Live data from Hacker News

Shameless Work Influencers Are the Bane of LinkedIn

index.medium.com

11–20 of 228 posts

Re: Shameless Work Influencers Are the Bane of LinkedIn

#11

Nice article. Those "I passed some 2 min XYZ certificate" posts really get to my nerve. I usually use the news feed eradicator [0] on such websites. It is like jumping across the valley of the newsfeed attention river. [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...

There is this cool podcast [0] i heard on authenticity and bragging and how to not be shameless. Especially useful when you are an introvert (like me).

[0] https://podcasts.apple.com/es/podcast/hbr-ideacast/id1520221...

Re: Shameless Work Influencers Are the Bane of LinkedIn

#12

As with all things in life humans are programmed to work out how things work and then abuse them to maximise their upside. LinkedIn is the same as any social media. It can be gamed and if that's to the advantage of certain people then they will game it.

This propensity for gaming everything is a very good and useful capability, when applied to the environment - to nature, to physics, to our own bodies. Roads and cars and boats exist because we've gamed our stamina. Planes and rockets exist because we've gamed gravity. Farming and drugs and vaccines exist because we've gamed microbiology.

The problem starts when people are trying to game each other. This is bad, because it turns what should be a PvE game into a PvP one. With the shitty cards nature/evolution gave us, we have plenty of external challenges left to overcome; it's really sad to see and deal with people who instead want to abuse others to get ahead.

Re: Shameless Work Influencers Are the Bane of LinkedIn

#16

Nice article. Those "I passed some 2 min XYZ certificate" posts really get to my nerve. I usually use the news feed eradicator [0] on such websites. It is like jumping across the valley of the newsfeed attention river. [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...

Those certificate postings actually attract recruiters. A former co-worker just got plucked to a new position from his posting of random K8s certs.

Re: Shameless Work Influencers Are the Bane of LinkedIn

#17
Why would you even want to use it? Seriously, the only time people are using it is when they are looking for a new job, and this is usually a relatively a short time. After that you just turn off all notifications and basically mute the site for the next few years. I have to admit I created an inbox rule for automatically archiving all LI mails without reading as they were using all dirty tricks to send mails even after telling them not to (I hope this changed after the GDPR, but I'm not removing my rule just in case).

Re: Shameless Work Influencers Are the Bane of LinkedIn

#18
My favourites are the posts by those who have had accidental success, who feel qualified to hold court as though they have some magic technique.

I say this as someone who had accidental success, and ran that successful business for over a decade, completely aware that luck and timing played a far larger part than quality.

Re: Shameless Work Influencers Are the Bane of LinkedIn

#19
post #3

Linkedin is a marketing platform where you are the product. Use it as a tool if you need to but try not to forget that. If you feel something's horrible there it's likely by design and within that context. (edit: you're to you are)

> where you are the product

Isn't this true for all major social media platforms?

Re: Shameless Work Influencers Are the Bane of LinkedIn

#20
Just like Facebook: ignore the ”newsfeed” part, and the rest of the service is pretty decent.

For Facebook that means e.g using the events functionality. For LinkedIn that’s private messages and network graphs (“do I know someone at X company”).

The “feeds” that are front and center on both sites is the worst feature and in no way necessary for using the service. It’s their easiest method of ad delivery though, which is why they want you to view it.

For Facebook the newsfeed is full of viral crap, ads, and if you are unlucky, toxicity. On LinkedIn it’s recruiters and workfluencers pushing posts that seem like parody but isn’t.

Post reply on HN