
Ten years on LinkedIn - causality
https://evertpot.com/10-years-of-linkedin/
======
rb2k_
I personally got contacted by Facebook, Google and LinkedIn themselves on
LinkedIn with job opportunities.

I worked for LinkedIn for a bit and am now working at Facebook.

While I visit the site/app only every other week, I still think it's very
valuable to connect to people I talked to at meetups and that I would like to
stay connected with somehow. Some of the people I'd like to stay in touch
with, don't have at twitter account or are so low frequency that I'd miss
things I care about. I probably wouldn't connect with them on Facebook since
to me it still feels a bit too "personal".

Considering that LinkedIn was instrumental in the two biggest "moves" in my
career and fills a good niche for me, I personally like them as a network.

I agree that the UI is a bit annoying at times, but they're way better than
they used to be in that regard. I don't even mind recruiter emails. I have a
bit less than 5 years of experience, so I still think it's a bit flattering to
receive them :)

~~~
vonklaus
While I don't want to be presumptuous it sounds like you are ostensibly just
super talented and, at this point, have some solid accomplishments.

So while linkedIn may have opened doors, it is pretty unlikely through
something like HN or your own irl network, you wouldve ended up unsuccessful.
My own feelings towards linkIn aside, anecdotally it certainly seems that it
was useful for you. It certainly has the ability to provide great things, or
speed up connections/opportunity.

I agree with the article in that it is a soft requirement for a lot of things:

Entrepreneur: Helpful for hiring, networking looking at competition, finding
investors.

Freelancer: Getting gigs, proving reputation.

Bigcompany: online presence, hiring.

Recruiter: obvious.

Etc.

So while you certainly aren't unique in finding value in linkedIn, it is
utterly painful to use and sometimes i feel like if I put my cursor in the
wrong place I'll accidentally agree to realtime uploading of all my data &
that of my friend.

As an aside, it really can't survive much longer:

* Users hate using it

* it is totally unpleasant and insisistant on you conforming to what it demands.

* signal to noise is so out of alignment it is painful.

* Companies have to deal with the need to be on the platform and endorse enployees who are incentivized to self-promote sometimes to the company's detriment.

* I personally, and I largely suspect this to be very common, have connections I don't know. Either we have drifted apart, were breifly engaged in something, or I was just to lenient with accepting/reaching out.

* Increasingly, it is becoming less profitable as it struggles to give away enough data to be useful, but hold back enough to upsell premium packages.

While facebook certainly seems to care little about privacy, there is a
compelling engagement and feeling of human connection that is just not there
with linked in.

They should just sell to salesforce, that way the data and privacy could stay
just as exploitive, but they could allow users latitude to enjoy/benefit from
it a bit more.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
_Users hate using it_

That may very well be, but I have never heard anyone say this except on HN

~~~
vonklaus
You might very well be correct. However, (and I don't love FB) when is the
last time someone in real life called you over to look at something on
linkedIN?

Professionally, it is dangerous as you can't show coworkers the great job you
found. Most of the articles are advertisements or a logo and smiling people
holding laptops, and the jobs (as all sites) are just crawled from every other
companies site.

I can only assume that if I have to pay to send you a linkedIn mail we're not
connected, and if we are connected I would send you and email.

So, the only reason I go on linkedIN, is because it is too hard to write a
crawler to parse what I can only imagine is like 10K LOC of JS, and copy paste
the source into my crawler to pull the info. Also, for potential investors &
enterprise customers to view these profiles is $80 a month. So the top people
who don't want to talk to us get unsolicited inbound emails from us because
linkedin sold them out for $80 a month.

so yes this is HN, and yes I bloody hate LI.

------
henrik_w
I agree that there are many problems with LinkedIn, but my (contrarian) view
is that it is still useful for me:

\- contact information for professional contacts in one place, updated by them

\- job offers (yes, mostly good or at least decent)

\- can look up people to see their experience and common contacts

\- updates on what previous colleagues are up to.

