LinkedIn sucks
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Maybe that is the reason why it sucks for the author. I use LinkedIn as my personal CV and have gotten a job through it. If I had to search for a new job it would probably be through LinkedIn, Stackoverflow and other smaller sites for remote workers.
LinkedIn is better than all other general career sites, much much better and I can always point people there if they want my CV.
If you add contacts you don't know indiscriminately, you're going to have issues. That's just asking for trouble.
But then, I haven't logged into my account in so long I don't even get spam from Linkedin anymore.
I take the exact opposite approach and only exclude recruiters. I figure by doing this my network is my legitimate business connections which I can use to further myself professionally.
Legitimately curious, how do you use these connections to further your career? Other than coworkers and people interested in hiring me and/or recruiters, and some bigger names, I didn't really see any other use to LinkedIn yet...
But, I have actually reached out to connections to discuss business opportunities. Since the connections live in the world where I have done business, they are more likely to know and trust that I can deliver on their business needs.
If, however, that person sees that they are connected to you via some other person they know and trust, I think they'll be more likely to take you serious.
That's a little risky because LI sometimes shows an auth wall - a blank page with a login dialog. It looks like they don't show it every time, but I've seen it happen. I moved on without logging in.
Definitely better than any other career site, imho.
> I understand that I’m using LinkedIn wrong.
"This hammer sucks! I keep swinging wildly, but none of my nails ever get hammered in, but my TV and most of my light bulbs are broken."
Also, after being exposed to the OSINT community via the Arms Control community, I learned how crazy dangerous it is to have your whole organization on there.
If I ever have a company with employees I'm going to make it part of the employment agreement (and a fireable offense) to add the position to LinkedIn. It's a complete gold mine for competitors and social engineers. People can put "Long Term Data Science Contract" if they really want to, but ideally I'd be able to convince them to just delete it or, at the very least, ramp up the security settings after deleting fake connections.
It's definitely useful, but mostly for other people.
How much $$ over market value would you offer to compensate an employee for not using it?
[0] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/435myg/programmer...
These also seem like concerns for the employer, not the employee. What danger would motivate an employee to delete their account?
So I had the pleasure of watching a non-evil social engineer at work once. He thought about humans like I think about networks. He treated LinkedIn like a network map. He treated secretaries like firewalls.
He started with the coop students. He'd pretend to be from the university the coop student went to. Of course the call gets forwarded. Of course he does a full interview with the coop student and learns their tech stack. Coop student doesn't know better so questions like:
"We're trying to make sure we train our students with the technology that is actually used in the field. Are they giving you guys Macs or PCs? PCs, eh? Windows or Linux? Great. Oh, one last thing, Dell is sponsoring a new building; any chance you guys are on Dell? Oh, Lenovo; ok. No problem. Can you transfer me to your boss [the head of IT] I have some questions for him."
Bossman, who they know isn't within earshot of the coop because they asked the student if they had enough space from their boss before the interview, picks up the phone.
"Hi Mr. Bossman I'm Steve, your new Lenovo rep, calling about some great new gear we have that we think you guys might really enjoy. Studies are showing that high density pixel laptops are better for worker productivity, but before we do a full pitch to Frank [the decision maker at the company, which we learned from LinkedIn / interviewing the coop] we'd like to make sure it is what you guys in IT would really want. Can we send a couple over for free and get your comments about what you think?"
Bam. Root of the head of IT. Because you control the actual laptop you throw in a GSM card and not even network monitoring would set off alarm bells. Took one phone call that wouldn't have been possible without LinkedIn.
At least I think that's how it used to work. Their user interface was vague about exactly what it will send on your behalf, but then they phrase it like "Bob wants to connect with you!"
No, Bob just made the mistake of expecting to be presented with a list of people they might want to connect with, rather than silently spamming everyone they've ever emailed with a contact request.
In other words, "I'm throwing a tantrum because I don't like this thing other people like." This is the attitude that keeps me away from otherwise mature, smart people on Twitter too.
Yes, LI is spammy, but a lot of people say they find my content on LI. It's a professional network, it's not really supposed to be fun.
If you don't like the show, just change the channel.
The ones who resort to spamming random strangers are self-announcing as the other kind.
But I did have one cold contact from a pretty legit recruiter that ended up turning into a pretty legit job. That may have been a fluke, but it might also be something that happens more often than I realize. Mostly I barely even read the recruiter messages; this one just happened to catch me on a rare day when I'm open to switching jobs.
That was really some pointless article.
1) Do not let LinkedIn scan your contacts, your calendar, your anything.
2) Do not accept connections from people you have not actually worked with in some capacity.
3) Turn off all emails.
4) Turn off all app alerts.
Turning off alerts is my superpower for making any digital communications channel bearable, really. IMO I should only get alerts for messages that are at the level of seriously affecting career, family, life and limb, etc.
In terms of hearing from recruiters... it says where I work right on my LinkedIn profile. If they can't be bothered to reach out to me at work, how badly do they actually want to recruit me? I'm not interested in being one of 2,000 people receiving keyword-driven mass recruiting spam.
To build connections, I accept requests from people I've worked with, even if it was one project a while ago. I occasionally browse the "people you may know" screen in the phone app to see if there is anyone I want to add as a connection.
I dislike the interface, it loads slow, almost 90% of messages are spam. They tried to be a content hub, but the only content hubs I read are HN, Quora, NYT and random blogs.
That said, I get people reaching out to me once or twice a week with opportunities for a new job. Most of these fit my qualifications, and it's how I landed my current gig. I don't need to look for jobs anymore, they come to me.
To a journalist, whose contacts may be more accustomed to the benefits of actually staying in contact and who sees professional networking as part of their job, the benefits of a streamlined social networking sites may be much less clear, of course.
The platform could use a little maintenance though. The iOS app is an absolute crime and it would be good if there was some moderation. Some recruiters are absolutely horrible and it would be nice to be able to report them and actually get them banned.
So I'll put up with the hassle to maintain an easy way to find new employment should my current employment no longer work out.
Skip “the feed”, job search, all the social network crap, and all LinkedIn's begging pleading to let them loose on your contact list.
I left and it feels good not having an account.
It’s early days but if you want to check it out, you can here: https://able.bio