Why do you need a LinkedIn account?

Over the last 6 months I've read and had to make decisions on somewhere north of 500 cvs.

(I am a software developer, but I'm also doing hiring right now)

Linkedin means you exist[1]. It adds some (ie more than zero) legitimacy to your experiences[2]. It gives a canonical link to places you've worked[3]. It standardizes the way experience is described[4].

Let me clear: I hate linkedin. It sucks, I get it. The last time opened it with an intention other than for hiring or updating my status due to a job change was well over a decade ago. But I also hate CVs, and you have to make calls somehow.

[1] People send in fake or dishonest names to imply they are a single developer, but the goal is for you to hire their outsourcing company, or to obfuscate themselves because... (I never got to the bottom of all of them)

[2] People lie. This doesn't completely solve that but it creates links you can at least vaguely understand, connections implied you've worked with others etc

[3] When you hire from every single company "Generic Corp" isn't helpful, and it's often the case the company name people say is ungooglable, or at least gets multiple potential hits, then you have to try to guess which one the mean by where they live, if you can work that out from other companies they've listed... it's a mess

[4] everyone writes CVs differently, which is great for self expression, but makes it harder to get a common feel for things

Maybe Linked In was bad for me, or maybe I was using it incorrectly but...

I deleted my account. I don't know if I'd ever make another one or not. I'm a self-taught developer with three years of experience, two in a single company that I still work for.

To be clear, I actually do want to find a part-time contract on the side, but I'm loathe to create yet another profile on yet another page. I already have GIthub/gitlab ( which actually doesn't showcase the work I've been doing for the past two years since I can't put any of that code on there ).

I deleted Linked In partially because I kept getting recruiter spam for my previous career (teacher), and also because I was tired of all the spam posts from different companies bragging how nice their gym is or what it's like to work for them.

Quite frankly, I think my CV gets passed over a lot due to my age, and my experience. So yeah. I don't think Linkedin would even help me.

Oh, and Linkedin looooovves data mining. They ask so many invasive questions that it gives employers a free pass on judging you without even interviewing you.

Oh god I hate LinkedIn. Full of "I'm awesome and smart" people. But maybe it's just me.

The problem with Linkedin is that after certain amount of connections, it loses exclusivity and just turns into any other social media out there....

Until I figured this out, I just left my LinkenIn account bare, with very few connections:

- LinkedIn is where new jobs are announced. You may have noticed in finance that there's a layer of recruitment consultants who have placed themselves between the banks/funds/fintechs and the potential employess. Quite often one of them will post a list of jobs they are working to place someone in. Quite often these job listings also include salaries and perks. And the big plus is that the experience is interactive. You simply ping them about the job and they chat with you. If it's not for you, not much time is wasted.

- Recruitment guys are not picky about who they link with. I've turned my news feed into a continuous stream of jobs from various people. Now and again, I'll ping one of them and find out who the employer is and what exactly they want. It tells me what's going on in the industry.

- If you pepper your LinkedIn CV with tech keywords, you will get a load of people contacting you with potential jobs. Most are not quite what you want, but how many jobs does one person need? I've gotten really good offers as well, just by sitting there and doing nothing.

- People who want to sell you stuff are there too. I'm a hiring manager, so I get a lot of "hey I've got this guy, do you want him?" messages. Or "We are looking to partner with someone with xyz skills". You can quite quickly decide if there's any interest.

So that's why it's worth having a LinkedIn profile.

I wish they'd update their site though, it's getting pretty stale. They need a dark theme (fairly minor) and they need a way to group your contacts. That last one is especially important, as I often add people who don't know me but seem interesting.

I created a throwaway account to get the details of someone who crashed into me approximately 10 years ago. It still periodically attacks my spam box and it hasn’t been used excerpt for that 1 time.

This article reads like an ad for LinkedIn. Also the new hype is to have a GitHub account with plenty pet projects when you apply for a position (not that it matter anyway, none going to actually look at them).

I was getting repeated spam from LinkedIn (“x wants to connect with you”) around 2012. Hitting unsubscribe would stop it for a calendar month, but then it would start again.

I ended up sending them an email threatening court action under UK spam legislation if I ever had another unsolicited email from a LinkedIn.com domain again, and since then it’s been blissful silence. Highly recommended.

Having since moved to Sweden, I can tell you that not having an account here is viewed as somewhere between wilfully contrarian and bizarre. It doesn’t seem to have affected my career though.

The “do you know this person on LinkedIn“ have been quite successful in making sure I never make a LinkedIn, something I would like to uphold even as we enter an economic recession.

Some time ago I realized that over the years I never started a new job that was coming from a LinkedIn connection. So it was basically useless to me, now more than ever as it’s just like any other social media out there full of “success” stories and noise. I already keep “connections” with ex colleagues with IM apps. For now I just removed the app from my iPhone and already experienced I got some time back like when I deleted my facebook and instagram account a couple of years ago. Eventually I’ll delete linkedin as well. If I need to find a new job or make new “connections” I’ll use hn like I did before

Linkedin can be very helpful when doing business dev and looking for key contacts in your target companies.

But I must say my good-looking woman colleague is much more successful than me in acquiring connections. Go figure...

I've never had a LinkedIn account and don't intend to start. Where I work, there's an "our staff" page which used to have links to staff webpages, LinkedIn etc, and from the web-stats, I know that I used to get 4-5 people a month clicking on the "web page" link. About a year ago, they changed the design of the page so that it had only LinkedIn links, so I have a LinkedIn link which leads to my website. Since then not a single person has clicked that link.

People do not want to read your LinkedIn page.

Nice advertisment. As long as there is no single negative thing about LinkedIn mentioned (and we all know there are plenty), this article can't be taken as anything else. Flagged.

I think that for me there's some value in having an account and very little value in spending significant amounts of time on the platform.

Perhaps, if you are at a stage in your career where you might be changing jobs somewhat regularly, LinkedIn might be useful. However, be prepared to be spammed.

I am in a steady job, nearing retirement. I used to get a lot of spam loosely related to my work. Since I deleted my LinkedIn account, the volume of such spam emails has decreased by at least 80%.

LinkedIN thinks of your career as a monolithic thing--that you have the same career path, growing ever upward, your experience a rationally clear whole.

In all the years I've been on LinkedIN they have not responded or innovated nor altered the basic template.

I got my two last jobs via Linkedin so for me at least it has been useful.

But yes, lots of noise there.

the true value with linkedin was always the one-click apply for this job integration it spawned, no cv no filling out 200 fields over and over with the same information.

It can be useful. I have one rule when it comes to Linkedin though; I only connect to/with people I have either met in person or spoke to with over the phone.

Its becoming the facebook for the workforce, lots of noice.

To be fair HN is probably not LinkedIn's typical audience :P

I say this as a techie who embraced the Dark Side and started using LI a few years ago...