More here: [http://henrikwarne.com/2013/08/21/linkedin-good-or-
bad/](http://henrikwarne.com/2013/08/21/linkedin-good-or-bad/)

~~~
ryandrake
I don't know what LinkedIn you're using that provides you with job offers, but
the one I'm on has only lead to recruiter contacts which may or may not lead
to interviews, which (so far) have never lead to an actual job offer.

LinkedIn is great if you just want to endlessly socialize with recruiters.
Don't worry about finding them: They'll all try to connect with you and chat
you up about one of their jobs that is just like the one you have but at
another company. Hell, you might even get an interview out of it, but good
luck turning that into an actual job in today's picky environment.

And if any of those LinkedIn recruiters are reading this, Try This One Neat
Trick That Candidates Love: Instead of approaching someone with a job posting
that's basically what he did 2 years ago or what he's doing today, approach
him with what he might want to be doing 2 years from now. You'll get better
responses, I guarantee it.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "LinkedIn is great if you just want to endlessly socialize with recruiters"

Why do you socialise with them? Every few days I check in and accept all
connection requests (almost all recruiters). I have email notifications turned
off so their messages to me just get ignored. Then when it came time to find a
job I replied to three or four of them with my requirements, picked a few
companies I liked from each, and had interviews setup. Much more efficient
than me having to find these companies myself.

~~~
_drFaust
That is exactly how I got my current job and how I continue to use linkedin
too. It's extremely effective. 3+ recruiters a week, just let em know that now
is not a good time but in the future. Network grows and more recruiters hit me
up per week. Offers quite a bit of mental security knowing I have an army of
recruiter contacts waiting to do my bidding so I can say fuck you to my
current job if I wanted.

------
rdli
The problem with LinkedIn is that they have multiple, conflicting business
models each of which are too successful to kill outright.

1\. They have an advertising business, that sells to marketers. 2\. They have
a recruiting business, which sells to recruiters. 3\. They have a individual
(networking) business, which sells to individuals. 4\. They have a sales
business, which sells to sales people.

While they all have a core basic similarity (use a rich database of
professional people), when it comes to monetization of this core platform,
there are little conflicts that add up over time. For example, for #2, they
should make it as easy and free and valuable for people to join and update
their profile. But then that conflicts with #3 a little bit, because a
valuable feature is looking at other people's full profiles -- but that means
you can't charge for individual subscriptions. And so forth.

------
compactmani
"I don't have one because of principles" is an excellent answer. It's the
answer I give whenever someone asks me for anything social media related
whether the context is social or professional. You may be surprised to hear
that I've experienced zero consequences for it.

~~~
bshimmin
I'm slightly on the fence with this one. Often employers are looking for
someone "normal" who will fit into a team in a "normal" sort of way; and
having a LinkedIn account is certainly "normal" (given the number of people
who have them). On the other hand, obviously some employers are looking for
someone weird and exceptional, and, on that basis, are prepared to have to
deal with Richard Stallman and his problems with parrots
([https://groups.google.com/a/mysociety.org/forum/#!msg/mysoci...](https://groups.google.com/a/mysociety.org/forum/#!msg/mysociety-
community/zkyZpOXjgoQ/_8xyXSxv9zYJ)).

Secondly, you absolutely do not want to start ranting about "principles" or
"ethics" during an interview - or being overtly negative about fairly common-
place things - unless you're pretty sure they're looking for RMS and your
beard is looking exceptional that day.

But, all that said, I think you could probably get out of a "Why don't you
have a LinkedIn profile?" scenario in a fairly anodyne way just by saying
something like, "I'll be honest, I used to have one, but I got sick of the
spam."

~~~
mhurron
I have literally never been asked about LinkedIn in an interview.

What other high school cliquey things do you expect on an interview?

~~~
m-i-l
I've never asked about LinkedIn in an interview. However, I do sometimes look
up candidates prior to interviewing them, and admit to being slightly curious
if I can't find them, although would not let it count against them.
Conversely, I have also seen a few candidates look me up on LinkedIn prior to
their interview, which I generally take as positive sign, because it shows
they are trying to prepare.

~~~
dkarapetyan
For quite some time I was trying to get people to look at my actual resume
instead of its shadow on linkedin and I couldn't get people to do it because
they would google my name and the first link would be on linkedin so they
would never bother to look beyond it. As soon as I closed my linkedin account
all of a sudden people started looking at my actual resume and my code on
github. I don't regret closing my account and forcing people to do some
legwork to find my qualifications instead of doing the lazy thing and stalking
on linkedin.

------
mathattack
I find LinkedIn very useful. I use it before every external meeting to get
background on the others, and provide my profile to offer the same courtesy.

