I personally found messaging to not be very useful or relevant, and I just couldn't keep up with the backlog of messages. If they really want to contact me, they can just email me.
Here are the UBO rules:
www.linkedin.com###voyager-feed
www.linkedin.com###messaging
www.linkedin.com##.msg-overlay-bubble-header
www.linkedin.com##.msg-overlay-list-bubble__content--scrollable.msg-overlay-list-bubble__content
www.linkedin.com###msg-overlay
www.linkedin.com###messaging-nav-itemThere’s a similar network effect problem with Facebook, but it’s a lot easier to leave Facebook because you presumably can still message your real life friends in other ways.
With LinkedIn you can’t leave without also seriously hurting your ability to get in touch with recruiters.
That said, you basically don’t have to spend any time on it after you set it up. Maybe update once a year? So doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.
...not that I've ever had anything useful come from talking to a recruiter. The useful bits have always come through my existing personal network more directly, or through meatspace networking. I shut down my LinkedIn because I basically started to view recruiter emails as spam.
So in my world, having a CV with the necessary keywords (SOX, HIPAA, GDPR, COBIT, NIST SP 800/XX/yy/zz, NIST CSF, etc.) is a life saver because I always have headhunters calling me. I don't see them as spam. I just tell them to ring me 30 days before my contract/extension ends, and they gladly do so, and I stay working like this.
I don't spend more than 10minutes per month, and only to accept/ignore/reply to messages. I use it. I don't let it use me (apart from the fact that they sell my data to anyone who is willing to pay them).
Sure - if you know people that work at the specific company you're interested in then you can just get a referral through them, but if you don't then having a history of email contact with recruiters at interesting companies via linked in is quite valuable and makes it easy to jump to the interview process.
The job market is strong so we (devs) get a lot of email from recruiters trying to hire, and the recruiter quality can vary (generally employees of the specific company are better than hired firms), but in general I think this is a good problem to have.
I don't categorize the person you're replying to this way, but I've definitely seen devs go on a bit of an ego trip because of the recruiter emails they get and then treat them dismissively. A career is long, there's no reason to be nasty to them or cut them off - at some point you might need their help.
I dislike LinkedIn, but have seen very few people walk the walk professionally when it comes to influencing their own workplace to stop using it in some way. I have advised every company I have worked at against using external recruiters, and rarely has it been accepted (even though we always got a lot of candidates from the external recruiters who weren't a good fit with regards to either skills or eagerness).
Props to the article author for actually doing so, and I hope they will remember this and not use LinkedIn when the company they are cofounding has to recruit their N > 20th employee.
Email might be a neutral tool, but not using a tool like LinkedIn is worse because you're restricting your hiring pool to immediate connections. For all its warts, LinkedIn allows job seekers to connect with a wider range of jobs and job posters to connect to a wider range of potential candidates.
The answer isn't to double down on a "it's not what you know but who you know" world.
Most outside recruiters are terrible, we can agree on that. It's a two-fold problem, they give you poor candidates and harm the reputation of your firm by leaving a poor impression of you to them. I'm looking for work right now and had first hand experience of this recently; I don't know if I should feel sad that I didn't get a job that sounded perfect or happy that I dodged a bullet because if the candidate experience was so bad, what would working there be like?
That's the one that I used, thanks! I find messaging valuable :)
A high percentage of which seem to be recruiters cutting and pasting words of wisdom, inspirational quotes that dozens of people "Like."
I don't know how people can take this stuff seriously.
The only wannabe thought leaders I see are all people I actually know who are taking other people's thoughts and passing them off as their own. Thankfully, I rarely scroll the feed -- I only use linkedin to receive unsolicited messages from people who just want to be my friend so they can sell me their services. I should really delete my linkedin profile.
Before lockdowns, I kept seeing this post, that boiled down to "employee asked for WFH, due to personal life issues. Now they are even more dedicated and can spend the time freed up working 8-6 instead, and we both win! Thoughts?"
On a slight tangent, seeing all the companies come out of the woodwork to praise WFH policies during COVID was truly astounding. I suspected 100% of these companies would go right back to working in an office as soon as COVID left the news. And that seems to be playing out right now. I've been working remote for many years now, so I know these people are totally full of shit. It's the worst sort of virtue signaling and pandering imaginable. Then they all switched to Black Lives Matter. These people sold their soul to the devil.
Any post by a company with no logo is virtually guaranteed to be spam. I'm seeing them side-by-side with the real post. It's highly polluted by these bad actors.
The scraped ones are the bad ones. Bad formatting and categorisation, not kept up to date (the job might be expired on the original site but still displayed on LinkedIn) and you have to register and apply on an external site.
It’s quite ironic that LinkedIn is so against scraping despite doing it themselves.
Last time I was looking I used those sites to fil the quota for job applications per day that receiving JSA (social security) requires in the UK - whilst putting the real effort in to the 2-3 decent possibilities a week I found.
The worst part though, to me, is that it seems too often to completely ignore my search terms in favor of showing me "sponsored" or jobs that match my profile, even if they completely lack anything from my search.
It's a shame, because it has a few features I really like that I dont see in other job boards. The ability to filter by both the company industry and the job function is pretty nice.
