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Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

pcmaffey.com

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Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#321

Post by allanbreyes »

42_ wrote: post #97
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…

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.

I use uBlock Origin to completely block out the news feed and messaging, and it makes my LinkedIn experience orders of magnitude better. When I visit linkedin.com, now, I'm greeted with a navigation header bar and a blank page where the news feed used to be. It's perfect.

I personally found messaging to not be very useful or relevant, and I just couldn't keep up with the backlog of messages. If they really want to contact me, they can just email me.

Here are the UBO rules:

  www.linkedin.com###voyager-feed
  www.linkedin.com###messaging
  www.linkedin.com##.msg-overlay-bubble-header
  www.linkedin.com##.msg-overlay-list-bubble__content--scrollable.msg-overlay-list-bubble__content
  www.linkedin.com###msg-overlay
  www.linkedin.com###messaging-nav-item

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#322

Post by Rafuino »

I don't think there's much value if you're a SW developer. You have many ways to show off your work, but if you're not in that field, hiring is much more based on word of mouth, credentials (ugh), or self-promotion.

I'm not a huge fan of LinkedIn, but the most it helps me is with understanding the background of someone I'm about to meet (even if internally since I'm at a huge company at the moment), or at least see what kinds of jobs are out there when I'm casually looking.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#323

Post by aungmyohtet »

majewsky wrote: post #245
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #225

I also closed my account recently because they wouldn't let me update my profile without providing a location. I've been a nomad most of the last 5 years and everything I do professionally is over the internet.

> they wouldn't let me update my profile without providing a location https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_Island

you suggested to provide Null Island as one's location?

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#324

Post by rileyt »

tomrod wrote: post #312
ravenstine wrote: post #204

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 int…

I've found good recruiting agencies through LI, and a whole lot of spammy ones. The good ones I consider worth my time and are basically the only value I see from interacting with LI. Seeing people's resume is a nice side benefit, but something like VisualCV or similar offer a better format. As a social network? Nah, I'm old school -- the dark closets/water coolers of the interwebs shouldn't be in the same place as p…

If you like VisualCV, you should check out https://standardresume.co. You can import your LinkedIn profile and our resume templates are designed in collaboration with hiring managers at top tech companies.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#325

Post by hnaccount02 »

Just adding my $0.02. I was pretty neutral about LinkedIn for a long time. I just made one because a couple friends recommended it, but it was neither bad nor good for me. Later in my career, I actually had recruiters reaching out to me and I had old colleagues that I wanted to hear from/reach. For my last job hunt, I was actually able to find an opportunity to nearly double my salary and shorten my commute. The feed is pretty meh, but I still think it's useful having a footprint. YMMV

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#326

Post by pcmaffey »

Springtime wrote: post #317

Just wanted to give a bit of praise for the blog post's illustration as a rather delightful little example of how lightweight and smooth SVG animation can be (and SMIL no less). 44KB for a scalable, looping blog graphic. Imagine if more of the web were like this.

Thanks! SMIL is so under-appreciated. I always look forward to doing these animations.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#327

Post by rezmason »

game_the0ry wrote: post #310

This blog post comes off whiny and weak, with a tone of unearned moral and social superiority, all while making sweeping generalizations and false claims. The author used LI poorly, then complained publicly about being dissatisfied. I get that randoms invites and messages are annoying, but the inconvenience shouldn't outweigh the benefit from LI replacing resumes for professional branding.[1] The 1 page resume is an…

I completely disagree— reading this blog post, I come away with the sense that the author values genuine representation of who they are, and is frustrated with social networks' inadequacies in that regard. To their point, I doubt I'd be able to glean this kind of thing from anyone's LinkedIn profile.

Speaking personally, the activity you're describing sounds like a major time sink, and doesn't align with the LinkedIn experience of anyone I know.

It shouldn't fall on the shoulders of a social network's users to learn how to optimize their representation on that one website.

To your credit, maybe you're getting contacted by well-off companies because they admire the effort and techniques you're using to boost your profile. If so, having everyone pour the same kind of effort into it would arguably help no one stand out, and only "add value" to the platform itself.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#328

Post by NalNezumi »

cercatrova wrote: post #209
NalNezumi wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks for the suggestion. I haven't deleted the app yet so I might look in to what a "list" is. But yes "some" people only retweet relevant stuff, but most people (even researchers) are multidimensional, so they usually retweet on events. So unless there's some ongoing conference and such, the noise to useful information ratio is too great.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#329

Post by searchableguy »

kyuudou wrote: post #291
jhallenworld wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some companies require engagement with social media as a requirement for advancement. So you are not wrong about the wannabe thought leaders. This is where they go. Nobody will make negative comments on these posts- it's like making a negative comment about your boss in public.

> ...it's like making a negative comment about your boss in public. That brings up another issue, that employment background checks are increasingly checking social media posts for "questionable" activity. It's already daunting enough to see that I can't express my true self on places like FB for various reasons but now it's a factor when I'm applying for work? I think if it was voluntary, and for like a PR position…

Isn't this illegal in EU?

But you are right, seeing witch hunts on social media makes me think you shouldn't use them. I don't express a lot of my political opinions online anymore for this reason alone and am cutting on how much personal information I give up.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#330

Post by banifo »

jonnypotty wrote: post #234
banifo wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read that because hn showed it on spot 1. I think it was a waste of time. I also started to think in this direction more the last few years: If we as a socity would be better of creating less but better, we would not have facebook or linkedin feets full of waste. We would have perhaps 10 hn articles per day, 10 world news, 1-2 local news and thats it. I would have the rest of my time 'free' of the burden of trying…

I'd say entertainment and it wasn't even very good at that right?

The comments are entertaining me more, but that doesn't give that article any value! :P
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