
Is LinkedIn Cheating Employers and Job Seekers Alike? - uladzislau
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2013/08/ask-the-headhunter-is-linkedin.html
======
WestCoastJustin
Age and skills seem to be a factor. The people in the video are 40+, with many
doing marketing/sales. The HN community, based off the _what is your age?_
poll [1], suggests the majority here are between 21-35, so we probably are not
experiencing their problem. Second, networking is a major factor, if the
software keyword system is really the issue, you need to find ways around the
system, email your old co-workers, etc. This is why it is important to keep
learning, as tech evolves, and to _put your self out there_ , through quality
work.

One thing did bother me a little, is pride a factor here? There were lower
level job, but many did not want to take them, because they felt it was below
them, or they were over qualified. If you are in the red, with zero money
coming in, isn't anything better than nothing, at least as a gap till you find
something better?

    
    
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         | |
        21 35  
    

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5536734](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5536734)

ps. I created the bar graph via
[https://github.com/holman/spark](https://github.com/holman/spark)

~~~
danielweber
Taking a lower-paid job can reduce your salary once you get back to your
primary field. Workers have legitimate reasons to treat wages as sticky.

~~~
bobbles
How can that happen? It's not like your new employer will know what you were
making at the last job, and even so why should that matter?

~~~
tieTYT
They ask. Are you just supposed to lie or refuse to answer?

~~~
nostrademons
Refuse to answer. It's none of their business, and nobody can compel you to
answer a question.

~~~
themodelplumber
"I don't have to answer that." They can't compel you to answer, but good luck
landing _that_ job.

~~~
WestCoastJustin
I have a hard time believing that if the employer is in desperate need, and a
potential employee has the skills, they cannot come to an agreement,
especially if you make it in for an interview. This does not make sense.
Someone is not motivated enough.

~~~
themodelplumber
Who specified that either one of those conditions was true? If it's an
example, let's be honest: If the employer is not desperate they may not
respond well to being told that their question didn't pass muster. Real people
who are struggling to find work are asked these questions, and real people are
being discriminated against by not answering.

~~~
swang
You say, "I don't feel comfortable sharing that information" instead of the
more hostile, "I don't have to answer that"

One needs to consider it as offensive as, "Are you planning to have a child
soon" or "How old are you" or, "You look real purty"

Also if a company is going to invite you all the way to their office and use
up their current employees' time, it would be a very stupid thing to not want
an applicant just because they don't want to discuss their current salary.

------
minouye
I don't get why LinkedIn gets a free pass on a lot of the shady stuff it does.
Case in point: if I have a free account, public details are hidden when
browsing profiles and I'm told I need to "upgrade" my account to view them.
Viewing the same profile in an incognito window reveals the "restricted"
details. That seems like an ExpertsExchange level trick.

~~~
hga
I'd assume that's for recruiters, and that what you see in the incognito
window is to give them a taste (perhaps they have governors to limit how much
can be found per unit of time).

Not being that sort of recruiter I've only ever wanted to see that kind of
thing to confirm if a particular "John Doe" is the one I'm thinking of before
asking to connect to him, and personalizing the note takes care of that well
enough. Otherwise I can see the profiles of people in my network just fine.

~~~
minouye
I'm definitely not a recruiter and LinkedIn could easily extrapolate that from
my resume. Say for example I just want to do some due diligence on a
contractor (or business associate or company exec. or whatever). I don't want
to connect, just see their qualifications, general background, etc.

Logged in:
[http://media.tumblr.com/ba1105d066fd8c3acca2909898d5b603/tum...](http://media.tumblr.com/ba1105d066fd8c3acca2909898d5b603/tumblr_inline_mornk0uQvp1qz4rgp.png)

