
LinkedIn sucks - elorant
https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/10/linkedin-sucks/
======
mscasts
> I have 16,000 connections.

Maybe that is the reason why it sucks for the author. I use LinkedIn as my
personal CV and have gotten a job through it. If I had to search for a new job
it would probably be through LinkedIn, Stackoverflow and other smaller sites
for remote workers.

LinkedIn is better than all other general career sites, much much better and I
can always point people there if they want my CV.

~~~
Finnucane
"I open it out of habit and accept everyone who adds me because I don’t know
why I wouldn’t."

If you add contacts you don't know indiscriminately, you're going to have
issues. That's just asking for trouble.

But then, I haven't logged into my account in so long I don't even get spam
from Linkedin anymore.

~~~
emodendroket
Like what? As far as I can tell, the more contacts you have, the more mutuals
you'll have, leading to an easier time contacting people you actually want to
talk to. I just accept everyone because I see little downside. I'm not there
to chat.

~~~
stared
Like the only mutual contact being some shady/untrustworthy/cheating
individual.

~~~
emodendroket
Seems better than nothing. Generally they're just recruiters and anyway they
apparently didn't think so lowly of the person as to decline the request.

------
pavel_lishin
I, too, dislike LinkedIn and don't find it useful, but you can't write a "X
sucks" and then plop this sentence right into the second paragraph:

> _I understand that I’m using LinkedIn wrong._

"This hammer sucks! I keep swinging wildly, but none of my nails ever get
hammered in, but my TV and most of my light bulbs are broken."

------
3pt14159
Just delete your LinkedIn. I did. It's great. People just email me now and
email is way better in almost all ways. I can filter it more easily, I can
forward it more easily, the spam filter catches clueless recruiters.
Everything is literally better with no drawbacks at all.

Also, after being exposed to the OSINT community via the Arms Control
community, I learned how crazy dangerous it is to have your whole organization
on there.

If I ever have a company with employees I'm going to make it part of the
employment agreement (and a fireable offense) to add the position to LinkedIn.
It's a complete gold mine for competitors and social engineers. People can put
"Long Term Data Science Contract" if they really want to, but ideally I'd be
able to convince them to just delete it or, at the very least, ramp up the
security settings after deleting fake connections.

It's definitely useful, but mostly for other people.

~~~
ryandrake
Can you point out any specific “dangers” of employees having LinkedIn
accounts?

How much $$ over market value would you offer to compensate an employee for
not using it?

~~~
guitarbill
Someone scraped LinkedIn to find ICE employees [0]. It's common to look at job
openings to figure out what a company might be working on next, conversely you
can sometimes draw conclusions on how those skunkwork programs are going by
seeing if key people still work for the company (if they're highly
specialised).

[0]
[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/435myg/programmer...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/435myg/programmer-
used-linkedin-to-find-ice-employees-database)

~~~
ryandrake
These seem like pretty lightweight dangers. So your competitor can get a list
of your employees. Who cares? You can go there and get a list of people
working for my employer if you want.

These also seem like concerns for the employer, not the employee. What danger
would motivate an employee to delete their account?

~~~
CynicalDio
The only real danger I could think of is if you have a database administrator
working for you and it says as much on LinkedIn, you could then check that DB
admins qualifications that they have also provided on LinkedIn and determine
the specific tech stack that your company is using. Example: John Smith is an
expert in Oracle 11, John works at your company, for an attacker, they would
then focus on potentially exploiting that system version.

------
RankingMember
Possibly one of the most annoying aspects of LinkedIn is the slimy way it
tries to connect you to other people through spam. I recently received an
email from LinkedIn saying a friend I know in real life wanted to connect. I
talked to him and he said he never made such a request, so it turns out
LinkedIn reached out on his behalf. What benefit does this have to anybody?

~~~
wlesieutre
LinkedIn probably did a "Let us help you connect with people you know!" and
you friend said "OK! Here's permission to access my contacts!"

At least I think that's how it used to work. Their user interface was vague
about exactly what it will send on your behalf, but then they phrase it like
"Bob wants to connect with you!"

No, Bob just made the mistake of expecting to be presented with a list of
people they might want to connect with, rather than silently spamming everyone
they've ever emailed with a contact request.

