LinkedIn: Is it A Strategic Error? | Hacker News Reader

LinkedIn: Is it A Strategic Error?

sophisticatedfinance.typepad.com

24 pointsrhhfla10 comments

Lately, the majority of my experience with LinkedIn has been endless recruiter spam (They wardial all the tech people at my office by looking at who is listed as a "Developer" at my company, or just keep sending me email spam offering crappy job prospects) or discovering former coworkers who want recommendations. Looking at said coworkers often yields them taking credit for projects they didn't do or work on. It's like exposing the resume lies in an entirely new, social network-ey way!

Of course, LinkedIn is making huge contributions in the technology space - they are the minds behind Project Voldemort - one of the burgeoning Dynamo+Bigtable NoSQL hybrids. They're also a big user of the Hadoop stack and much of their tech team has written some great articles about their use of it over the last year or so.

Compared with MySpace, with which Mr. Hacker tries to inexplicably link LinkedIn (For doing "nothing" over 2 years), this alone is a huge boon to the community as a whole. MySpace was a SQL Server + ASP.net shop and as far as I know did nothing useful for the tech community except make us run away screaming in fear from the horror Murdoch hath wrought.

What exactly does a site like LinkedIn have to do at this point however? They're still technically relevant - I don't cringe and laugh at the mention of it like I would say, MySpace. It has proven for many people I know in recent months to be a boon. At the very least I get a weekly email with updates of people in my network. It's sometimes incredibly useful to know where people have moved to jobwise, etc. Or if somebody really, really good is now on the beach and just hasn't called you yet - it gives you a chance to grab them before someone else does.

Also - WTF is with the site layout? It looks like it's 800x600 fixed, with about a 200 pixel gutter for the content. It looks smushed in like crazy on my screen.

I think the author goes too far in saying that LinkedIn is squandering its position. I don't think that any company is under obligation to expand in bold new (headline-grabbing) directions just for the sake of doing so.

Personally, the interesting thing about LinkedIn is this: in the good old days, company org charts were considered top secret for fear that the leaders would be targeted by headhunters. Now that's all in the open. Similarly, job descriptions can be mined to give clues as to company strategy.

I haven't looked closely at the extras that LinkedIn offers, but for the casual user such as myself, it's true that not much has changed. But that's fine.

The other thing about LinkedIn is that it will always be similar to the rate-my-(professor,landlord,etc.) sites, in that it's extremely useful when you're making (or considering) a big decision, but most of the time doesn't need regular interaction.

Personally, I now almost totally ignore LinkedIn. My connectoins haven't grown in a year; my friends don't often update.

Maybe this is natural; its a professional management site, and we don't change jobs/titles very often. I DONT use it like facebook at all, and DONT care about social features e.g. Twitter.

I think there's a correlation between "just updated my LinkedIn profile" and "I am about to change jobs".

It is for this very reason that I update my profile regularly, even if insignificant ways. I actually have a Google Calendar to remind me to do it twice a month.

This can be great for your career.

If you don't work for a itty bitty startup you can count on someone above you in the org chart catching wind of every LinkedIn update you make. I have been asked about my frequent updates twice at my current job; the second time they were so concerned that I was looking around for a new position (and I had just taken a crucial role in a new project) that they offered me an unasked-for performance bonus following the completion of the project. It totally floored me.

I too have a linkedin account that's been languishing. I recently went through and added people I've been working with closely over the last year from my email and phone contact lists. Amazing how fast I grew my connections in just a couple days.

I think that this is probably how it's supposed to work. Long slow periods, punctuated by quick rapid action while people do spring cleaning.

My (unscientific) observation is that LinkedIn activities varies with age demographics. LinkedIn contacts and info are actively updated by the over ~30 crowd. Under 30 crowds tend to have less distinction between work/friends thus work contact info is done on facebook (or other general soNet).

I started losing interest when LinkedIn turned into yet another Twitter status stream. I enjoyed it much more when it was pure, and focused on professional relationship growth (debatable, yes). In the most egotistical sense, it is still interesting to see who has been viewing your profile.

While I like the idea of using LinkedIn more often the privacy implications put the brakes on that. The good old saying, don't put anything on the internet you don't want everyone to know still holds true. I know my employer is actively using it to recruit talent, I even get requests from colleagues to "link", but you don't know how that other person uses your information once you share it with them.

Honestly, using LinkedIn is like using the office fax to send out resumes. Except for recruiters and jobseekers I get no benefit from putting my career on the line.

I did notice in the last weeks through friends I heard hthat LinkedIn has hire at much higher rate software engineers. My assumption is that they will integrate and add more features and try capitalize on it.

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