Logged out:
[http://media.tumblr.com/17fe723913901fe9a1e0c0c53b6ba6e4/tum...](http://media.tumblr.com/17fe723913901fe9a1e0c0c53b6ba6e4/tumblr_inline_mornmejci71qz4rgp.png)

~~~
hga
Ah, I didn't mean to suggest you were a "recruiter", although the examples you
gave could be part of the recruiting function, and it wouldn't be unreasonable
for LinkedIn to want some money from your to do perform such due diligence. It
would be interesting to see if they've got an account level for that sort of
small scale thing.

------
richardjordan
I think the broader principle of this post is solid. It's one that I've been
thinking a lot as a friend asked me to advise his dating-site startup.

I don't like the space for one major reason (and job hunting is isomorphic
with dating): to optimize making money you have to fail to deliver on the
expectations of those for whom you're matchmaking.

With dating/jobhunting if you create a supremely efficient market place that
finds the match almost immediately your customers go away. They don't need
your service any more. It behooves you to increase the inefficiency of your
marketplace to deliver almost-matches that keep people interested and paying,
but not quite good enough to make them leave.

Perhaps you could argue that a job board is different because employers are
repeat finders and will come back again and again - the adultfriendfinder
approach, people who keep getting laid keep paying.

Either way they're tough businesses to make money on AND deliver a great
service.

LinkedIn does a ton of other things of course, to monetize, and isn't just a
job board. But that just raises questions about some of their other practises
of holding your own data hostage - which seems to be a key business model for
social network monetization at the moment, and that's a whole other question.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I don't like the space for one major reason (and job hunting is isomorphic
> with dating): to optimize making money you have to fail to deliver on the
> expectations of those for whom you're matchmaking.

For job hunting (but probably not dating), its at least conceivable that you
can structure the charge model to one where one or the other party (or both)
is paying for success in making a match (basically, that's what lots of non-
web-based employment "matchmaking" services of various kinds do), so that you
can, in fact, align customer satisfaction with profit maximization.

~~~
nostrademons
Another approach is to do something like take a cut of the first year's salary
or _difference_ between the first year's salary and what the jobhunter was
previously getting. That conditions success not only on making a match but on
making a _good_ match, as you get paid virtually nothing if an employee gets
hired but then gets fired 2 weeks later. Many recruiting firms take this
approach.

------
henrik_w
I never understood the "Job Seeker Premium" badge. It just makes you look
desperate in my mind.

~~~
richardjordan
right - like a candidate anti-pattern - this person so lacks confidence in
their abilities that they're trying to game the system to get attention
(unfair probably but I'd be shocked if that wasn't the perception of many
employers)

------
polarix
No problems with the main thrust of the article, but the conclusion that
"America's jobs crisis needs to be looked at as a failure of employers and job
boards to ensure an accurate and fair employment process" is laughable. The
problems with the re-employment engine are multifold, and not trivially
reducible to a single sentence.

An interesting, and more nuanced take on the issue from a very different
angle, which at least starts to grasp the enormity of the problem:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/hh4/the_robots_ai_and_unemployment_a...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/hh4/the_robots_ai_and_unemployment_antifaq/)

------
jt2190

      > But the question for everyone else is, why are employers
      > (who pay to access the database) and job seekers (who 
      > pay for database positioning) playing along while 
      > LinkedIn sells everyone out with this game of payola?
      >
      > And where does it leave LinkedIn users who just want to 
      > meet one another to do business? While some of us are 
      > working to help job seekers form appropriate, 
      > substantive relationships that they can cultivate -- 
      > and benefit from -- over time, LinkedIn keeps coming up
      > with silly products that cheapen the meaning of 
      > networking and connecting with other people.
    

I'm curious about this myself... Both employers and potential employees seem
extremely hesitant to change their behavior. I can't help but feel that each
side doesn't really want to deal with the other, and everyone is hiding behind
websites and resumes, and sites like LinkedIn reap the rewards.

There's probably some interesting social science here. If anyone can enlighten
me, I'd love to hear about it.

(edit: by "change behavior" I mean relying on the old system of: "you send me
your resume, I'll put it in the trash." Supposedly 80-90% of jobs go
unadvertised, and yet the vast majority "job search" by hurling resumes at the
remaining 10-20%.)

------
PaulHoule
Personally I don't pay for any premium services for LinkedIn but I can say
that my LinkedIn profile consistently gets me quality calls from recruiters.
In fact, it led me into a series of consistently better paying jobs quite
quickly.

I devoted consistent effort to building my LinkedIn network over time so I
have a very large number of connections now. I get the sense that the system
is underprovisioned for me, because the site is slow as hell, often I can't
see the messages and invitations I've been sent until I've done several
reloads.

I actually would pay for a premium service that is overprovisioned for me and
fast enough for me that I'd want to spend more time with it.

------
gergles

      > But the question for everyone else is, why are employers
      > (who pay to access the database) and job seekers (who 
      > pay for database positioning) playing along while 
      > LinkedIn sells everyone out with this game of payola?
    

There is no "payola" in searching the database. Job seekers aren't paying for
database positioning, they are paying only to be at the top of the list of
"here are people who applied for your job". This is mentioned by Corcodilos in
his article then immediately handwaved away as if it doesn't matter, but this
point completely changes the thrust of his argument.

You don't show up at the top of _search results_ no matter what kind of
account you have; your payment or lack thereof does not manipulate organic
search results. It only puts you at the top of a list of people who applied
for jobs using the "Apply for jobs" function. The value for the free account-
holder and for the recruiter is still intact.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
But it's all about perception - LinkedIn has got perceptibly more slimy, less
about connecting, and it has now started taking money for rankings. If the
sign on the brothel door says our women will give head for cash but they have
to love you to screw, do you think anyone will believe it?

Admittedly like all walled gardens, there is no business model - the value
lies in the network and any and all attempts to monetize that are called
taxation. We only accept that from one place

------
willcole
Disclaimer: I work on a competing job board site at Stack Overflow Careers 2.0

LinkedIn (as opposed to CareerBuilder apparently) isn't really cheating
anyone. They're charging for a stupid feature to make a quick buck off of
naive or desperate candidates. I can't figure out how a feature like putting a
resume on the top of a pile solves any problem to do with matching candidates
with employers. Much less why good employers would care about this arbitrary
order. At least (apparently) they aren't biasing search results in their
recruiter platform.

We've taken the route of only charging employers for access to advertise jobs
and company pages on Stack Overflow, and search profiles of developers on
Careers 2.0 (no crappy contingency recruiters allowed). Not only do we not
want to charge candidates, I don't exactly know what we'd be charging them for
that would help clear the market more efficiently.