The frustration is that it could be so much more. They have the richest
demographic of customers and the worlds best human capital map. They could be
doing so much more than paid Lead Generation for salespeople and recruiters.
(And this is coming from someone who has used it for both)

~~~
mgkimsal
Agreed on all counts. I don't use it before every single meeting, but it's
helpful to see who we have in common, etc.

And yes, it could have been (or could be) so much more than just recruiter-
oriented. Something as basic as letting me keep notes about my relationship
with someone - where did we meet, who introduced us, etc - would have made
them truly indispensable to an entire generation.

~~~
joenot443
It's interesting you say this, as that exact functionality got implemented
very recently.

[https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/43370/~/ad...](https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/43370/~/adding-
notes-to-a-contact)

~~~
mgkimsal
and... I went to the site and poked around before I posted that, just to make
sure it wasn't already there. If it's there, it's super non-obvious, as in, I
didn't see it, and I was looking for it.

------
miseg
From an employee's perspective, rather than contractor, I feel that it's
_fear_ that keeps me on LinkedIn.

"What if I lose out on an opportunity, or seem strange, because I'm no longer
on LinkedIn?"

~~~
staticelf
Funny because I feel the same thing even if I've never gotten a job through
linkedin. Even never a job interview. I think I'll delete my linkedin.

~~~
theparanoid
Easier is disabling your profile. You keep your contact network and but no
longer appear in search results and can only be viewed by people in your
network.

------
1337biz
Probably the main reason why the poster should better continue using LinkedIn:

[https://evertpot.com/resume.html](https://evertpot.com/resume.html) 404 File
not found

~~~
L-four
[https://evertpot.com/resume/](https://evertpot.com/resume/)

~~~
gvb
But the link is broken in his home page:

    
    
        If you're into that sort of thing, you could take a gander at my
        <a href="/resume.html">resume</a>.</p>

~~~
L-four
Your are correct

------
jvehent
Those articles are useful: everytime someone mentions LinkedIn, I remember to
check my account.

Without them, I'd pretty much never open the site.

~~~
Saad_M
Except recently social networks, such as LinkedIn, takes note of any
inactivity and will send periodic “enticer” emails in an attempt to increase
you engagement with their site.

~~~
phillc73
Facebook is terrible for this. I thought I'd opted out of all communications,
yet I still receive these enticer emails and also things about how my
"business page" needs updating.

The only reason I still have a Facebook account is "in case" I ever need to
contact some of those old associates or school friends (a bit like hoarding
old computer parts - I might need them one day!). I still have a LinkedIn
account because I changed industry and thought I should at least have some way
of contacting old business associates if I ever needed a way back.

Otherwise, I'd have deleted both accounts. They are of no practical use to me
on a day to day basis, and I only hold on to them for a "just in case I need
to contact someone" situation.

~~~
boxidea
You can deactivate your Facebook account. You won't get the enticer emails and
if you ever need to look up some contact info, you can just activate it again.

~~~
iolothebard
Or you can just message them with your email and ask for their contact info.

I did this a few years ago. Have a nice list. Never email any of them :-/

------
cubano
I remember being utterly turned off by LinkedIn when I saw two of my colleges
a few years using a script to approve everyone's "skills" (or whatever they
call it) everyday in order to be more popular or whatever.

I thought if everyone is just gaming it like that, the whole platform is
totally worthless and even worse.

Needless to say, I now have a very minimal presence on it and never anymore
link with recruiters as they will suck you dry timewise.

~~~
crusso
That skill endorsement interface is like a videogame that I play every few
months. I hit the affirmative button on people I like without really looking
at the skills too closely. I have to have a really low regard for someone to
not just give them a skill recommendation.

It's really just a "Hey" that I'm sending to some long-lost co-worker's
mailbox. Often, endorsing someone will spur a reconnection or an email
conversation with that person that I otherwise might not have had.

I would never consider the linkedin skills recommendations when looking to
hire someone.

------
Taylor_OD
I use LinkedIn (tech recruiter) daily but I have most of the features blocked.

I use my personal network or inmails (paid for by my employer) to contact
people and my personal page is a landing page for developers.

I disabled the scrolling facebook like front page and I use buffer to post
articles for me during the workday.

It's mostly helpful for getting job offers and generating interest in
yourself. Even I get multiple recruitment messages a day so I can only imagine
what developers inboxes look like. The problem for some people who haven't
found it useful is most recruiters only target the young developers who look
like they will be easy placements.

