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Comment by jelder | Hacker News Reader

This rings true for me. I'm a high school dropout with a GED and a couple of community college credits, but nevertheless found success in tech. I know a lot of people my age took this unconventional path, but LinkedIn basically tells us to fuck off.

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Conversely I'm in the same boat, but I still can't find value in LinkedIn because it feels so disingenuous, and not at all part of my peer hiring circle. I suppose if I weren't already employed in a job that fulfills all of my needs, I'd be more concerned, but LinkedIn has never been anything but a curiosity for me. I'm sure others may find more value in it, but in responding to your comment I guess I just felt the need to say you're not the only one that took the same unconventional path.

Highschool dropout as well. I see LinkedIn as sort of the antithesis of GitHub.

Whereas LinkedIn is sort of a social proof via credential, GitHub is social proof via work product.

Plenty of people smarter than me have written about the diminishing value of credentials and credentialism as social proof[0]. I believe that is partially why LinkedIn is such a cess-pool/shit-show.

Maybe it's my bias from being a dropout that only my work product has ever mattered. I believe there's room for a social network to replace LinkedIn with a "GitHub for non-tech people". Perhaps this would have a mix of credentials and a way to show ones work.

[0]: The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts Book by Daniel Susskind and Richard Susskind https://www.amazon.com/Future-Professions-Technology-Transfo...

I agree with the first part about credentials, but I see a bit of danger in how you view Github.

I wish I had time to put more stuff in my Github account, but I don't.. All the work I do is for clients, or for my employer, and I can't post or share it.

Sometimes I can extract a small piece and share it, but otherwise, I can't. I also don't have a ton of time in my life to code on personal projects anymore.

So while I consider myself an experienced and accomplished developer (been at it for 20 years now), if Github is my "social proof via work product", then I don't look like much..

I'm not saying this is your fault or that people will only ever look at Github, but I hear this more and more ("show us your Github work") in the context of hiring and evaluating developers, and I hope it doesn't become just another thing that - following OP's point - people or systems hold against you for not having.

I am of similar mind re: github.

Recently, I found viewing a potential hire's StackOverflow to be much more interesting than their github. You learn a lot about what kinds of questions someone asks and how they ask them.

Only few of my colleagues have active github or open source contributions. They code enough in work basically. Some of them a lot actually. Oddly and I think it is just random, those with active github are less productive/reliable at work.

Then again, I never bothered to have linked in account. Nobody I know is using it.

Judging someone by github activity is pointless unless you're hiring for open source and take the effort to see how they interact with community.

I've seen lots of github profiles that look amazing on paper and then when you dig in they just went around to projects changing spelling/pronouns/punctuation in other projects.

It's much faster to phone screen people after a simple resume read rather than deriving signals that can be gamed like github.

I've never seen linked in as anything except a way to find out if I know someone at a given company...

FWIW, I'm a GED holder, but later finished college & PhD. My linkedin profile is 100% complete, and I find zero utility in the platform. You really aren't missing much there.

Can relate, I failed at the game of academia as well. In the end, on LinkedIn I gave up and ended up just putting in my college, but without listing a degree. Funnily enough, it looks pretty much like I finished to the uninitiated outsider.

Now that I'm CTO of one of the more successful startups in Berlin, that's actually one of my pet peeves for rejecting job offers when applicable. Microsoft just offered me a very well paid startup CTO position, but I told the recruiter he must be wrong, as I didn't fit their requirements (i.e. a finished degree)...

I take the same approach, listing the (non technical) area of study and years of attendance. People tend to assume this resulted in a BA, which is not the intent. I've struggled with whether this is duplicitous on my part. Generally I feel that listing no education would be a lie of omission and not relay the story of my professional career properly.

I think thats why https://brydge.com/ was built?

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