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Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

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Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#201

Post by kerkeslager »

I've never had a LinkedIn, but I regularly receive emails from recruiters that start, "Hey, I found your profile on LinkedIn and...". These get a form response from me which says basically, "No you didn't, and given the first words you say to me are a lie, I have no interest in working with you. And if you feel guilty enough about how you actually got my email that you feel the need to lie about it, maybe you should consider whether you want to be the kind of person who gets people's emails via unethical means and then lies about it."

Some of these recruiters apparently work for Amazon, which isn't unsurprising given their track record on other ethical concerns.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#202

Post by magwa101 »

Name, picture, background enforces instant bias in recruiting. This is a known fact. LinkedIn enables our perceptive biases. The feed that is full of thought leaders shouting how to be successful is just pablum for the drones.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#203

Post by stared »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #167
stared wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's similarish. While I don't like it too much, when I consider hiring someone it is the first place for a background check. It saved me once from a really, really bad hire (due to common colleagues). At the same time - I am an independent consultant, and yet - I am not sure if there were a single contract that came through LinkedIn directly. Quite ironically, Facebook was much more productive with that respe…

You’re saying you 1. Look at a candidate’s LinkedIn 2. See common colleagues and reach out, unbeknownst to the candidate 3. Hear negative feedback and just trust it’s true (or at minimum develop a strong bias against the candidate based on hearsay) with no due process for the candidate 4. Reject the candidate / omit them from interview processes to begin with. I’m sorry but that’s just awful. I have great references…

I interviewed them, BTW. Some things looked fishy (e.g. impressive tech, but all of the repos they listed were cloned, with trivial changes).

It turned out that I knew their last CEO. It turned out that the candidate made-up the entry (exchanged emails, was given a task, never showed up, or emailed or anything) and claimed a 3-month internship experience. It is much worse than having a bad opinion on an employee (in the later, sure - maybe just the relationship, or the project, didn't work out).

Hand-picked references are always, ekhm, hand-picked.

I am not a judge so - I am interested in finding the best candidate, not to give anyone "a due process". And while many people are reasonably honest (sadly, there is some kind of social approval for soft-lies on interviews) some may totally invent their CV. And you never know with whom you talk.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#204

Post by ravenstine »

I've never found a job through LinkedIn. I do like Easy Apply a lot, but it never resulted in anything. Every job I've ever had was found either through someone I know or by applying directly on a company website. I've had a few interviews resulting from LinkedIn, but it's not like LinkedIn gave me much of an advantage beyond Easy Apply. I didn't exactly get more interviews. In fact, I may have been getting fewer interviews on average, but it didn't seem like it because it was easy enough to apply to a lot of companies.

In terms of the actual social network... people use that sh? I've had my moments of Facebook addiction in the distant past, but there's nothing about LinkedIn that makes me look forward to logging in. My feed is mostly composed of inspirational quotes, people celebrating their anniversary at their current job, corporate brown-nosing, articles on productivity, articles about people quitting their job, etc. All generic, mostly low-effort junk. Let's not even get started on the recruiter spam!

Unfortunately, it we will have to wait for a serious decline of LinkedIn before a serious competitor can make headway.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#205

Post by covidien »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #28

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…

> From a professional standpoint LinkedIn gave me a lot of value for free

i'm curious what others see as value from the platform.

in my narrow view:

- i have a list of connections id most likely be able to contact off platform

- a feed full of virtue signaling and mostly useless content

- messages from random recruiters. usually the full extent of the interaction is: phonecall, redo resume and send over, ghost (40+ interactions like this last year with 2 interviews resulting)

i spoke with someone in career services and their #1 suggestion was to start messaging people i don't know on linkedin looking for "connections" to expand my network.

perhaps i don't get "it" but it seems like for some its incredibly valuable and for the rest its actually a net negative all things considered.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#206

Post by stevage »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #28

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…

I find this fascinating, as my experience is the opposite. I have hundreds of connections, mostly people I've met throughout my career. And yet, it has never actually delivered anything of value to me. A few potential freelancing gigs which didn't pan out. A lot of random encounters from people I would never want to work with.

By contrast, StackOverflow and Twitter have given me some really great work opportunities.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#208

Post by higeorge13 »

runawaybottle wrote: post #188

I’m noticing a lot of pretentious at best, contrived at worst, mythology posts on LinkedIn. Everyone’s career is being transformed through the narrative machine, and it appears a lot of people suddenly persevered ‘against all odds’. Every super hero needs an origin story. Social media encourages exhibitionism, and gone are the days of quiet accomplishment.

Best comment on this thread. Thank you for perfectly expressing my own feelings as well.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#209

Post by cercatrova »

NalNezumi wrote: post #114
Nextgrid wrote: post #45

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…

Instead of following them, add them to a list. This way, you only get their tweets without any retweets or likes. Personally I find the retweets and likes helpful as it expands my network to follow people that the people I follow also follow.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#210

Post by techslave »

hliyan wrote: post #141
ThePhysicist wrote: post #28

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…

Counter-example to the original author: I refused to have a LinkedIn account for the first 12 years of my career (LinkedIn launched the same year I started my career, I believe). But after I opened one, it really helped my career. I found my last two jobs through it. My timeline looks OK because I unfollow a lot of people. I've done the same with Facebook. I rarely come away from either site with my blood pressure an…

> But after I opened one, it really helped my career. I found my last two jobs through it.

Selection bias. You may very well have found the same exact, or even better, jobs outside of LI.

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