~~~
violentvinyl
I like the idea of using my LinkedIn page as a way to highlight interesting
articles to spark conversation. I'm not aticvely recruiting at the moment (but
I do use Linked In when I am), so I could see having already built a
"community" of my peers on MY page would beuseful for both recruiting for my
current team, and also any future job searches I embark on. Where did you come
up with the tweaks for your own page? I'm curious if there is a tutorial for
this, or if you just kind of stumbled on to it? I did a little search for
"linkedin disable scrolling", hoping to fin a MySpace style skinning tutorial,
compelte with embedded HTML, but had no such luck.

~~~
Taylor_OD
I actually asked someone here on Hackernews and they let me know its fairly
easy to block the scrolling function of LI's homepage by using uBlock.

I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn (3 hours on average a day) and early in my
career when I was avoiding making cold calls I found what made other peoples
LinkedIn profiles stand out and copied them. Now my profile is a personalized
and tweaked version of the 100's of interesting profiles I've viewed.

I do a lot of profile optimization internally for my company and team but I
have thought about making some type of public guide or offering a service but
it seems like there is no good way to edit or suggest edits to a profile
without actually logging into someones account and that raises obvious recruit
risks for most people.

However If your interested I can send you the powerpoint deck I use to give
meeting on this topic.

------
ThomPete
I never understood the criticism of LinkedIn. It's the least intrusive of all
the networks I am in and probably the most valuable when I look at who it
gives men access to and it allows others who look for someone like me to find
me.

I've been on linkedin almost from day one and I still haven't found anything
even remotely comparable to Linkedin in value. It's like the google of
professional networks. Sure you can use other networks that will make you feel
like you are missing something.

~~~
kbart
_" It's the least intrusive of all the networks"_

Are you joking? I've never been on LinkedIn and still get spam from it
constantly (though less nowadays than few years back).

~~~
pscsbs
Have you tried using the "unsubscribe" button?

~~~
DanBC
Why should people "unsubscribe" from email they didn't explicitly sign up for?

~~~
eightofdiamonds
So they hopefully stop getting it.

~~~
DanBC
Or they confirm the email address is live and they get lots more?

Standard advice for years has been don't unsub from email you haven't subbed
to.

~~~
ThomPete
For actual spammers yes. Linkedin isn't a spammer in that category.

~~~
DanBC
Linkedin is sending bulk email to people who have not opted in and who have
not confirmed the opt in.

That's pretty much the definition of spam. It's unsolicited, it's bulk, it's
email.

~~~
ThomPete
Yes but the question was whether you had opted out.

I haven't seen anyone claiming Linkedin keeps sending after that but I might
be wrong.

------
arethuza
I realised yesterday that its been almost exactly ten years since I _stopped_
using LinkedIn!

------
codegeek
I have been a linkedin user for about 10 years as well. Here are my thoughts:

Useful parts of linkedin (not that many):

\- Ability to connect with people you have worked with and keeping in touch
with them. Knowing who is doing what profesionally in your circle. This is
useful if you know how to use the network to your advantage.

\- Decent Job offers from good recruiters once in a while (very rare but it
does happen). I call this "Good Recruiter spam"

Things that suck about linkedin:

\- Endorsements

\- Horrible UI and dark patterns.

\- Bad recruiter spam. Basically the generic copy/paste messages or my
favorite "I would like to connect with you on linkedin" generic message when
trying to connect. Really ? You want to connect with a stranger but cannot
bother writing why ?

\- Groups (just another way of spam)

\- The "App" spam on mobile phones. No linkedin, I don't want to use the App.
Let me open linkedin.com ON mobile. there is such a thing right ?

~~~
ssharp
I read a lot about recruiter spam but don't personally receive much of it.
Most recruiters who contact me have reviewed my profile and present a job
opening that aligns with my skills. Granted, I've never actually taken a job
presented by a recruiter, but don't receive so many off-base contacts that I
find them any sort of burden.

I'm not longer a developer, however, so I do wonder how much of the spam is
concentrated just of filling technology positions. Dev positions are not easy
to fill in just about any U.S. market, so it makes sense why they'd be so
aggressively sought after.

