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Sunny days are warm: why LinkedIn rewards mediocrity

elliotcsmith.com

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Re: Sunny days are warm: why LinkedIn rewards mediocrity

#351

Post by bravesoul2 »

0898 wrote: post #246

Unlikely as it sounds, being normal is a strategy that works on LinkedIn. The quality bar is very low. People post so much fluff and AI thought leadership that the algorithm has recently started rejecting it, and LinkedIn essentially ran out of content. For the past couple of months it's been showing people posts from two or three weeks ago due to the lack of suitable material. What I've found is that it's surprising…

That's too normal for me it makes LinkedIn sound like Facebook. If it were "why I didnt choose Kubernetes for my current project" then maybe.

Re: Sunny days are warm: why LinkedIn rewards mediocrity

#352

Post by lambdasquirrel »

nickfromseattle wrote: post #5

This reads like it was written by a developer 'who doesn't get marketing'. > Nothing you post there is going to change your career. I can attribute millions of dollars in revenue to LinkedIn, as can a lot of my 'LinkedIn friends' > Doing work that matters might. This is a pre-requisite for winning on LinkedIn. The kind of content that performs best are strong opinions informed by actual expertise. > Go for depth over…

> This reads like it was written by a developer 'who doesn't get marketing'.

At first, I didn’t know what to say about the article other than to agree to something about it that I couldn’t put a finger on. But now it makes sense.

Developers really can’t be faulted to hate LinkedIn specifically because it’s marketing. It’s just pure noise to signal. It’s pure promotion.

Re: Sunny days are warm: why LinkedIn rewards mediocrity

#353

Post by bravesoul2 »

flkiwi wrote: post #264

I'm sure someone else has said this, but Corporate America (I cannot speak to Corporate $AnywhereElse with any depth) and large parts of the entrepreneur ecosystem reward mediocrity. In this sense, LinkedIn is just a symptom of a larger disease.

They also hustle theatre. For every startup job mentioning role impact there is one that doesn't but tries hard to get across how much of Saturday and Sunday you should be working to be consider moral enough to work for them. Then on LI pictures of staff on 24h+ working stints that might kill them.

Re: Sunny days are warm: why LinkedIn rewards mediocrity

#354

Post by recursive »

weinzierl wrote: post #348
daveguy wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but maybe recruiters aren't up on rust iconography. Seems like an ineffective way to communicate a preference (vs it being a shibboleth with the GP). I mean, unless the recruiter is a rust programmer they're going to have a hard time distinguishing your profile vs just "positions only - or get blocked" (ie don't contact me unless it's about recruitment).

That was very much the intention. I think good tech recruiters should know their field and I know some that do. It's just that LinkedIn is a swamp of bad ones and my little experiment proofed to me that signal noise ratio there is so low that it is useless for me.

Telling someone not to contact you in a way you expect them not to understand seems like a mostly philosophical exercise.

Re: Sunny days are warm: why LinkedIn rewards mediocrity

#355

Post by bilater »

I try not to fall into posting generic content. Instead, I focus on sharing real things I’ve built or done, hoping they’re actually useful for someone. For example, my last post was about a weekend app I put together, and I always try to include a link to the app or a github repo so people can try it out for themselves.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/biltahir_sometimes-i-get-into...

Re: Sunny days are warm: why LinkedIn rewards mediocrity

#356

Post by fhd2 »

motorest wrote: post #184
fhd2 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think like that too, or at least used to. I got pretty far by just doing good work - or so I thought. Growing up in a rich country and getting a bit lucky to be found and promoted by the right people probably mattered as much, if not more, than my talents or skills. There's probably thousands of people better at anything I can do but less well off. I think the only reason I'm better off than them is that I had more…

> I guess marketing is the dirty thing you gotta do to lift yourself up by your proverbial bootstraps, and anyone can do it regardless of where they grew up and how much money they got. This pov assumes that everyone engaged in "marketing" is remotely competent at what the are doing, both the product/service they are pushing and their own marketing effort. I've seen plenty of people in LinkedIn just generating absolu…

That's the thing with activities anyone can do - pretty much anyone does. And 90% of everything is... not great. I think a lot of those doofuses on LinkedIn just portray some level of success when in reality they're desperate for business, at least some folks I spoke to that are very active there were like that. But that's anecdotal evidence. Depressingly, just how some folks succeed with just a good offering, some folks just succeed with good marketing. But I suppose if you manage to be reasonably good at both, you have a good chance to succeed.

