Stop Using LinkedIn • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#131

Post by logn » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 9:14 PM UTC

swalsh wrote: post #43

The problem with a lot of these sites (facebook/linkedin) etc is their business is built on data you provided, which they then get to control. The problem is additional data gets built up, and they gain a monopoly on the information. It results in an unfair market. For me to build a competitor to facebook or linkedin would be very difficult. Even if its better! I'd like to see a law about user obtained data, that req…

It's called fair use but people have this idea that Robots.txt was a bill passed by Congress. But yes, I totally agree, and sites like Stack Overflow are doing this very well. It's a shame that Archive.org was not allowed to crawl my profile before I left last year but that they allowed Google/Bing/etc to crawl it.

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#132

Post by jessaustin » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 9:18 PM UTC

MagicWishMonkey wrote: post #81

tbrownaw wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the holy flying fuck would anyone give someone they met on the Internet the ability to impersonate them? That's like online safety 101, right after not giving out your home address and vacation schedule. Especially when that someone already has a bad reputation like linkedin has.

I had no idea that I granted them permission to send email through my account, I thought I had restricted them to the address book. I made a mistake.

Just the address book would have been enough to allow most of the shenanigans described in this thread? Now LI know a bunch of other people that might recognize your name, and that's really all they need.

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#133

Post by 27182818284 » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 9:18 PM UTC

Throwaway1224 wrote: post #91

dkarapetyan wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Validate the resume? What does that mean?

a lot of companies won't even look at you unless your resume/work history is on linkedin.

I've never seen this done. I'd love examples for companies. Social media often augments folks, but I've never seen someone rejected for not having a LinkedIn.

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#134

Post by pasbesoin » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 9:21 PM UTC

ploxiln wrote: post #123

MagicWishMonkey wrote: post #50

LinkedIn screwed me over real good a few weeks back. They sent me an email saying "There are 108 people you might want to connect with", so I click on view all and it shows a giant list of people with checkmarks by their names. Nice. I uncheck all of them, and scroll through checking a few folks who I want to network with (5 people in total). Click next, it takes me to a screen showing the 5 people and the banner cle…

I never let them have my email credentials (address, ok, linked account or credentials, no). But, the thing they do that really bothers me, is to ask people endorse me for things, in a way that suggests I asked to be endorsed for those things. But I didn't. It just found words related to those in my profile. And people who like me or want to be helpful click OK to endorse me for shit that I have nothing to do with. L…

GIGO. Which makes me think that the actual functionality/utility in LinkedIn (of which I am not a member) lies elsewhere.

Years ago, recruiting advice was insisting that a LinkedIn profile had become necessary. But even back then, the configuration / data sharing they insisted upon, and worse, the reporting on some of their bad (from my perspective, and also others') behaviour was just too much for me, and I stayed away.

I imagine much of what one gets through LinkedIn is akin to much of what one gets in the rest of the corporate world. A lot of BS, and you left at your own discretion to discern the truth -- such as it is and is reflected in that environment -- amidst all this.

P.S. I'll add that LinkedIn seems to have become a poster child -- albeit a lame-assed corporate one -- for "dark patterns".

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#135

Post by suttree » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 9:22 PM UTC

It's looking very likely that 2015 is going to be a #linkedout year. More and more stuff like this is happening, and LinkedIn can't keep up.

They're an incredible company, but they're a 12 year old product at this stage.

Take a look at my version of the alternative, trying to get ahead of them not replace them:

https://www.somewhere.com

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#136

Post by TylerJay » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 9:24 PM UTC

monochromatic wrote: post #93

MagicWishMonkey wrote: post #50

LinkedIn screwed me over real good a few weeks back. They sent me an email saying "There are 108 people you might want to connect with", so I click on view all and it shows a giant list of people with checkmarks by their names. Nice. I uncheck all of them, and scroll through checking a few folks who I want to network with (5 people in total). Click next, it takes me to a screen showing the 5 people and the banner cle…

> The assholes sent 300 people linkedin connection requests through my own personal gmail account. With zero warning whatsoever. The fact that they requested access to your email account should have been warning enough.

Isn't it more likely that they just sent the emails themselves but used his email as the "Reply To" address? A lot of software systems (SalesForce, Hubspot, etc.) do that too.

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#137

Post by danielweber » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 9:25 PM UTC

papad wrote: post #107

karamazov wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the other party gave LinkedIn their address book, and they're trying to maximize the odds of a connection.

This makes total sense. I have also been very careful to not let LinkedIn get access to my email or contacts - precisely cause I don't trust what they will do with that data on my behalf. But they still manage to suggest all these random contacts that look like they're coming from my address book. A few times I have panicked and made sure I hadn't accidentally given them access. But it makes sense that the other side…

LinkedIn had a dark pattern, which they've made slightly less dark recently, of asking you to "log in" by typing in your email address and then your email address password. Of course, you are already logged in to LinkedIn at that point.

The current version shows up when you click "Add Connections" but it used to be much more in-your-face.

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#138

Post by obsurveyor » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 9:26 PM UTC

op00to wrote: post #67

One of the "alternative" services these folks recommend is academia.edu - does anyone else find it really weird that a for-profit-not-even-remotely-degree-granting company is squatting in the .edu namespace?

It was assigned before 2001 so it's grandfathered in and isn't subject to the normal .edu rules.

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#139

Post by b1twise » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 9:27 PM UTC

MagicWishMonkey wrote: post #50

LinkedIn screwed me over real good a few weeks back. They sent me an email saying "There are 108 people you might want to connect with", so I click on view all and it shows a giant list of people with checkmarks by their names. Nice. I uncheck all of them, and scroll through checking a few folks who I want to network with (5 people in total). Click next, it takes me to a screen showing the 5 people and the banner cle…

Plaxo!

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#140

Post by ghaff » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 9:27 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #69

justrudd wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. The site had no information on it. But I wonder, is LinkedIn really "the" way to connect professionally? My personal bit of anecdotal experience is that it isn't for me. I was on LinkedIn for maybe 15 years? I accepted everyone on LinkedIn (I was not discriminating at all). And in that 15 years, I never found one job through it. Right now in Seattle (where I've been for 10 years), I go through my "people I drin…

Similarly, I've been using it for 15 years. While I don't get jobs from recruiters either, I use it to keep connected to former colleagues even as they change jobs, email addresses, marriages and inter-state moves. This network gets me work.

Ditto. LinkedIn is a self-updating Rolodex for me and it's useful for that. Plaxo sure wasn't any better and I do like having a service of this basic type.

I basically don't use it for anything else and generally ignore emails that they send me. (And only accept connection requests from those who I--within 5 seconds or so--see some reason to connect with. If I don't recognize your name or your company doesn't imply some good reason to connect, I'm ignoring you if you send me a canned request.)