~~~
vonmoltke
> I can't figure out how a feature like putting a resume on the top of a pile
> solves any problem to do with matching candidates with employers. Much less
> why good employers would care about this arbitrary order.

It helps them get through the human keyword filter in HR faster, which
(theoretically) makes them more likely to get an interview. Even many "good"
companies have issues with poor HR filter functions, and on top of that a
majority of the jobs seem to be with "bad" companies.

I agree, though, that its set up to prey on the naive and desperate. Those for
whom any job is better than no job, or simply think this is how "the game" is
supposed to be played.

------
w0rd-driven
While the article focuses on LinkedIn, it could likely just be titled "Are Job
Boards..." because the article mentions CareerBuilder and Monster. I know CB
does it but wasn't paying attention to notice if Monster did.

Something definitely feels slimy about the practice from a job seeker
standpoint. Simply because I can't afford it, or place a high value on the
cost I'm now at a disadvantage to another applicant. To borrow from another HN
comment, it's akin to entering a cheat code while I'm just here normally
playing the game. While I don't mind cheating in single player games, this is
akin to wallhacking in a FPS.

Having said that, I also don't mind it at all because if I get a job this way
it proves I did so on my own merit and those that paid were complete suckers.
There is definitely a sense of achievement that comes with that.

I will always wonder how this came about though. How this became acceptable. I
understand it's a business but creating unfair advantages in what amounts to
some people's livelihood (in their mind at least) seems like playing with
fire. There's also the very real threat that this is snake oil. Can anyone
prove paying actually improves your chances? These companies could easily be
charging for a "service" that only exists in name and actually does absolutely
nothing behind the scenes.

------
no-opinion
I'm a student at a bush league school that doesn't have many connections to my
field. Would it be in my interests to make a LinkedIn account for internship
purposes?

~~~
auctiontheory
You should absolutely have a LinkedIn account and begin to build the network.
Just don't PAY for your LinkedIn account.

~~~
jusben1369
I feel like the "network" benefit of LinkedIn is close to zero. That is, when
was the last time anyone said "I would like to talk to person X at Company Y.
Oh, one of my friends is connected to person X. I'll ask that person for a
warm introduction" Is anyone seeing or doing that?

~~~
bcbrown
I've certainly done that. When job-hunting, if I find a job posting I'd like
to apply for, I'll check to see if there's anyone in my 2nd or 3rd-level
network who's worked for that company.

~~~
bostik
I do the same, but somewhat differently. The primary reason is that I only
accept connections to people I have _personally_ met and interacted with. (The
few exceptions to that rule are people whom I've had extensive online dealings
with.) The network information tells me who is likely to know more, and more
importantly, could probably help to skirt the "Great Wall of HR" by
introducing me personally with the people doing the actual hiring. _Outside_
LinkedIn.

