion of Opportunity Cost.

Most recruiters are lazy and just blast emails by language keyword search. No, I'm not interested in a 6-month PHP contract. No, I'm not interested in a junior IT role.

I've found that removing any mention of specific languages and technologies has dramatically reduced the number of job offers, all of which were a complete waste of my time. Now if only recruiters would stop offering me my same title at a 20% pay cut, I'd be fine.

I have never received that sort of offer. Maybe your resume isn't competitive for the better jobs.

I am sure this is a carefully considered opinion backed by an analysis of the anonymous user's work history, connections, technical competence, geographical location, and personality. And that you have offset this against your own to arrive at the observation that you are more "competitive for the better jobs" than him.

Apologies for the snark, but all of this is anecdotal data. Your analysis is unwarranted.

The point is that recruiters also don't do that. They often do stupid keyword searches for people without really understanding them.

Another possibility is that they already have one of the better jobs, and most jobs do not offer a competitive salary.

No, I don't think that's the problem. But thanks for insinuating I suck at my career. LOL

I changed careers and deleted my account 2 years ago. I still get occasional offers from recruiters. I guess deleting an account on LI doesn't really make it invisible.

I wonder what kind of job opportunity it is that's both:

1) Worth following up on

2) Not worth the recruiter going to the trouble of finding your contact details through GitHub/your personal site.

It seems like the very lowest common denominator way of finding people, which would suggest that it would also have the lowest common denominator applicants, and the lowest common denominator jobs.

Much of this thread is 'What might you be missing out on' but I see developers who have chosen to own their own career identity and not federate it through a platform that every other attention seeking bozo is on doing just fine.

>I wonder what kind of job opportunity it is that's both

For most programmers (and even more so other professions), outside of the Valley, most job opportunities are not like "recruiter finding you", and going out of their way to offer you some job.

Rather you apply to them -- and usually with lots of people competing.

Or they should have some presence online and offline. Like meetups or local forums where recruiters usually go. I'm building a service that can help with first one http://aipromo.online, hope it will help

It's a good way to validate resumes and get informal low-down on folks.

I've both unmasked bullshit artists and gotten better context on awesome people with bad resumes because of LinkedIn. I wouldn't pay a nickel for it though.

I don't know what the author thought they'd get out of the relationship. LI has to make money, and as a non-recruiter/non-professional account I accept the occasional undesired recruiting email or unsolicited accounts from strangers as part of the price paid. It's a nice way to have a networked resume, and I have never gotten a job through it but have gotten several high-quality inquiries that I would have pursued if circumstances at the time had not been different.

I don't expect it to magically connect me with people I don't know or to afford me access to insights of business thought leaders. The dynamic of those two (working with great people that you mutually respect for networking, and building relationships over time with mentors to earn their trust and insights) will not change substantially with technology, LinkedIn or otherwise. It only reflects those connections, it doesn't create them.

As a networked resume, again, it's perfectly adequate.

One thing I find surprising is how most people will have completely relaxed privacy controls on LinkedIn vs FB&others

Better make my instagram private so no one can see my cat and food photos but hey let me put my entire CV and educational history along with contact info on the internet for anyone to look up

I am pretty lax with my LinkedIn account. How could knowledge about educational history harm me?

You'd have to be crazy to do that. If you use LI, everything on your profile should ideally be strictly limited to a "need to know" basis— in other words, only what is necessary to make a connection that will potentially lead to a job. After all, who puts their entire educational and work history on their CV except new grads? (For young people, exposure vectors would be reduced because of lack of experience).

Because your LinkedIn is optimized to make you look professional while the other social networks are not.

"It’s an Escher staircase masquerading as a career ladder." What an imaginative parable, bravo!

Should be marked [2013]

I had no idea that this was from 2013, and it's faintly amusing that so little has changed about LinkedIn since.

As if that's some remote past, or what it says doesn't apply to today's LinkedIn?

Maybe the author is not a coder?

LinkedIn is incredibly useful due to recruiters hitting up us coders a few times a week selling us on some new and better job then the one you have currently. It's how you can give yourself a huge raise with each new job or contract job you decide to pursue & land.

I often wonder if those in other fields outside of coding experience a similar flood of opportunities or not?

...recruiters hitting up us coders a few times a week selling us on some new and better job...

Let's not fail to mention recruiters that cold call you at your place of employment, and are too dense to understand why you might possibly be upset at this.

This isn't limited to recruiters. Software sales has shown up on my phone often enough that I don't know if I want my profile public anymore... It's basically a public directory of every tech company.

Why would u ever give them your work number, personal phone number or real email address? Give them your spam info...google voice number and spam email account.

Further I've never experienced a recruiter calling my current place of work (wouldn't he or she be fired?) and I often am and or can be vague re: where I'm actually working. Especially if you note you are working for some random govt. or contracting company.

I list my current company, branch location, and personal email address NOT my company one. No phone numbers at all.

Recruiters will still call the main company number and ask to be transferred to me. We're not a large place, so a receptionist physically takes the call. Oh yeah, she also serves as secretary for the VPs and our HR department.

And I still get email at my company address. We have a pretty standard first.last@company format.

I could choose to obsfucate my employer and location, but IMO that kind of defeats the purpose of keeping my profile current.

Well that while your not looking(Put that on your LinkedIn .. Not looking)those crazy outlandish recruiter calls you say happen should be an alarm to your current company! Better keep you happy or your find something better.

My LinkedIn lists my current place of employment. I see no reason at all that it would list contact details there. It also has me listed as "not current looking".

I've had two separate recruiters call my office, and openly tell reception they are calling "in regards to a job". I can only assume they Googled said workplace.

It could cause a strain in your current workplace and leave you more likely to need to jump - I find the whole premise incredibly offensive.

Google called me at my place of employment to let me know they weren't interested in hiring me. That seemed a little off.

I think you forgot the /s at the end of your post. Linkedin has brought me nothing but spam.

Linkedin is a bit like MySpace (not as bad) circa 2008, totally waiting for a Facebook to come and disrupt it. Only a matter of time.

Linkedin is the only social network profile I actively maintain.

FB, G+, Twitter, Snapchat and the like add no value to my life at all. If anything they are just another source of annoying notifications.

Linkedin has gotten me several hundred thousand dollars worth of contracts. Enough said.

The article is old (2013) so there's no mention of how LinkedIn's newsfeed is moving the site towards a work-related version of Facebook, which poses two questions: 1) can LinkedIn compete with Facebook? and 2) Will FB add features for professionals?

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