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Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

pcmaffey.com

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Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#111
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.

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.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#112
I have conflicting feelings about linkedin. It suffers greatly from all the things that SV success's suffer from: feature bloat, the need to be all things and above all; trying to steal and keep your attention.

If you kill off 90% of notifications, the inane "feed" and some of the duplicitous behaviour in trying to pilfer your contacts list then you end up with a solid platform for recruiters and professionals.

I have recommendations from people on my linkedin page that has much more merit than if I included such a thing on my CV.

I have people who endorsed me for skills, which when presented well can mean that people are vouching that I have at least some area of knowledge there.

This means that overall linkedin is a more standardised, searchable and credible source for my working history than my CV is.

So I think that if you treat linkedin simply as a 'live CV' then it has a lot of value, even if you do get some recruiter spam sometimes.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#113
post #39

I don't understand why as a developer I'd want to use LinkedIn. I have StackOverflow and GitHub which a lot of relevant leads come from. When I buy a used car - I don't publish a "I'm looking for a used car" post and wait for car salespeople to approach me. I go and charactarize what I'm looking for and then go car-shopping. When I look for a job - I don't publish a "I'm looking for a job". Talking to the recruiters…

Contributing to open source and meeting and talking to engineers and building things is a lot more fun and rewarding.

I personally get no enjoyment out of development besides it being a way to support my addiction to food and shelter. I don’t dislike development, but it is just a job.

When I am actively looking, it’s so much easier to send messages to local recruiters with my resume and wait for them to call me (pre-Covid they always did).

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#114

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…

LinkedIn has value as a rolodex and should've stopped at that. The social media features are, just like any mainstream social network, a cesspool. If you want to use LinkedIn and keep your sanity, I suggest disabling all notifications except the email notifications for new messages and then don't log back in unless you get an e-mail and you need to respond to that person.

Something you got to give to LinkedIn is at least that this is the default behavior (as far as I know, I haven't changed any notification setting since I got it) It's great for someone that just want to have a "easy CV" so that recruiters at least know where/what you've worked with without back&forth mailing.

Recently I tried to get Twitter for the first time and my gosh what a mess that platform is. I only wanted it to follow some researcher to get up-to-date research topic but the damn app just have to fill the feed with "retweet" and other tweet I didn't even ask for (and I can't turn this off!)

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#115
post #5

> I'm fairly certain LinkedIn has never helped me in my job search. This is likely not true for everyone, but I'd go so far as to say that unless your profile is exceptional for some reason, it probably does more harm than good. You and I are just another candidate in a tall stack—ie. our profiles are more useless information they can use to cross our name off. This is exactly the problem that sparked us starting htt…

I just ran thorough the process of looking at jobs as a potential candidate. What a breath of fresh air compared to the obscured roles that recruiters post.

Great job.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#116
I used to get a lot of recruiter spam so I locked down my profile.

I opened it up a bit because I'm looking for a job. It's still spammy, but the pandemic has really slowed things down.

IMO: LinkedIn is bad at managing spam.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#117
I hate LinkedIn, majority of the articles are rubbish most of the job offers you get are not related to your skills but I still feel it's valuable to have when I want to look for a new job or just to keep in contact with people I have worked with in the past.

My inbox is full of boring templated messages

"Hi XXX, #I noticed you work as XXX @XXXand it is why I send invitation to your LinkedIn. Looking forward to connect with you for open discussion about logging, monitoring, troubleshooting and cloud SIEM. #stayletsconnect"

"Hello XXX, I am a Success Manager of XXXHiring Platform. I will be glad to become a part of your professional connections and build collaboration with you. best regards XXX"

I found an extension to unfollow all my connections so I have no reason to stay on LinkedIn anymore than I need to.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#118
I use linkedin for having a reasonable reliable connection to people from the past. I.e., primary school friends, high school friends, colleagues, etc.

I've never used it for job hunting, but for the feeling that i might be able to get back in touch with someone i was close with at one point in my life. Basically, i just want Facebook without the feed. Linkedin admirably fits that niche.

Admittedly, I hardly use it - but it's the ultimate fallback for when all other options run out.

Apparently people post things there. But i don't think anyone holds it against you if you do not interact.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LinkedIn has value as a rolodex and should've stopped at that. The social media features are, just like any mainstream social network, a cesspool. If you want to use LinkedIn and keep your sanity, I suggest disabling all notifications except the email notifications for new messages and then don't log back in unless you get an e-mail and you need to respond to that person.

Something you got to give to LinkedIn is at least that this is the default behavior (as far as I know, I haven't changed any notification setting since I got it) It's great for someone that just want to have a "easy CV" so that recruiters at least know where/what you've worked with without back&forth mailing. Recently I tried to get Twitter for the first time and my gosh what a mess that platform is. I only wanted it…

This has not been my experience. Any recruiter I talk to asks for a CV. If I tell them my linked in is up to date they just ask me to convert it into a CV

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#120
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.

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.
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