When someone in my personal network pings the hiring manager and asks if they
can connect me with them, I'm already ahead of the rest. Even if the response
is to send the application in through the regular channels, the hiring manager
now knows to expect my application. And perhaps most importantly, they know
that I have been already vetted for fit and sanity by a person in their
personal network. I can refer to that link in the application cover, and help
it stand out even further.

The in-system introductions at LinkedIn I consider worthless. Use those, and
you get flagged as someone just clicking buttons.

Networking is crucial on any creative field. But if you're willing to
artificially "enhance" your network, you're just devalueing that very network
- and by extension, yourself. The only things that really matter are the
personal connections. They are the ones that can help you - and the ones that
you are willing to help yourself.

------
zcarter
The problem comes down to trust and incentives. The "promoted" job board model
leads to a middle man agent ("agent" in the Economics sense) with asymmetric
information who is incentivized to give poor advice. LinkedIn wants you to
trust their matching algorithm, but then goes behind your back and supplants
the best matches with whoever the highest bidder happens to be.

Instead of benefiting when their customers get value from their service
(successful placements), LinkedIn is profiting from desperation and
frustration (the more unsatisfied costs - "free" grade users, the more
potential paying customers), and simultaneously making the search process more
difficult for all parties involved.

LinkedIn's position in the job search marketplace is as a monopolist provider
of up-to-date candidate information, a valuable side effect of their primary
virtue: being the winner take all social network for the corporate world.

Rent-seeking behavior from monopoly providers with asymmetric information
should surprise no one. Rent-seeking behavior leading to angry market
participants should surprise no one.

~~~
Sven7
Rent-seeking in silicon valley isn't spoken about enough. Rent seeking has and
will always be around, but is it increasing?

When we are talking about rankings and matching algo's in the hands of
monopolies be it Google, Facebook, YouTube et al its a great mystery to me why
the advertising industry trusts them so much.

------
etler
Worst case scenario seems to be that you're advertising to potential employers
that you're having trouble finding a job... That doesn't seem like a good
thing to point out...

------
rmason
I run a user group and network a lot with other developers. I noticed that in
the past two years all the elite developers that I knew, the top half of one
percent, were pulling their profiles from LinkedIn.

Have to laugh because companies looking for the proverbial 'rockstar
developer' are increasingly never going to find them on LinkedIn.

------
lrei
Betteridge's law of headlines:

"Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines)

------
rastered
Charging the applicant for a monthly premium listing service does nothing to
help companies find good employees, though I think a small change could make
it beneficial to both parties.

Offer "premium" application placement on a per application basis instead of
monthly. This would provide a signal to the employer that the applicant is
particularly interested in _this_ listing and not just spamming resumes.

It would provide a similar signal to a customized cover letter, but the
employer can see the signal without the necessary investment of time to read a
cover letter.

------
seiji
New headline game: if a headline suggests linkedin or facebook or google may
be doing something a little bad, they're actually doing something five times
worse.

------
kvcrawford
I hate LinkedIn. The pay walls and forced semi-hidden profiles are insanely
annoying.

I wish I had the resources to build a competitor centered around openness and
UX. It should monetize on really strong programmatic job matching, driven by
the improved data from reducing all the UX friction. Somebody, please accept
the challenge.

~~~
rgbrgb
What resources would you need?

~~~
kvcrawford
I suppose if I were to undertake it, all I would need is time (i.e., some
savings) to produce a rough first version. To really build it, the help of
other engineers on the back-end, especially to implement job matching
algorithms. I'm mostly into UI.

Getting users would be a whole other challenge. I can see the web/tech crowd
adopting something for its superior UX, but then you're up against Github,
which provides far more utilitarian value and accomplishes a bit of the
professional social networking in one fell swoop. When it comes to everybody
else, I think that business partnerships, marketing, and sales are key. That's
more help needed.

I think it's totally viable, I'm just not in the position to do it. I hope
somebody is.

------
stokedmartin
And they keep extending their footprint
([http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_20568679/linkedin-expands-
offi...](http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_20568679/linkedin-expands-offices-into-
sunnyvale)). Sigh!

------
jokoon
I wish the internet could actually solve high unemployment.

------
RyanMcGreal
Dear PBS: I don't want to localize my PBS experience. I just want to read the
article. :P