Re: Sunny days are warm: why LinkedIn rewards mediocrity

#357

Post by DebtDeflation »

As a recently laid off tech worker, I was excited to have a recruiter contact me regarding what seemed like a dream job. After passing an initial phone screen, a face to face interview was scheduled. I spent several days preparing. On the day of the interview, I took the train into the city and had a 4 or 5 block walk to the new company's office. While walking, I noticed a scraggly dog laying in the alley. I was pressed for time, but stopped to get some food and water to give to the dog. He was very appreciative, barked playfully, and licked my face. I continued on my way. When I got to the office, I signed in, took the elevator to the 7th floor, and opened the door. Imagine my shock, the dog was the interviewer. <-- This is the kind of nonsense I generally see posted on LinkedIn, perhaps only slightly exaggerated.

Re: Sunny days are warm: why LinkedIn rewards mediocrity

#358

Post by fhd2 »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #91
fhd2 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you quote could be summarised as "frequent small posts work better than long infrequent ones". I kinda agree that's an incentive for lower quality (since quality takes time), but it's still a bit tangential. What LinkedIn rewards are posts that get a lot of reactions and comments, which in theory sounds like a good metric. But when a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric, and that's quite visibl…

A guy who has morals in this age? Sign me up, I really want to incentivize such honesty and morals in general It seems that you have your company listed in the about page of hackernews so that is nice. I wish your company all the best! Seriously!

Not sure that post demonstrated any particular morals, but thanks :) So far I've had the luxury to get by well with mostly only doing what I think is right. I consider that a luxury indeed, I don't mind paying for it, much like I pay for other luxuries.

Re: Sunny days are warm: why LinkedIn rewards mediocrity

#359

Post by fhd2 »

lisbbb wrote: post #254
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife used Angie's List to find some really good, honest contractors. Many years ago, when it was still fairly new. I'd never recommend Angie's List, these days, though. It's pure garbage. She also used to rely on Amazon reviews. Again, it's a dumpster fire, these days. Absolutely worthless.

The whole Internet is like this now--it's a victim of its own success. "Dead Internet Theory" is correct, I believe. There must be some kind of sociological term for what happens with popular websites that become victims of their own success, like Craigslist, EBay, Facebook, all of them follow the same predictable pattern. When they are small and unknown, they are useless. Then they hit some critical mass and a wave…

Sounds like "enshittification" to me: During the growth phase the offering is good, but as growth inevitably slows, most companies will extract value by other means: Cutting costs/quality and raising prices are the most obvious and perhaps least nefarious tactics. There's companies that don't fall too far into this, but I think most successful ones do.

Re: Sunny days are warm: why LinkedIn rewards mediocrity

#360

Post by andrewflnr »

motorest wrote: post #184
fhd2 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think like that too, or at least used to. I got pretty far by just doing good work - or so I thought. Growing up in a rich country and getting a bit lucky to be found and promoted by the right people probably mattered as much, if not more, than my talents or skills. There's probably thousands of people better at anything I can do but less well off. I think the only reason I'm better off than them is that I had more…

> I guess marketing is the dirty thing you gotta do to lift yourself up by your proverbial bootstraps, and anyone can do it regardless of where they grew up and how much money they got. This pov assumes that everyone engaged in "marketing" is remotely competent at what the are doing, both the product/service they are pushing and their own marketing effort. I've seen plenty of people in LinkedIn just generating absolu…

> This pov assumes that everyone engaged in "marketing" is remotely competent at what the are doing

What? No, it doesn't assume any such thing. The mere fact that marketing is necessary implies nothing about the skill of those attempting it.

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