Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

pcmaffey.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 466 posts

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#451

Post by _v7gu »

ssijak wrote: post #308
mancerayder wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wannabe thought leaders A high percentage of which seem to be recruiters cutting and pasting words of wisdom, inspirational quotes that dozens of people "Like." I don't know how people can take this stuff seriously.

Or people pasting gotcha dumb math “problems” where hundreds of people reply the answer. I could never understand that.

It's like the reverse of the /g/ or /sci/ meme with a picture of Makise Kurisu saying "You should be able to solve this" accompanied by a laughably difficult problem.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#452

Post by gerland »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #84
gerland wrote: post #49

Most of my best jobs came from LI leads, so I don't really get the point. I find LI to be a more open and just system than hiring a guy that knows a guy, or forcing people into slavery in open source. It's not the hiring that is broken, but the tech industry itself. There is nothing that compares in how low a measurable value is priced in any other domain. It seems that the less you can put a price on something, the…

I don't understand what you mean. Do you think it's easy or hard to measure the value of a contributor in tech, and what does the "speculation" about their worth do exactly?

I think it's much easier to measure value of tech skills than most other skills. In the management and business areas you have to bet on how well people will perform and it's harder to put a finger on what will define success. Even people moving between similar environments might have difficulty adjusting. I personally believe that a lot of hiring is happening only on appearances alone. Since the people in middle management are often recruited like that, they also tend to overvalue skills of similar individuals. I'm seeing right now some "reassessments" happening due to the whole COVID thing. A lot of invaluable people are losing their jobs and yet no one is feeling any difference. It's just the market finally catching up to an overvalued good.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#454

Post by kashug »

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 wonder if the value of linked-in depends on where you live. I live in Norway and when I had linked-in I kept getting contacted by recruiters for totally uninteresting jobs. Often in England or Ireland.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#455

Post by tkam »

anthonybennis wrote: post #110
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 always exit HN with a positive mental head space. The discussion is generally informed, balanced and insightful . I wonder how the positive and respectful space here may be reproduced in other social media platforms.

my bet is a combination of high barriers to entry and the disincentivisation of bad behavior.

on hackernews, the first one comes as a side effect of the general topic and the relatively high level of discussion and entries, and maybe also of the fact that it's text-only.

the second one comes via the threat of downvotes, or, more generally speaking, the possibility of negative feedback.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#456

Post by kyuudou »

randycupertino wrote: post #193
take_a_breath wrote: post #140

LinkedIn jumped the shark when they started heavily promoting their skill endorsement section. I remember receiving a notification that my mom endorsed my ability to perform discounted cash flow analysis. She didn’t know what a discounted cash flow was, but endorsed me all the same. This is the moment it became spam. I do still use it for job searches.

> my mom endorsed my ability to perform discounted cash flow analysis I mean, that's really quite charming. She loves you! The first time Linkedin jumped the shark for me when they suggested I add the random dude I sold a couch too on craigslist to My Professional Network. I'd used a throwaway email and only texted the dude 1x. I only randomly remembered who he was after Linkedin suggested him to me because his first…

>The first time Linkedin jumped the shark for me when they suggested I add the random dude I sold a couch too on craigslist to My Professional Network. I'd used a throwaway email and only texted the dude 1x. I only randomly remembered who he was after Linkedin suggested him to me because his first and last name rhymed and when he picked up the couch I thought his name was kind of interesting. It was so weird and sketched me out quite a bit as we were in completely different industries and I had no idea how linkedin associated us.

This is exactly what spooked me about use LinkedIn. That was many years ago, too. The feeling of "how in the ffffuu did they know about that person" was nauseating.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#457

Post by Phrenzy »

the_af wrote: post #397
ssijak wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or people pasting gotcha dumb math “problems” where hundreds of people reply the answer. I could never understand that.

"83% of people won't be able to solve this" (some basic puzzle follows).

83%‽ That's almost half!

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#458

Post by jasonv »

drivebycomment wrote: post #429
jasonv wrote: post #348

I deleted LinkedIn about 5 years ago when I went totally independent. I was super happy not to have it. I recently re-created it because a consulting engagement put me back in the center of "Are you on LinkedIn?" discussions. I do look forward to closing my account again. There's a lot of "professional posting" that goes on -- professional signaling, and uplifting daily posts. Knowing the people who are posting these…

What's the point of closing the account ? Your history proves that you'll open it again in the future - in which case, why not just keep it and don't use it till you need it again ?

An account that is closed feels different than an account you don't use. At least to me.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#459

Post by dghughes »

snowwrestler wrote: post #357
dghughes wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it seems like (in no particular order): Bill Gates, Satya Nadella, Richard Branson, Guy Kawasaki.

Did you choose to follow those people at some point? I get regular "recommendations" on who to follow on LinkedIn, including Gates, Nadella, and Branson, but I never take them. And I don't have any content in my feed from any of those folks. All the content in my feed is from my connections or interactions by my connections. Of course there is plenty of vapid "thought-leader" content from them too. Actually I've gott…

>Did you choose to follow those people at some point?

Maybe one or two of them. But I don't even know who Guy Kawasaki is.

Re: Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn

#460

Post by take_a_breath »

pnako wrote: post #445
take_a_breath wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t lie when I indicated I know DCF, but mom knew almost nothing about my professional work. She was able to endorse me without any knowledge and that pretty much eliminates the value of an endorsement. I realized then that it was more of a social network than a business network.

Your mom knows you don't lie and that's why she endorsed you. If I was a recruiter I would consider that a better form of endorsement than a random colleague who endorsed you because they expected some similar favor from you.

I’ve never had a potential employer call my parents for a reference, but they have called co-workers. That implies that the market values the co-worker’s endorsement more.
Post reply on HN