------
nowprovision
A candidate with active LinkedIn profile can be seen unfavourable in many
industries as peeps spill too many details of projects in order to glorify
their profile, one can learn a lot about competitors ways of working and
technology just by reading employee profiles. Not on LinkedIn, one headache
saved...

------
wodenokoto
I feel bad for those people who don't know how to turn off email notifications
from LinkedIn, either by having their email client remove them or by some
setting on LinkedIn.

We often forgot the burden of online life of those without technical skills.
Imagine having all those LinkedIn mails end up in your inbox.

------
maxwellito
I left LinkedIn 10 years ago. I'm still receiving emails.

~~~
yoo1I
I've never been on LinkedIn and I received email from them harvesting other
peoples' address books, and nothing short of shouting at them made them stop.

------
hartator
> My only issue is that I feel, as an independent contractor, I’m obligated to
> maximize my potential in acquiring new customers.

I don't know if it's an obligation, I think it doen't become suddenly okay to
spam people whenever it's in your interest.

------
mrlyc
I've found LinkedIn to be very useful for keeping track of former teachers and
managers. For example, a tutor who helped me a great deal in 1980 is now the
head of his department and I have watched the slow but steady decline of a
former manager who was a real challenge to work with.

I also use it to keep track of former colleagues who were difficult to work
with and avoid applying for jobs where they are working now. Even if I don't
end up working with them again, it's an indication to me that those companies
have a defective HR department so they've probably hired other difficult
people too.

------
mixmastamyk
Is "here's my resume, I'm not on linked-in" really not good enough for some
people? I've not encountered any problems with it. If asked why, the "dark
patterns" page can be mentioned.

------
runn1ng
LinkedIn was never good.

No seriously, I remember reading articles about their shady behaviour from the
very beginning. They were never useful for any kind of social interaction and
from as far as I remember, their website was terrible.

~~~
marssaxman
I can't even remember at this point how long ago I deleted my linkedin
profile; it was never anything more than a spam factory in my experience. What
surprises me is not that they're still terrible, but that they are still -
somehow, years later, despite seemingly everyone in the industry knowing they
are a complete waste of time - not yet out of business.

~~~
colinbartlett
It's most astonishing to me that anyone even still uses LinkedIn.

I deleted my account 5 years ago and my career didn't suddenly grind to a
halt. Nobody has ever even asked me once for a LinkedIn profile nor turned me
down for a job because I didn't have one. I must live in a different bubble
from all the people in this thread insisting that it's a requirement at every
turn in their lives.

------
kevinwang
Someone should make a linkedin clone that isn't shit.

~~~
simonswords82
Honestly if LinkedIn with all of their money and resources have failed to work
out how not to be shit I doubt anybody is going to succeed.

~~~
6stringmerc
I think your counter-point almost shines a light on the approach that might
actually work / not-be-shit: Spend time and resources on product functionality
as goal #1, not monetization, for a lean, effective information platform.

------
decentrality
Last paragraph is most salient. LinkedIn is an inadvertently maimed social
construct, the (soon to be) missing link between a resume or cv and whatever
comes next.

Facebook can be opted out of without THAT long of a sidelong glance because
it's an overlay of something more temporary in life - a yearbook, or little
black book.

Just try saying to a prospective client/recruiter "oh, having a resume/cv is
for the naive unwashed masses" ... because that's what most would hear.. the
rest will probably be the best candidates ever (if they sincerely agree)

------
potomak
I totally agree with you, except for the "not leaving LinkedIn" part. I closed
my account about 1 year ago after having to deal with spam, bad UI, and
useless connections.

Also removing your profile from the network is a bad use experience: I had to
send a customer support request to close it because I had more than 500
connections.

I think that I will build something in the near future because I like the idea
of collecting connections and achievements concerning my professional career,
but I'll never use LinkedIn again.

~~~
faitswulff
I also shut down my LinkedIn account. While I was using it, I was never able
to get it to completely stop sending me emails. My workaround was to create a
filter in Gmail to immediately toss anything from LinkedIn. After a few years
of this and recruiter spam on the site itself, I decided it wasn't worth it.
Dark patterns, privacy concerns, spam, and worthless recruiters - why bother?

As an additional bonus, I can now view some people's LinkedIn accounts without
giving myself away. So I get to look people up without any of the downsides. I
guess this benefit will disappear if people start to abandon LinkedIn, but for
now it's nice to be able to creep on people anonymously.

