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Delete LinkedIn – you'll have zero fucking regrets (2021)

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Re: Delete LinkedIn – you'll have zero fucking regrets (2021)

#41

Don’t do it. I get tons of work opportunity outreach on LI. Maybe you don’t, but it doesn’t hurt to put your shingle out.

100% this. People need to read "The Strength Of Weak Ties" before advocating extremely damaging courses of action such as deleting LinkedIn. Humans are social animals and we cannot survive without a social network. Yet many in the West seem to ignore this obvious fact. It is baffling. After so many years, I can't help but wonder if it's deliberate malice.

Is LinkedIn a "social network" beyond the technical term for a site like that?

I find I get zero social interaction that I would associate with humans being social animals from LinkedIn. Are you seeing genuine connections with people on there?

Re: Delete LinkedIn – you'll have zero fucking regrets (2021)

#42
post #25

My current job cold contacted me via LinkedIn. I use LI minimally, basically only to establish connections with my network, and it already gave me huge value back.

Are your skills particularly unique / unusual resume?

I could imagine that working.

For most people though I expect they're just one of many and odds of spam / scam contacts greatly outweigh legit communication.

Re: Delete LinkedIn – you'll have zero fucking regrets (2021)

#43
post #34

I don't see how people use social media apps with notifications turned on. I just disable all notifications and it doesn't bother me to have LinkedIn because I only open it when I feel like it. Same with Facebook, etc. Incredibly, the default is always for notifications to be enabled, and I don't know how people live like that.

My wife's phone, is just full of noise. Notifications, messages, email ... some folks just want to be in front of a fire hose of crap... I don't know why.

Re: Delete LinkedIn – you'll have zero fucking regrets (2021)

#44
post #42
post #25

My current job cold contacted me via LinkedIn. I use LI minimally, basically only to establish connections with my network, and it already gave me huge value back.

Are your skills particularly unique / unusual resume? I could imagine that working. For most people though I expect they're just one of many and odds of spam / scam contacts greatly outweigh legit communication.

My skills are alright, nothing too crazy. I've had messages that were more spammy/scammy, but the volume was not crazy high, they were usually fairly obvious, and I resolved by simply ignoring them. I would say that the random chance of getting an interesting job offer, however small, is probably worth it for most professionals.

However, one thing I haven't mentioned is that I am based in Europe. My small sample size of people reaching out to me is showing that US contacts are usually less serious (e.g. ghosting). Maybe the US experience is so much worse overall due to this?

Re: Delete LinkedIn – you'll have zero fucking regrets (2021)

#45

Don’t do it. I get tons of work opportunity outreach on LI. Maybe you don’t, but it doesn’t hurt to put your shingle out.

100% this. People need to read "The Strength Of Weak Ties" before advocating extremely damaging courses of action such as deleting LinkedIn. Humans are social animals and we cannot survive without a social network. Yet many in the West seem to ignore this obvious fact. It is baffling. After so many years, I can't help but wonder if it's deliberate malice.

LinkedIn is not a social network, it’s a vehicle for spam, grifting, self-promotion and other useless garbage. I deleted my account years ago and I wish I had done it sooner.

Re: Delete LinkedIn – you'll have zero fucking regrets (2021)

#46

(2021) and if you have a network and if you do delete LinkedIn, yes you will regret it.

I have a 25+ year career history with lots of contacts, and I deleted my LI account years ago. I do not regret it one bit; in fact I wish I had done it sooner.

Re: Delete LinkedIn – you'll have zero fucking regrets (2021)

#47

I don't know, if it wasn't for Linkedin I wouldn't be in my current job of almost ten years. On a totally unrelated note if you're looking for someone who can blacksmith up something that approximates a web frontend to a DB or some audio DSP code or some embedded code for various microcontrollers, or actually blacksmith stuff up with hammers and a welder, I'm putting out feelers for a new gig. Network engineer, jobbi…

The fact you have to post your second paragraph to me proves for all of LinkedIn’s bluster, it’s really a sub-par platform and unfortunately has too much market power to be challenged.

Yup.

Re: Delete LinkedIn – you'll have zero fucking regrets (2021)

#48

When recruiting, LinkedIn is useful for three things for me: 1. Propagating the job ad 2. Verifying that an applicant is real (profile picture, network, work history, etc.). I’m seeing more and more fake applications lately. 3. Letting candidates apply with just a LinkedIn URL (when they keep it reasonably up to date) None of this is really about social networking. Ideally, I’d much rather have a universal résumé pla…

You are optimizing for people (or bots) who use LinkedIn in that case

The only reason I would use it for any kind of similar purpose would be to check network overlap. A profile picture would only signal that it is an old picture or from someone looking for a job (or a bot)

Re: Delete LinkedIn – you'll have zero fucking regrets (2021)

#49
post #11

> I spent the day receiving over 500 (!) birthday greetings from LinkedIn contacts, whose names and faces I didn’t even recognize, who had clicked on a notification prompt From the above, it appears that the harm is self-inflicted. Why would one have 500+ contacts who she does not recognize? Linkedin is a tool and every tool can be misused. My contact list is under 200 and those are the people I enjoyed working with…

I always accept friend requests in case they want to send me a message, which they sometimes do. Is that bad? Maybe I should go back and delete all those people.

When you're looking for a job, you're going to wish for more connections.
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