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Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

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Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#161
post #71
post #63

I really consider getting rid of my car. I bought it a year ago, but it's only ever sat in the driveway, I never use it. The funny meta-thing about his post, is that the content he feels adds 0 value, is in fact his own post. He is literally making a post about a tool he doesn't use. It's the equivalent of a person making a blog post about a tv series they don't watch but have seen the trailer for; no actual value to…

Well, in your metaphor he decided to get rid of all cars, forever. There are probably a ton of people who blog about that. Since there is no alternative for Linkedin and it is defacto the only professional social network out there, it is a categorical decision where quite a few people are wondering how it would affect them, of they did the same.

> there is no alternative for Linkedin

In Germany there's XING which I think has a similar purpose (professional relationships, both for contractors as well as employees) and is relatively popular AFAICT. I'm not on XING, but what I heard about it from colleagues is that when IT contracting was at its height not so long ago they got several "cold" contacts per week from desperate people (MBA types, mostly) that have neither customers nor projects nor professional experience. Don't know if this is representative of XING; it might actually be not half-bad. But then the way the consulting business works here is that customers rarely approach freelancers directly and use agencies instead.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#162
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-example to the original author: I refused to have a LinkedIn account for the first 12 years of my career (LinkedIn launched the same year I started my career, I believe). But after I opened one, it really helped my career. I found my last two jobs through it. My timeline looks OK because I unfollow a lot of people. I've done the same with Facebook. I rarely come away from either site with my blood pressure an…

> I unfollow a lot of people This is the trick to turning platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn into a tool, not a vice. You need to curate who you follow. Facebook in particular has many tools to do this, from preventing their content posting to your news feed to unfriending them altogether. Too many people just follow everyone they know, then complain when they start seeing content that gives them negative outcomes.…

Exactly this. I learned this principle from a recent HN post:

The Paradox of Abundance: The average quality of information is getting worse and worse. But the best stuff is getting better and better. Markets of abundance are simultaneously bad for the median consumer but good for conscious consumers.

You just need to curate your timeline. You have the tools. If you timeline looks bad, you probably haven't curated it properly. If it still looks bad after curation, then perhaps it's time to take a long hard look at your friends and acquaintances!

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#163

From a professional standpoint LinkedIn gave me a lot of value for free so I'm mostly feeling positive about it, but I agree that like any social network it has downsides and can lead to psychological stress. Personally I live by the mantra that "scrolling is dangerous", i.e. I try to never interact with social media or news platforms that incite me to scroll down a feed of algorithmically curated news or updates, as…

I always exit HN with a positive mental head space. The discussion is generally informed, balanced and insightful . I wonder how the positive and respectful space here may be reproduced in other social media platforms.

I criticize HN all the time, but it has very strong points because it resembles the old Internet. No gifs, no pics, no videos, no graphical bullshit. Just text, this serves as a huge filter.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#164
Maybe a bit unrelated but who else has always serious page rendering issues when visiting LinkedIn? I do not visit it often but there are so many problems lately that I doubt that I'm the only one, especially since all other sites are fine. These problems appear when I open LinkedIn pages in a tab or for the initial rending but also just when I click on new messages or 'Start'. Is it because of Firefox and/or uBlock Origin?

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#165

Maybe a bit unrelated but who else has always serious page rendering issues when visiting LinkedIn? I do not visit it often but there are so many problems lately that I doubt that I'm the only one, especially since all other sites are fine. These problems appear when I open LinkedIn pages in a tab or for the initial rending but also just when I click on new messages or 'Start'. Is it because of Firefox and/or uBlock…

It gets much worse when you start using the less popular features, like group management.

Edit: it doesn't even work correctly using chrome without any ad blockers...

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#166
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy enough to block the feed in your browser. I've done exactly that with Facebook. I haven't deleted my FB account as I still get some random messages from old acquaintances that don't have my phone number, but I removed the feed with uBlock to make sure I'm not exposed to that.

I did something similar lately. But it's hard to keep up with local news, now. I couldn't find a news aggregator for my country/province. Maybe, I need to build that myself.

I went through an "unfollowed" everyone in my feed except very close family and friends, the local farmers market, and my local newspaper. Facebook is actually useful now.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#167
post #108

If you ever want to become an independent consultant, LinkedIn has a value that won't be immediately apparent to you. While YOU might hate it, there are some business folks who search LinkedIn first. They want to see consultants/contractors who've been used by other people in their network, been recommended, etc. I know it sounds odd to us - I would neeeever search LinkedIn first - but I've heard from prospects who h…

For me it's similarish. While I don't like it too much, when I consider hiring someone it is the first place for a background check. It saved me once from a really, really bad hire (due to common colleagues). At the same time - I am an independent consultant, and yet - I am not sure if there were a single contract that came through LinkedIn directly. Quite ironically, Facebook was much more productive with that respe…

You’re saying you

1. Look at a candidate’s LinkedIn 2. See common colleagues and reach out, unbeknownst to the candidate 3. Hear negative feedback and just trust it’s true (or at minimum develop a strong bias against the candidate based on hearsay) with no due process for the candidate 4. Reject the candidate / omit them from interview processes to begin with.

I’m sorry but that’s just awful. I have great references who would say positive things about working with me, but I absolutely would never want someone like you to be able to find them like this.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#168
post #97

From a professional standpoint LinkedIn gave me a lot of value for free so I'm mostly feeling positive about it, but I agree that like any social network it has downsides and can lead to psychological stress. Personally I live by the mantra that "scrolling is dangerous", i.e. I try to never interact with social media or news platforms that incite me to scroll down a feed of algorithmically curated news or updates, as…

Now that I think about it, most of my complaints about LinkedIn is about the "news feed". Its full of mostly useless content by wannabe thought leaders drowning out a few posts which may have been insightful/relevant. Job search and add/message connections are the only features I have found useful.

Of late (this year) in my experience the job section is mostly reposts of other jobs or positions already filled or fake roles.

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.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#169

Maybe a bit unrelated but who else has always serious page rendering issues when visiting LinkedIn? I do not visit it often but there are so many problems lately that I doubt that I'm the only one, especially since all other sites are fine. These problems appear when I open LinkedIn pages in a tab or for the initial rending but also just when I click on new messages or 'Start'. Is it because of Firefox and/or uBlock…

It gets much worse when you start using the less popular features, like group management. Edit: it doesn't even work correctly using chrome without any ad blockers...

Haha, thanks for confirming. This is ridiculous for such a popular site. Maybe it is since Microsoft took over ;)

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First thing I did was block the usual mega influencers and it got super quiet.. Not to mention any names but you know who I'm talking about.

>>Not to mention any names but you know who I'm talking about. Not trolling but I'm willing to bet that the majority here in HN, including me, do not know who you are talking about.

Agreed. I checked my LinkedIn newsfeed and while there's a lot of noise, I don't see any single source for it. It's actually worse, because the spam is now distributed instead of originating from a single bad actor.

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.

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