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Comment by ben1040 | Hacker News Reader

I've been considering just deleting my LI account. It essentially has just been a sink for terrible recruiter mail; in 12 years of having an account I don't think I've once received any sort of actionable message through it.

I've also turned off the endorsements because I was just getting driveby endorsements for things like J2EE.

Is there a job-search downside to deleting your account, provided you have a decent Google cross section otherwise via conference talks, blog, github, etc?

I can't tell if LinkedIn has marketed itself into an actual perception that not having an account means you don't care about career or the like.

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I am personally astonished that LinkedIn is still a thing. For me, it was the most obviously useless of all the social networks and it was the first one I deleted, upwards of 7 years ago now.

The other social networks eventually followed but LinkedIn just gave me zero value from day one. It was nothing but recruiter spam. Do people actually get work and jobs out of LinkedIn? Or is is just a way to keep up with what old coworkers are doing? I frankly do not get it.

Here's an opposite perspective. I get plenty of value out of LinkedIn, both in personal and in business.

Personally, it's a great business card replacement. If I'm at networking events, conferences, etc. I also prefer to have my personal (Facebook) and business (LinkedIn) networks separate since I use them for very different purposes. On occasion, I've also leveraged groups to get specific advice I wasn't easily able to find elsewhere.

In running my company, LinkedIn also creates a quick talent pipeline and allows candidates to get a rough understanding of who will be interviewing them so we don't need to spend precious interview time answering their questions about our backgrounds.

I don't know of any replacements that do all of these things under one roof reasonable well. I do know of a few individual tools that offer incremental improvements over what LinkedIn offers, particularly in the area of finding qualified candidates, but in other areas (ex. digital business card) LinkedIn is the only real game in town.

> Do people actually get work and jobs out of LinkedIn? Or is is just a way to keep up with what old coworkers are doing? I frankly do not get it.

Yes. Multiple times.

As someone who has only gotten recruiter spam from LI: Was it worth sifting through all the spam? I've personally never known anyone who has gotten a job with them, so from where I sit it seems like a lot of work for no payoff. I'm curious as to your experience, though.

One time I even got recruiter spam on LinkedIn from LinkedIn.

Got a job at MS via LinkedIn, as well as my current job, which I really enjoy.

I ignore recruiters if I even get a hint that they're not employed directly by the company they're purporting to be with. It's become less of an issue within the last year or so.

> Do people actually get work and jobs out of LinkedIn? Or is is just a way to keep up with what old coworkers are doing?

Yes because yes. When I last looked for a job, I poked around LinkedIn to see who was working at companies that I found interesting, got a former co-worker to refer me for his new place, and got a job there.

I've been on LI similarly as long... I get some of the ire, but when I see comments like this I wonder if I'm in some extreme minority.

I don't get pelted with a ton of messages - maybe a dozen a month at most, and maybe 1/2 of them are actual ops I could be interested in/are applicable to my skillset. I've had several interviews which originated from a LI message - easily over a dozen, and I may have landed a job in the past this way (can't remember unfortunately). This is sharply contrasted with my experience during the .com days upon graduating college - I would get 2-3 daily calls from recruiters for all sorts of things.

Unsure if it's because I'm older, more skilled, have a note that I'm busy on my LI intro, or what... but I have a relatively in demand skillset (Rails/React dev) and am getting messages for quality leads, even quite a few for remote gigs (I have a note that I prefer remote work).

How much do you value your professional time at? How long does it take you to read, comprehend, and respond to 12 recruiter spams a month? Take that dollar figure and imagine what you could buy with it after 6 months!

It's like 1h/y. You can handle that sitting on the toilet. You can literally filter out to solid leads while pooping. Why the derision?

No one is forcing you to read them, and certainly not to respond. If I'm not looking for work I don't respond. It's seriously maybe 5 minutes per month of my life to skim the job postings which come through my inbox.

As I alluded to above - my life prior to LI had far time sunk due to being badgered by recruiters.

I just deleted my LinkedIn account. I obtained zero of my last few jobs from using LinkedIn (at least primarily), and I got 'recruiters' contacting me for initial screens that led nowhere, I think because they don't really know how to filter down to what their client needs very well.

I would compulsively check my account however, and felt the need to respond to all kinds of messages I got on there in some form or fashion. When I took an honest look at the time I put into using it and what I actually got out of it, it was clear for me it was a time sink with no reward other than 'feeling like I'm doing something to help my career' when I could have spent all that time actually doing something that mattered to me.

Edit: If a company won't hire me due to not having a LinkedIn account, I guess that's a downside, however I don't see how a profile there is much better information than a resume I've prepared.

Not having a LinkedIn account would be definitely a red flag for many companies. However you have the control to display as much information as you're comfortable with on your profile.

Why? I have had same thought as op. Even as an address buck of loose employee connections it feels pretty useless. A lot of people I might want to ask for a recommendation or advice on a role, I would probably reach out over Facebook or email since it feels more sincere and so much is lost in the recruitment noise on linkedin, especially for software people.

Haven't had a linkedin profile like OP for a long time. Never had any issues finding a job or getting interviews. Stackoverflow careers CV page is my resume and the contacts that come through Stackoverflow are consistently of high quality.

I deleted mine a few years ago, after some idiot tried to recruit me over my work phone. No regrets whatsoever.

Recruiter spam dropped off. The couple of recruiters who were actually any good still send me an email and/or a call once a year to find out if I'm looking for anything. So I don't feel like I lost anything.

I completely agree if you are purely an employee. It has no use other than to bother you. However, I've found in consulting work, I sometimes get these random gems where companies want my skillset and are willing to pay very high hourly for it on an as needed basis. Worked out well in those scenarios.

I've tried to use LI as a recruiting tool (as a hiring manager and as a team member of the person being hired). I've even paid for an upgraded subscription once in a while.

Worthless. Craigs List is cheaper and far more effective, with a well-written help wanted ad.

Opposite of my experience. LinkedIn gave me a massive scope over engineers, with better filters than any of the many other sites we were using.

What kind of recruiter waits for responses to their help ad?

You wont receive as many recruiting emails. I only recruited via linkedin for a while because the way I saw it is that anyone with an account is at least passively interested in hearing from me. If someone didn't have a linkedin I didn't take the time to track them down.

That being said many (including myself) recruiters now use other sites to find developers. But it's definitely less than the amount who just search linkedin. It doesn't seem like you were getting very good emails from recruiters to begin with so it may not be an issue for you to get rid of your account.

It's not too hard to change LI privacy setting to basically never receive recruiter spam.

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