LinkedIn is the fakest platform of them all | Hacker News Reader

LinkedIn is the fakest platform of them all

prospectmagazine.co.uk

86 pointsjmsflknr26 comments

LinkedIn Is HUGE in The UK. To the point for some jobs ( cough ) if you don't post your work or accomplishments on it, it is not considered work done. Which ends up having a lot of people bragging about themselves. Stealing credit from others, claiming to have done things when they have not. Posting how much they care about current hot or trendy issues or topics ( they don't ). And then reassuring others they have done something with it already.

And it is sort of a negative feedback loop. These people attract the same type of people. And they each like their post and forward it. This endless circles makes the whole network cringe. And it is worst if you are forced to participate in it.

LinkedIn is the fakest and the most cringiest platform ever created, no matter how I try to be positive and try to engage there, it’s just impossible for me. Also, it’s the number one source of OSINT where you can pretty much know everything you need to know about this person.

LinkedIn is a reflection of late stage capitalism, and why so many sit on the sideline while capitalists and religious fascists divide up politics.

LinkedIn was hacked. My account was breached. LinkedIn took almost 4 weeks restoring my access to my own account, after requiring numerous proofs of ID, that I'm sure they will store insecurely, forever.

No thanks and GL to anyone that uses LinkedIn, but after that, I just nuked my profile there and will never be a user again.

I'm not really sure who LinkedIn is even for anymore.

It is useless for job searching, because the search tools aren't very good.

It is useless for employers since your job gets shown to thousands of people without the right qualifications and thus massively increases the signal to noise ratio of applications, especially if Easy Apply gets turned on.

As a indie hacker/SaaS founder, I have found it surprisingly useful. Allowed me to connect with likeminded people, gain customers, discuss interesting topics. With the right circle, LinkedIn can actually be nice.

From the hiring side I never had any particular qualms with it for a ~100 person company filling "standard" roles.

> I'm not really sure who LinkedIn is even for anymore.

Mediocre people kissing up to the general idea of work.

I've found it useful for getting messages from recruiters. When I switch my profile to "Looking for work" they start messaging me and they usually have a high success rate at actually getting me in to interviews vs the actual job ads which are useless.

There are 2 facets to LinkedIn. One is an “evergreen Rolodex”. Another is the social media and “engagement” aspect Microsoft is desperately trying to prop up.

You do not have to participate in the second aspect, outside of marketing/social media focused roles where your “performance” on there serves as your actual resume.

Agreed. I can see how people who approach it like social media find it adversarial. But I think that is on them. If you don’t look at the feed, it’s a great Rolodex like you said. If you do look at the feed, then you’re just hooked on social media which isn’t the platforms problem.

I just no longer like my personal info being online anymore.

LinkedIn is useful as an experience/resume reference and for helping others likewise, but that's basically it.

There are a few (very rare) useful moderated groups (D&D, Data Science, etc.), but omg the main feed is horribly toxic. Just pretend like it's not even there.

Linkedin is still a good way to find a job and get recruiters contacts that let you know how the market is doing. But, you need to avoid the timeline at all costs. There should be a plugin that completely blocked this.

There was one, I had it. But I forgot to move it to my new computer, not sure if its still around. Worth checking though

Any ad blocker worth its salt can be easily configured to block it - but personally I’ve never felt the need; the stuff on the timeline is so trashy it’s not even addictive.

It is not addictive, but it is depressing. There's no safe amount of exposure to Linkedin timeline

Yeah, LinkedIn always looked fake to me! But maybe they're fake because it's worth it for them.

I always refused to have a LinkedIn account (before the 2010s), and I still don't have one (2025). However, based on other people's experiences, it seems that you miss a lot of opportunities. Applying to jobs manually is a full-time job; maybe being found by a recruiter is easier to get a job?

Do recruiters even check manual applications? I can see that some people do, and as long as the application happens just a few minutes after being posted. For example, for "Who's hiring", if you don't apply immediately, you won't hear back!

Although I don't like it, LinkedIn seems to be very important if you don't want to waste your time. If you had an account 10 or 15 years ago, opportunities might have come knocking. Nowadays? Not very clear with so much noise out there.

So, maybe the fake LinkedIn people know much better than I do.

LinkedIn is fine, all my old coworkers that I want to connect with are there, and they're mostly normal people. Jobs are listed there, and I've found perfectly fine candidates there.

I don't know where else people are besides Indeed, so that's where we are. It's boring, it does a thing, and people are there.

I was told by a recruiter that linkedin charges huge fees ($10k+) to recruiters.

Fake? Sure, but enormously profitable ... to microsoft.

So first they get you to supply all of your data, your friend's and colleague's dat, then they want to charge you a monthly fee to be "in"

But wait, there's more! Then comes the fees to actual recruiters.

L/I would be members, do an AI or wiki search for "fool's paradise" and don't forget to check reddit's "linkedin lunatics" for a good laugh.

I got recruited there once. Biggest career mistake of my life.

Yep, LinkedIn Recruiter costs $10k+ per seat, and is utterly useless. Our internal team found it completely useless for recruiting.

Totally. It feels like it is stuck in 2015.

Luckily we found a much better solution, something that actually sources with reasoning, and gets us real contact information (not crappy InMails).

Which one did you go for? We eventually turned to outbound recruiting within our networks via referrals, but that has also cooled down our recruiting levels to an extent.

It’s certainly the cringiest. But I think it works for marketing yourself or a business. But yes it is tiring seeing the same bland thoughts repeated.

Linkedin is verging on unusable/not fit for purpose...

Example, how can I see job adverts with very very niche requirements in quite unusual roles (one of which I do actually know about eg data 'migration projects for large companies that specialize in peristaltic pumps').

I‘ve seen a job advert for that kind of thing with literally hundreds of applicants. I would be surprised, given the fact that is a niche area that only a handful of companies even operate in, and companies very rarely migrate to new systems, if there are even hundreds of people in the world who have even done something like that! That is terrible for both the recruiter and the applicant. How are you even supposed to demonstrate you have done that kind of thing before in a literal crowd of people?!

Thanks, Jmsflknr!

Garbage platform, completely polluted by bots, recruiters, and scammers.

It serves no purpose besides being the shittiest rolodex imaginable.

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