~~~
emodendroket
There's a "people you know" screen and some of them it says "add friend" and
some it says "invite" (or something to that effect), and the latter will send
them an e-mail asking them to join LinkedIn.

------
sampl
> I know people have used LinkedIn to find jobs. I never have. I know people
> use LinkedIn to sell products. It’s never worked for me... In short, I know
> people like LinkedIn. > I think it’s hot vomit in a paper bag.

In other words, "I'm throwing a tantrum because I don't like this thing other
people like." This is the attitude that keeps me away from otherwise mature,
smart people on Twitter too.

Yes, LI is spammy, but a lot of people say they find my content on LI. It's a
professional network, it's not really supposed to be fun.

If you don't like the show, just change the channel.

------
MediumD
"I’ve never met a recruiter on there." I am by no means a fan/regular user of
LinkedIn, but if you are an engineer in the Bay Area, LinkedIn is pretty damn
great for getting random dm's from recruiters.

~~~
imglorp
The recruiters who are worth a damn are referred by happy customers and
recruits.

The ones who resort to spamming random strangers are self-announcing as the
other kind.

~~~
codingdave
There is also such a thing as a good recruiter who does intelligent searches,
finds good matches, and then reaches out selectively to non-random strangers.
Those are the ones I actually want to hear from, and I have gotten jobs from
such communications via LinkedIn.

------
Neracked
> LinkedIn sucks [...] I understand that I’m using LinkedIn wrong [...] I have
> 16,000 connections.

That was really some pointless article.

------
snowwrestler
My advice on how to make your LinkedIn experience not suck:

1) Do not let LinkedIn scan your contacts, your calendar, your anything.

2) Do not accept connections from people you have not actually worked with in
some capacity.

3) Turn off all emails.

4) Turn off all app alerts.

Turning off alerts is my superpower for making any digital communications
channel bearable, really. IMO I should only get alerts for messages that are
at the level of seriously affecting career, family, life and limb, etc.

In terms of hearing from recruiters... it says where I work right on my
LinkedIn profile. If they can't be bothered to reach out to me at work, how
badly do they actually want to recruit me? I'm not interested in being one of
2,000 people receiving keyword-driven mass recruiting spam.

To build connections, I accept requests from people I've worked with, even if
it was one project a while ago. I occasionally browse the "people you may
know" screen in the phone app to see if there is anyone I want to add as a
connection.

------
have_faith
I didn't realise social networking could get much worse than peak Facebook and
Twitter until LI implemented their own feed. Levels of fakeness and posturing
I didn't think possible. Everyone interacts as if while on LI we are all in a
super large business meeting and everyone is a participant.

------
jgh
I can't say LinkedIn has added a lot of value to my life. In fact I mostly
forget it exists until I remember that I have a linkedin account every few
weeks, take a look at it, accept the one connection request I have waiting,
and then move on. I suppose it shows that I exist and am a human person,
maybe. At least it shows that someone made an effort to put together a short
profile for what appears to be a human person.

------
sdegutis
I've actually gotten a lot of job interviews through LinkedIn that eventually
turned into job offers. Never posted anything, didn't network with anyone,
just uploaded my resume, set a header image, and that was it. I've deleted it
since then because those job offers never turned into jobs for reasons
unrelated, but I mean it seems to get the job done if what you're after are
jobs.

------
raheemm
I agree, it sucks. It needs to be disrupted. There's got to be a better way to
maintain professional and business relationships. Facebook has co-opted some
of that need via FB groups.

