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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)

#51
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.

It is your choice, but for me, it is strictly professional. Some overlap with friends, but those who I never worked with, are not on my Linkedin contact list. Somewhat counterintuitively, no recruiters. Many/all recruiters have very "noisy" contact lists which complicates navigation via degrees of proximity, like 2nd, 3rd, etc. When the list of contacts is carefully curated, it adds value.

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

#52
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.

It's not too bad after some (a lot of) adjustments, but I agree the problem is that the default is that notifications are on. I'm part of more than a dozen Discord servers, and only three of them have notifications enabled, and one of those are basically dead. If I joint a new one, the first thing I do is mute it, and then I'll maybe unmute it if I'm actually active in there (or if it's a large server, I'll unmute the specific channels I care about and mute everything else).

I have email notifications on, but I actually read the few newsletters I get, and I barely get any mail beyond that. Meanwhile, everybody else I see has 4000 unread emails and the vast majority are unread rubbish that they could have unsubscribed to 700 emails ago, or just never subscribed to to begin with, but I guess signing up for that shit is just the default now.

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

#53
post #44
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I suspect you may be onto something. I'm a run of the mill dev. At least in the past when I was last looking for a job and more active on linkedin, the volume of contacts did not represent legitimate interest, not at all.

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

#54
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.

I go even further: I only use the website. If I want to add or modify something, I go to my profile and do it. I only used 2 social network apps, and they are mostly for news and to check on tech people I follow.

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

#55

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

No, you’ll just reach out to those people through direct contact. If LI is your only link to someone you aren’t really networked with them.

> No, you’ll just reach out to those people through direct contact.

and their email isn't available or their phone number changed. tough luck. maybe you didn't really network with them.

LinkedIn is more easier IMO, don't understand why we need to make things harder for yourself.

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

#56

Any aspiring startup founders should ignore this terrible advice.

The only rational voice here.

Those who delete LinkedIn are either retired, 2-5+ years unemployed or both.

The market is shifting to an employers market and it's going to be much harder when there is no network to employ these people.

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

#58
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agree, its just a spam platform now filled to the brim with AI/Human slop.

Curate your connections, yeet anyone who is posting slop and add people that make quality spicy posts you enjoy. It's that simple to make a LinkedIn feed have posts and comments you enjoy!

That sounds exhausting and pointless.

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

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a switch to turn off the social media/posting element on linkedin altogether? I don't see why I should be spending my time engaging with their algorithm just so it's bearable to use

Just don't open the home page except to navigate to the specific thing you need and when you do, don't look at the slop? The social media/posting element of linkedin is totally disconnected from the useful part of the site and you can just ignore it.

Remind me what the useful part is again?

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

#60
I get exactly what the author says, but Linkedin is my only social network (no, HN is not a social network IMO) specifically because I am able to block out all of it's bad parts and focus only on the good parts:

- Blocking the Linkedin feed is as easy as setting a few rules up on uBlock Origin. I don't see any posts, comments, etc, neither do I get to create posts or comments. There are settings available to not get unneeded notifications, and I disallow people mentioning me, so I do not get stupid "happy birthday" comments. This makes Linkedin very peaceful and manageable for me.

- I connect only with people I want and ignore everyone else. I explicitly unfollow everyone I am connected with. Connections sometimes end up being valuable because some recruiters know them and sometimes my profile is pushed higher up their list.

- I live in a location that is a backwater for software roles; there aren't enough good roles or consulting opportunities in my local physical network, so I have to leverage online ones. Linkedin is, while not the best avenue, it is good enough.

For me, leaving Linkedin unfortunately is not an option, but I've been able to tame it exactly to my liking.

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