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Comment by mhurron | Hacker News Reader

> If you don't have a LinkedIn profile, I assume you're either very junior, shady, or clueless, and none of those is good.

How about smarter than you, because that is one hell of a stupid position.

I don't have a LinkedIn (or Facebook, or Google+ or whatever) because I don't sit and spew my details all over the internet. For job searches, another reason I don't use LinkedIn is because I have worked with people that I do not want to be associated with. That I have is not important to my looking for a job now.

You don't need a public, updated copy of my resume, you'll get my resume if I'm interested in working at a place. Don't worry, you won't have to worry about it.

I guess another benefit of not using LinkedIn is not working at places that promote idiotic practices such as this.

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I agree with everything, but there is that small point that if you don't want to be associated with people you worked with, it does fall into the "shady" category, at least somewhat. I'm sure you have a great reason, and that's why social constructs are much more complicated then whatever LinkedIn's system does and probably will ever do.

And to gf - I'm glad you agree on missing out on people, because some of the best people I know don't have an up-to-date profile, and I'd hate for them to work with people who update their profile too often :)

How is it shady? We happened to be hired at same place. I think they're assholes and would not want any first impression of me to be tainted by them.

shady: of doubtful honesty or legality

I suppose everyone who went to high school with Dahmer is shady too since for reasons out of their control they all went to the same school for a period of time. I doubt they feel the need to broadcast that information even though a little bit of extra looking would reveal the information.

Hiding connections to previous workplaces is shady to a hiring manager because the assumption will be that you were the problem, not them. Why else would you hide anything?

The saying applies "You run into an asshole in the morning, okay, you ran into an asshole. You run into assholes all day long, you're the asshole."

It's the same reason you don't badmouth previous employers or coworkers in a job interview.

Not listing who you have worked with is not hiding anything. They're hiring me, not the people I've worked with. All they need to know is the places I have worked and the responsibilities I had there and that's on my resume. A hiring manager does not need to know that I worked with Bob while I was there, it is not important to the process.

Yes, they could find out that I worked with Bob because Bob does spew all his details everywhere, but I am not presenting it to them as part of my resume. I also don't list the people I've worked with that I would work with again. They're hiring me, not the people that happened to work at some places I was at the same time.

> It's the same reason you don't badmouth previous employers or coworkers in a job interview.

Yet it's perfectly fine for their reputation to bad mouth me by association. That's what LinkedIn's network does.

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