------
katpas
I hate using it. I’m a Junior Dev and I get about 10x the amount of recruiter
and random adds than I did at my last job finding start-up dealflow for an
investment platform.

The issue is they built a revenue model that rewards quantity over quality for
content and that prioritises recruiter and sales lead generation over
individuals using it to keep in touch with their professional network. I’ve
never used it to find or move jobs.

I was trying to think about how they might be able to reverse the spam factory
it’s become and I don’t think it’s possible without a different revenue model.

I’d be interested to see if they start to move towards the ‘Linkedin
Qualifications’ platform idea - if you use Linkedin for e-learning it would
give you a reason to use the site every day, you would be tied in as you not
only display your existing qualifications there but they also award them and
it would let them generate revenue from users (charging for the courses)
without the reliance on the premium ‘here you can spam people’ accounts.

This opinion piece on Tech Crunch nails why this happens is pretty accurate
too > [http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/23/linkedin-problems-run-
deepe...](http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/23/linkedin-problems-run-deeper-than-
valuation/?ncid=rss)

------
probably_wrong
I still find amusing how much faith people put into LinkedIn. I gave myself
some (very) fake awards, and yet I had people come up to me and ask about
them. I also tried to get people to endorse me for procrastination, but
couldn't find a contact willing to use their account for something not 100%
business.

I have no idea how they managed to get such a high reputation.

~~~
drb311
"I also tried to get people to endorse me for procrastination"

I will.

~~~
VLM
The right answer is "I've been meaning to endorse you but I've been really
busy and I'll get to it real soon now".

Speaking of procrastination, the original author should consider that
procrastinating is observationally the same as not using. The original author
is of the strange binary opinion that having an account means having to use
the service. There's nothing wrong with setting up an account then basically
abandoning it. Thus no weird interview discussions about "no account". I'm
part of the post-FB, post-linkedin, post-twitter generation and I don't use
those services more than once a year or so, but I do have accounts
specifically designed and curated for the amusement of older HR-types. Aside
from social media job descriptions, no interview ever ended early because "I
don't goof off online very much". So set up the account and procrastinate at
using it.

------
brynjolf
I still have two requests that are invisible and can't be removed. They been
there since the start. Pretty much says it all.

------
Jedd
Depressingly I thought to quickly compare how long my account has been active
... on a mobile what should have been a quick check resulted in an invitation
to install an application (no thanks), a request for info on my education (no
thanks), and some suggestions on who I may know and wish to bother.

Still couldn't find the account inception date. Gave up.

------
blazespin
LinkedIn is awesome. Every great biz opportunity in the last 10 years has come
from it.

My only comment is they could do better by cutting down on recruiter spam and
poorly thought out sales pitches.

Just increase the amount of money to send unsolicited emails, especially to
more senior people.

Maybe they could have a chat with Amazon as well. Those people abuse LinkedIn
way too much.

------
acquacow
I get several legitimate job hits a month from various recruiters... I kind of
like to keep linked-in current and updated just in case my industry folds
again... makes it quick and easy to ping the dozen or so hungry recruiters and
get myself placed elsewhere.

------
DanielBMarkham
Reading this, I wondered how long I've been on LinkedIn. I hardly ever use it,
so I surfed over to find out.

Oh. My. God. This site is like visiting GoDaddy to try to buy a domain, except
worse. It's almost entirely dark patterns. Every time I clicked anything, the
file upload dialog on my computer popped up.

Now I'm really conflicted about continuing to use it. Seems like I'm stuck --
been on almost 11 years now, and I've built up quite a network. But who wants
to put up with that kind of suck? What kinds of professionals would use it
regularly? It's not very reassuring.

------
socialanxiety
Oh another HN post hating on LinkedIn/twitter/fb? How original.

