LinkedIn Users Can Now Call Each Other for Free | Hacker News Reader

LinkedIn Users Can Now Call Each Other for Free

bloomberg.com

23 pointsdonohoe11 comments

Hooray! Now that recruiter who really wants to offer me a world class position(tm)(r)(c) at a unnamed world class company(tm)(r)(c), just like Facebook but located in my metro area, can call me at dinner time to inform me of the good news!

Oh, I have to install an app to my phone for this to work. Phew, still safe! Just more cross-service account linking, nothing to see here, move along.

I really dislike "mystery meat employer" recruiter contacts. Just like charities, if I can't research it myself I'm not even a tiny bit interested.

I wonder why this is, is it to prevent the employer and potential employee cutting out the middle man? I can say with great confidence that I have never responded to any email/LinkedIn contact where the company name is not mentioned.

I had one nebulous recruiter call my company's front desk and try to get me consider taking a position with his talent pool after I ignored his message on LinkedIn.

To my limited understanding, the way the recruiting market works is recruiters build up a bank of talent they can submit for client jobs and they get a % commission of the meat err recruit's base salary as compensation. Ergo, the incentive is to build as big a stable of developers as possible that you can keep submitting for jobs. I personally ignore all the meat market recruiters on LinkedIn, it just gets absurd after a while.

Word. That reminds me, I need delete my LinkedIn account - spammy as hell, and wilfully obstructive when it comes to offering levers to opt out of stuff.

Update: Done!

plingm users can call for free, this is just clever marketing, it is like if skype (free skype to skype calls) lets you check if your facebook contacts are skype users and then brags that facebook users can now call for free, seems legit :)

I would be surprised to see this call service take off. Isn't the whole notion of using social network like LinkedIn (asynchronously) phone call (synchronous and disrupting) alternative in the first place?

Plingm does have an Android app, I wonder why the press release would hinder the network effect by saying it's iPhone-only.

Now almost every Social Network can make voice call. It may be Twitter's turn.

Isn't this what Clarify.fm is trying to get resolved in some capacity?

Arrggg, more cold calls from recruiters....

If they have Plingm...

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