
I changed my LinkedIn avatar to include my toddler - luu
https://twitter.com/yipe/status/1278387975064190976
======
dan-robertson
A somewhat related story of someone who changed their CV from “Kim <lastname>”
(also noting that they were married with children to imply stability) to “Mr
Kim <lastname>”:
[https://whatwouldkingleonidasdo.tumblr.com/post/54989171152/...](https://whatwouldkingleonidasdo.tumblr.com/post/54989171152/how-
i-discovered-gender-discrimination)

~~~
cvhashim
Interesting. I’ve experienced similar despite being a black man. My name is
pretty similar to a woman’s name. Recruiters are probably surprised to get a
deep voice on the phone when they reach out to me. I’ve also been referred to
as ‘miss’ or ‘she/her’ on emails several times until I clarify I’m a man :P

------
ngngngng
I deleted my Linkedin about a month ago and have also seen a sharp decline in
recruiter interest.

------
MattGaiser
2 months ago was April/May. The stock market was crashing, layoffs were
surging, and hiring freezes were everywhere. Absurd time to test this and
declare the reason.

~~~
pmiller2
The market crash happened in mid March, and immediately started to recover. I
don't think that had anything to do with it.

~~~
asveikau
I haven't been looking but I am not under the impression that hiring has
bounced back. Didn't I see articles saying some big cos had a hiring freeze
for at least the rest of the year?

And with the market flooded with big layoffs from businesses hit hard by
lockdowns (Uber, Airbnb, probably others), whatever jobs are available
probably have more competition than usual. Although perhaps enough time has
passed so that the dust has settled for people affected.

~~~
pmiller2
I don't really have a good sense of whether hiring has "bounced back" except
based on the volume of LinkedIn messages I get, which seems to have remained
about the same (I haven't actually gone and checked). But, it's not clear to
me that, within the tech industry, enough people got laid off that it would
have made hiring measurably more competitive.

------
readme
Would you bring your kid to the job interview? Being able to separate your
work and family life is important to productivity.

It's not discrimination, it's that the author lacks professional boundaries.

~~~
moron4hire
An avatar photo on the world's shittiest Facebook clone is not "a lack of
professional boundaries". Or do you scoff at coworkers who put up photos of
their kids at their desk, too?

~~~
Sebb767
LinkedIn is clearly aimed at the professional world and recruiters are
arguably using it as a professional tool.

Putting you child into your profile picture is more akin to bringing it to the
interview.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
This implies that recruiters set the order and people using a tool should
oblige the recruiters.

There are LinkedIn users who use it to just keep in contact with people they
have worked with, don't accept recruiter contact requests and so forth (I am
not one of those people, but I have seen their periodic articles on how they
use LinkedIn, and also I know one guy who is basically like that - he has some
recruiters but only the ones he actually worked with)

At any rate dependent on your job putting your child into your profile picture
might not be a problem for the normally understood parameters of that job, as
for me it wouldn't affect my view of the person's suitability for any position
I can think of but then I tend to be more on the lax spectrum of social
requirements and etiquette.

------
threeseed
It really is insane to do this during COVID-19 where companies know that the
US is on track for a second lockdown and thus slowing hiring. And doubly so
around July which is EOFY and where hiring is massively impacted either side
of this date.

Also I am probably unique but I prefer keeping my work and home lives very
seperate and wouldn't be that keen to work with someone who was so publicly
looking to blur that boundary.

~~~
LandR
> Also I am probably unique but I prefer keeping my work and home lives very
> seperate and wouldn't be that keen to work with someone who was so publicly
> looking to blur that boundary.

I don't understand what you mean here? You wouldn't want to work with someone
who posts pictures of their children online?

This seems crazy to me.

~~~
threeseed
I would just be wary of someone who was using Linkedin, which is a
professional social network, for posting photos of their children.

When you're hiring someone all of the little details are amplified and things
like this give you a window into their judgement.

------
rudolph9
I have a cartoon penguin as my LinkedIn profile picture. I’ve considered
changing it to an actual photo of me to appear less “unprofessional”. But, I
never have and honestly I don’t think I ever will. Why do people need to see
what I look like to consider giving me a job?

~~~
readme
because people are shallow,

a really intelligent platform would include more important data, like smell

you can't tell how bad someone smells until they come in for the interview,
that's where zoom is lacking

~~~
rudolph9
This is a lacking feature. To much higher degree than appearance strong smell
can inhibit other people’s work who are in close proximity at the office.

I used to work with someone who had such terrible breath that I would go out
of my way to avoid communicating with them in person.