------
hocuspocus
I can bear with the bad UI and the dark patterns but I'm more and more baffled
by the stream of junk that my news-feed has become. I know that it depends on
who I add and who I (un)follow but I have little time to be picky or manually
curate content I want to see, like most people on HN I presume, and this gives
me a very bad impression of tech recruiters and LinkedIn itself, the same way
I've lost hope in getting anything worthwhile from my FB news-feed.

~~~
dorfsmay
LinkedIn is good if you ignore the "news feed".

Use the contact list, because people update their contact info, you can
contact all acquaintances easily without having to keep track of their contact
info yourself.

Keep your resume up to date. Looking for a job, somebody asks you for your
resume? Point the to LinkedIn.

------
titomc
LinkedIn helped me make a career move. I am using it for my next move.
Recruiters should be looking into stackoverflow careers as it showcases the
real you.

------
sakopov
I don't really understand the hate towards LinkedIn. I've connected with a lot
of companies on LinkedIn. Even had LinkedIn itself, Facebook, Amazon and
Microsoft reach out to me with job opportunities on LinkedIn. Yes they employ
dodgy UI practices but the service they provide has been invaluable with
little to no effort on my part.

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iamthepieman
I deleted all endorsements, posts and removed all friends and follows about a
year ago when they announced they were making it harder to get your data out
of the Linkedin network. I created another throwaway account with a different
email just so I could view peoples full profiles.

Haven't regretted it.

------
Cub3
I'ts just a spam machine for me, all I seem to get are "are you or anyone in
your network looking for a job" communications.

That plus the fact I have to be ever so careful to never hit that "search for
contacts in email" button that randomly pops up

------
vinceyuan
LinkedIn is not that bad. Indeed it is very useful. I was contacted by many
head hunters on LinkedIn and got jobs. (But I got no response when I apply for
positions on LinkedIn.) LinkedIn is really a good place for head hunters.

------
meapix
I quit linkedin back in 2012 when they got hacked and lost people's passwords.

------
didip
I am constantly surprised that Facebook doesn't get in LinkedIn business and
destroy them completely.

Resume builder seems like a feature away.

------
iand
Who is building an alternative to LinkedIn?

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rogersmith
So everyone agrees LinkedIn is shit and should be abandoned if only because
every clickable icon in there is booby-trapped, yet the consensus seems to be
"I'll keep using it because peer pressure and network"?

Apt summary of the perverse aspects of the so-called "network effect" if i've
ever saw one...

~~~
MicroBerto
Everyone in this thread acts like LinkedIn doesn't know _exactly_ how bad they
are.

They are the perfect amount of bad for the sake of their business: Their
minefield of garbage makes them loads of money, but it's not so bad that a
successor can unseat it (ie not at MySpace levels).

LinkedIn does a fantastic job of living on that edge. If they keep being
shitty but not _super_ shitty, they'll continue to win.

~~~
alexandercrohde
Meh, I for one deleted (not just disabled) my linked in a few months ago. I
realized I never made any connections on there that served me in any way. The
shit wasn't bad enough to stop me from signing up, but after years it
accumulated enough to make me leave.

If other developers like myself leave, then the recruiters who pay premium to
be able to spam developers like myself will leave to. Then the model
collapses.

In fact, the apps that don't bullshit me are the ones I use most (gmail, hn,
craigslist, podcast websites).

~~~
billmalarky
I suspect the next successful business network will be more compartmentalized
by industry. Sort of like how github is more or less becoming a business
network for developers.

------
jorgecurio
I stopped using LinkedIn for the same reasons I stopped using Facebook. It's
really hurting to see your friends getting married, getting awesome jobs
paying $300,000 to be a cloud engineer or whatever the fuck, or the sheer
amount of entrepreneurial/business pornography that LinkedIn peons _love_ to
circle jerk.

On top of that the near non-cessant spamming from job recruiters "HEY BRO YOU
WANNA JOB BRO PAY REAL GOOD", seeing ex-coworkers humble brag.

It's a cognitive dissonance at best, you expose yourself more to the non stop
flow of information, you are going to get burnt out.

After quitting LinkedIn I feel great like there was a huge baggage following
me around. With all these crazy shit going on around the world like people
getting doxxed and swatted, I just don't feel safe to expose information
voluntarily _just because all the monkeys are doing it_.

Monkey see, monkey do. A human may see what other humans are doing but the
higher consciousness will lead to contrarian behaviors.

------
wahsd
I've always thought that LinkedIn really does not have "market fit" and could
be so much more of a professional tool and resource. It's like LinkedIn is
stuck in an old paradigm of social networking and can't find a way to move
forward and innovate or see a path forward.

Maybe that's why they are having such a difficult time and are hitting a wall
and the stock took a dive.