I dislike the interface, it loads slow, almost 90% of messages are spam. They
tried to be a content hub, but the only content hubs I read are HN, Quora, NYT
and random blogs.

~~~
emodendroket
I do not want to use Facebook for professional purposes. That stuff does not
need to coexist with my thoughts about the news, discussions about video
games, vacation photos, and whatever else.

------
Rjevski
Tracking-free version:
[https://pastebin.com/raw/P0nCs9y4](https://pastebin.com/raw/P0nCs9y4)

------
fruzz
The news feed feels like a stream of PR releases, people I've never met keep
asking to add me presumably to help them find jobs, and the mobile website
experience is inhibited by multiple disruptive banners / pop-overs to use the
app.

That said, I get people reaching out to me once or twice a week with
opportunities for a new job. Most of these fit my qualifications, and it's how
I landed my current gig. I don't need to look for jobs anymore, they come to
me.

------
rerx
I find Linked-In pretty useful to stay in contact with former coworkers and
fellow students from university.

To a journalist, whose contacts may be more accustomed to the benefits of
actually staying in contact and who sees professional networking as part of
their job, the benefits of a streamlined social networking sites may be much
less clear, of course.

------
Rjevski
LinkedIn is okay if you use it well. I've gotten multiple contracts from
there.

The platform could use a little maintenance though. The iOS app is an absolute
crime and it would be good if there was some moderation. Some recruiters are
absolutely horrible and it would be nice to be able to report them and
actually get them banned.

------
leowoo91
Like everything else, hype wins regardless of the truth. This article won't
get enough attention, unfortunately.

~~~
whatshisface
Nearly every person I know despises LinkedIn, with the singular exception of
the people who for some job capacity use it to find out other people's history
and contact information, who merely dislike it. The constant emails are a big
part of that.

------
mcintyre1994
It's a garbage app, but I got my current job through a recruiter from there,
and I'm pretty sure if I need to do the same again I'll get a bunch of leads
there. I don't know why anybody would ever use it unless they're currently
looking for a job or recruiting though.

------
marsrover
I used to have a boss that effectively wouldn’t hire people if they didn’t
have a LinkedIn.

------
merpnderp
It sucks but still has one amazing value proposition - it allows recruiters
and hiring managers to find me.

So I'll put up with the hassle to maintain an easy way to find new employment
should my current employment no longer work out.

------
ryandrake
The best way to use LinkedIn I’ve found: 1. Turn off all notifications and
badges. 2. Don’t allow _any_ permissions, especially your contacts. 3. Log in
at most once every 3 months or so, answer or ignore your messages, giving your
actual email address to anyone you want to continue to talk with, and log out.

Skip “the feed”, job search, all the social network crap, and all LinkedIn's
begging pleading to let them loose on your contact list.

------
EADGBE
I think LinkedIn is great for recruitment of software developers. For
journalists, I'm sure it's completely useless.

~~~
emodendroket
It's a gold mine for journalists trying to find contacts inside an
organization, find out about projects that haven't been publicly announced,
etc.

~~~
EADGBE
Good point!

------
avip
LI is extremely useful within scope. Just turn off all notifications and only
open it when actively job hunting.

------
kup0
All I ever got from LinkedIn was unverifiable "endorsements", spam, and user-
hostile behavior (notifications that aren't notifications, dark UI/UX that
tries to trick you into sending emails to all your contacts, etc).

I left and it feels good not having an account.

------
postalrat
They all suck. Indeed got big because it sucked less but now it sucks as hard
as all the others.

~~~
mpg33
In what way? I find Indeed pretty good and simple to use for doing job
searches..

~~~
emodendroket
In my experience half the listings are fakes run by a handful of sleazy
recruiters. In that respect I think LI listings are better.

------
rjtrickett
I dislike LinkedIn so much I started building a professional social platform
that I would like to have, based on skills.

It’s early days but if you want to check it out, you can here:
[https://able.bio](https://able.bio)

------
emodendroket
Whatever replaced it would suck in exactly the ways he's complaining about.
That's what happens when money is on the line.

------
Trill-I-Am
Is Libkedin useful for people in non-growing industries? Is it only useful for
industries that have recruiters?