------
noodlenotes
Change my view: it's unprofessional to have a group photo (2 or more people)
as your LinkedIn avatar. Doesn't matter if the other person is your kid, SO,
friend, or coworker. There's exceptions if you're the focus of the photo and
other people are in the background, especially in a professional setting or if
the photo represents a professional accomplishment.

If my LinkedIn avatar is me and my friends hanging out, it doesn't communicate
that I value work-life balance, it means I don't pick up on social norms.

~~~
cjcenizal
That’s certainly a valid interpretation, but it’s not everyone’s
interpretation. Someone could post that picture with different intentions and
be a potentially stellar coworker. So you’re welcome to your worldview of
course, I‘d just suggest being careful about judging everyone according to it
— otherwise you’re guaranteed to make miscalculations.

------
aaron695
Using a kid as a prop to get jobs resulted in less job offers, suprise!

And please stop publicly posting other people online. You don't have that
moral right.

------
jerome-jh
So kids are supposed to hamper productivity?

Twitter and LinkedIn are productivity killers, both at home AND at the office
contrary to kids. Plus well behaved kids can typically leave you alone for a
1-3 hours. People active on Twitter, LinkedIn, etc can barely have 5 minutes
of sustained focus.

------
moron4hire
Startups should actively hire people with kids, because it's way too hard for
them to leave the job when the startup invariably ends up treating them like
shit.

~~~
MattGaiser
Why would it be harder? Software engineers generally have enough opportunities
to leave with another offer in hand.

~~~
moron4hire
Depending in where you are located, and how much time your kids take away from
networking, that may not be the case.

------
Markoff
So basically he is just showing he has zero interest in privacy, if he doesn't
care about privacy of his own children.

------
moron4hire
Seeing a lot of, "if my employer wanted me to have a kid, they would have
included it in my yearly bonus" going on in this thread.

------
6510
causation is not correlation, something like that.

------
rcar
Seems a little presumptuous to assume that the decline in outreach was
personal and not associated with the heavy decline in companies hiring during
uncertain times.

~~~
pmiller2
> I was still getting tons of messages after covid and shelter in place
> started. My snapshot is from 2 months ago, not 4 months ago. Covid
> definitely caused some drop-off but not much tbh, I still got a ton of
> recruiters who are playing the long game.

[https://twitter.com/yipe/status/1278504924284772352](https://twitter.com/yipe/status/1278504924284772352)

~~~
MattGaiser
Covid lockdowns started 4 months ago. Companies took longer to react. Google
only rescinded contractor offers end of May. My organization was hiring right
through April. Things take time to propagate.

~~~
pmiller2
I'm not sure whether I agree or disagree. I was just providing extra context
from the Twitter poster, because Twitter is not good for context.

~~~
MattGaiser
Fair.

------
walrus01
I'm honestly suspicious of anyone that posts photos of their young children on
public social media. It shows poor judgment and security/privacy precautions.

I think the point of this post was that they're trying to show that somebody
who publicly demonstrates a commitment to their family, vs full time
dedication to career, will be offered fewer senior roles.

But I see it from a different perspective. How would you feel as a 14 or 16
year old teenager someday in the future knowing that your parents had posted
hundreds, or possibly thousands of photos of you from birth up to early
teenage years all over the internet with no privacy precautions whatsoever?

I think at least some of us are fortunate enough to have grown up in the time
period before widespread full-saturation use of camera phones, and parents who
take pictures of literally everything and share it publicly as widely as
possible.

~~~
strombofulous
Almost every parent and grandparent I know - even those who work in tech -
post pictures of their (grand)kids to social media.

~~~
mellosouls
That doesn't make it a good thing.

~~~
strombofulous
It does mean that discriminating based on this would lower your candidate pool
significantly, to the point where it's likely you will miss out on otherwise
good candidates.

------
filoleg
Whatever works, works. I stopped caring about LinkedIn a while ago, so I just
switched my profile pic to a pic of me shooting a flamethrower with a hawaiian
shirt on about a year ago.

Results: interest from recruiters didn't drop at all, in fact, it increased
(though I do not attribute it to the pic). However, a few recruiters
specifically mentioned that they thought the pic was cool, and that alone was
worth it.

Also, it isn't just recruiters from "hip tech startups" responding positively
to it. I got hit up since then by a bunch of different places, including the
usual FAANG, finance companies (Citadel/Two Sigma/etc.), tech startups, etc.

No one seems to have an issue with the profile pic, and I like it, so why not.
And no, it wasn't intended as a humblebrag, a lot of people I know get hit up
by recruiters in the same way, despite them having pretty standard pictures
and not being some coding superstars. And I am not one either.