Also, I can't stand the interface for looking for a job. I really wish it had a "Jobs since you last looked", because otherwise I just kept seeing the same jobs I wasn't interested in.
My feed went back to being social rather than emotional manipulation or clickbait news. It was amazing.
Eventually the site lost its value for me because 75% of my real friends deleted their profiles, so it was an awkward/depressing ghosttown. I eventually deleted mine because of ethical qualms.
It has happened multiple times. I explicitly unfollow someone, never interact with them in any way, and then they again pop up in my feed after two weeks. Somehow if you follow too few people, Facebook just picks some more people for you to follow without ever asking you or telling you.
The behavior you are describing reminds me of the behavior that happens after deactivating your account, not deleting it.
I deleted my facebook last year so maybe things have changed.
My main goal was to harm Facebook's ad business, so I still accomplished that. As far as privacy, I've mostly given up on escaping from Facebook's databases.
open "https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=__OBJ_...
Apologies to non-Mac users. OnMyCommand is at http://www.abracode.com/free/cmworkshop/on_my_command.html, though for beginners I will immodestly suggest my fork of the ReadMe: https://github.com/abra-code/OMC/pull/9/files
That brings up another issue, that employment background checks are increasingly checking social media posts for "questionable" activity. It's already daunting enough to see that I can't express my true self on places like FB for various reasons but now it's a factor when I'm applying for work?
I think if it was voluntary, and for like a PR position or other very public-facing, it would be different but when I found out this was going on I was relieved that I basically checked out of social media long ago voluntarily where I was already very guarded about how I expressed myself.
But you are right, seeing witch hunts on social media makes me think you shouldn't use them. I don't express a lot of my political opinions online anymore for this reason alone and am cutting on how much personal information I give up.
The advice also warns that, “The employer should – prior to the inspection of a social media profile – take into account whether the social media profile of the applicant is related to business or private purposes, as this can be an important indication for the legal admissibility of the data inspection.”
This means that while business networking sites such as LinkedIn may be considered fair game, platforms used for more personal purposes, such as Facebook and Instagram, are possibly not relevant."
I don't live in the EU, though, so I'm oblivious of the details.
1: https://checkpoint.cvcheck.com/the-gdpr-and-its-effect-on-so...
Honestly, can you blame them in the current climate? If they can find something that is seriously questionable (I leave the definition of that to the reader), anyone else can too. And no company wants either internal dissent or an external PR hit because someone they hired ranted online about something that's outside the scope of "civilized" discourse as determined by the standards of the arbiters of appropriate public discussion.
She's gotten incoming freshman kicked out of the colleges they were accepted to. Fired from their jobs. Businesses closed. Dozens and possibly hundreds of them. She's literally dedicated herself to destroying lives.
This is precisely why that although the 1st Amendment only specifically mentions government limits on laws regarding free speech, that free speech MUST ALSO be a cultural value that is protected and defended FIRST and the content of the speech judged SECOND.
People love to say "you are free to speak but we never said there's no consequences!!" as though that's some sort of ace in the hole. Well, sorry folks, but it isn't free speech if you are able to ensure I can never make a living for the rest of my life. The law generously limits what is illegal speech, and certain kinds of hate speech are included.
"I may disagree with every word you say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" MUST be a social value for "free speech" and especially the 1st Amendment to have any meaning at all.
I do have good professional reasons to be on twitter and I honestly don't have much inclination to have political arguments there. If I did, I'd probably get another pseudonymous handle but even that carries some risk that it could be connected to you in some way.
And the degree to which this social-media-background-check crap goes - just see a recent entry from jwz's blog about this[1]. I had little idea things had gone that far already.
Sure, play stupid games/get stupid prizes but we are all human and go through phases of self-discovery. Turning social media into a saccharine, superficial cat pics trading ground where everyone is fearful of losing friendships over, say, well-intentioned analysis and opinions seems like a pathetic outcome for humanity overall. Not to mention how easy it is to miss sarcasm or other thought subtleties that can't be easily conveyed on international multimedia social networks.
I agree with others who say HN is a refreshing exception to the toxic mess that is social media, though.
For a professional community it is hopelessly clumsy. Also overpriced.
I am always wondering who reads that? It turns out that a lot of people do read (or at least see) the feed.
I'd really love to see others job updates there, or job openings. But mostly its just drivel.
Not trolling but I'm willing to bet that the majority here in HN, including me, do not know who you are talking about.
It seems like I would have to unfollow everyone, which is not a big deal for me (I don't look at the newsfeed to begin with) but could be problematic if you find some content useful.
LinkedIn desperately tries to get me to “follow” the people you mentioned which I always ignore however not following them still doesn’t isolate you from the noise.
It seems like everyone on LinkedIn is trying to be an “influencer” or wannabe thought leader posting bullshit motivational content or presenting obvious facts as something groundbreaking.
All the content in my feed is from my connections or interactions by my connections. Of course there is plenty of vapid "thought-leader" content from them too.
Actually I've gotten some amusement from watching a few former colleagues overtly try the "LinkedIn thought leader" thing. Kind of funny to observe the (sometimes very large) gap between what they post and what I know they used to do in their day jobs.
And hence the saying "Nobody is a prophet in their own land".
Maybe one or two of them. But I don't even know who Guy Kawasaki is.