LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts • Hacker News Board

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#101

Post by afarrell » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 2:26 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #72

notahacker wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the liquidity isn't fake, hence why the firms pay recruiters rather than waiting for the actually-interested people to beat a path to their door. The jobs are real, as are the candidates willing to actually show up to an interview. If you have a job and no suitable candidates, sourcing them is a valuable service, even if a few people get annoyed by the recruiters (better by them than by the employer...) along the…

Have you ever dealt with a recruiter? Scum that spam people are like real estate agents sponsoring the PTA meeting -- they are trolling for listings.

This is a fairly low bar for calling another human scum

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#102

Post by deciplex » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 2:29 AM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #68

droopyEyelids wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding fake liquidity actually removes liquidity. Imagine if you were selling your house, and I created a service that would bombard you with 10 fake potential buyers a day. You only have time to deal with 2 buyers a day. Chances are, you'll miss out on everyone who is actually interested. While LinkedIn does not intend to create fake recruitment attempts, it works out the same in the end.

But the liquidity isn't fake, hence why the firms pay recruiters rather than waiting for the actually-interested people to beat a path to their door. The jobs are real, as are the candidates willing to actually show up to an interview. If you have a job and no suitable candidates, sourcing them is a valuable service, even if a few people get annoyed by the recruiters (better by them than by the employer...) along the…

The jobs aren't always real, and the candidates aren't always even remotely qualified for them.

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#103

Post by city41 » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 2:32 AM UTC

phil_s_stein wrote: post #87

Linked In spammed me once when they reached some sort of milestone. The email had no remove-me-from-this-list link or way to tell Linked In that I didn't want to receive emails. I found the CEO's email address and forwarded it to him, asking him to remove me from the mailing list. He sent back a nasty email and deleted my account. I've not looked back and my life is exactly as it was, minus a few unwanted emails.

Please post the email. LinkedIn is scum, the more people know it, the better.

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#104

Post by city41 » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 2:34 AM UTC

lemevi wrote: post #9

LinkedIn has never been interesting to me for anything other than looking at what past coworkers have been up to. I've never once had an experience where LinkedIn led to a job and in fact after I deleted my account my recruiter email volume dropped by an order of magnitude. I've also read that potential employers search candidates LinkedIn contacts to see if there are any existing employees and if so ask them about t…

Not only that but I found when I didn't have a LinkedIn account, the recruiters who found me were of much higher quality. They found my github account, my blog, etc, and actually had potential jobs that I found interesting. On LinkedIn, they just stuff their emails into a giant cannon and spray away.

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#105

Post by toephu2 » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 2:38 AM UTC

curiousjorge wrote: post #11

why hasn't anybody disrupted linkedin yet? what would you like to see instead of linkedin? snapchat for business professionals?

whitetruffle is pretty good (I have no affiliation w/ them whatsoever, I just hate LinkedIn that much I would like to help out its competitor)

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#106

Post by toephu2 » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 2:39 AM UTC

fletchowns wrote: post #4

georgemcbay wrote: post #2

LinkedIn is a worthless piece of spammy shit of a website these days. I haven't bothered deleting my account but I haven't logged into it in like a year now and any mail I get from them that somehow makes it through the filters is reported as spam. I can only surmise they made this change to make it harder for (more) people to bail because they know how dreadful using their site is now and this is an easier "fix" tha…

LinkedIn really is one of the worst websites I've ever used. I wish there were viable alternatives.

Try whitetruffle. Much less useless spam.

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#107

Post by toephu2 » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 2:40 AM UTC

Stuff like this is why I never signed up for LinkedIn in the first place.

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#108

Post by tubelite » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 2:46 AM UTC

FYI: You can't export contacts from Facebook either. The API no longer supports getting the entire friends list (restricted to return only those friends who have also installed the same app).

There is a "download all my facebook data" option, but that only gives you a plain "firstname lastname" list. No contact information there either.

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#109

Post by MichaelCrawford » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 2:50 AM UTC

I only use LinkedIn to find former coworkers and classmates. After that I email them directly.

However I get lots of connection requests from recruiters. I always accept them. I figure that greatly dilutes whatever value linkedin might have once had because most of my connections are recruiters who wadte their time on me because I dont log in a whole lot.

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#110

Post by colinbartlett » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 3:08 AM UTC

suprgeek wrote: post #98

takee wrote: post #94

It's fairly easy to come up with a long list of shady practices that force me to not trust LinkedIn: 1. To start with, they sneaked in the request to access all your email contacts and constantly spam them in your name which can be embarrassing at times to say the least. 2. Their mobile apps do the same with your phone contacts, cleverly hiding the checkmark (in smallest font) to disallow the uploading of contacts. I…

- LinkedIn has employed "Dark Patterns" for a long time to scarf up your Address Book via your e-mail id. Then unless you are VERY careful you will end up spamming everyone with an invite. - They also employed a MTM attack on your mobile "Intro App" https://threatpost.com/linkedin-intro-app-equivalent-to-man-... - Have you noticed that the LI News feed is a high-noise collection of crap? - and on and on "Monetizing y…

LinkedIn was the first in a long line of social networks I deleted starting 4 years ago. Not sure how anyone gets value out of enough to justify.