

Quitting LinkedIn - nj
http://blog.capwatkins.com/quitting-linkedin

======
TY
Oh boy. When has it become fashionable to quite X and announce it to the whole
world?

LinkedIn is just a tool - it's usefulness depends on what your current needs
are. It's useless today and useful tomorrow. Just like any other tool - i.e.
take hammers for example.

Would it sound absurd for someone to announce that they quit hammers tomorrow?
Does any of this make sense?

\- Yeah, hammer was really useful to me when I hanged that picture on the wall
last year. Not so much any more, I should quit it!

\- I'm past hammers - electric drill with screws can do 90% of it does and for
the 10% it does not I should really re-assess whether I'm doing the right
thing in the first place.

\- I tried to make a cereal with a hammer this morning, but it did not work!
WTF???

\- I watched this movie where someone was killed with a hammer. What an evil
tool, I should quit it as it stains my karma!

\- I don't use it any more, but every time I pass by the toolbox it reminds me
that I still have it and I get this strong urge to get rid of it. It depresses
me so much, that I want to throw away the whole box or move out of the house!

Don't mean to be harsh on Cap Watkins, I'm just tired of reading this kind of
posts. Oh wait, I know - I should quit the Internet!

~~~
bad_user
I totally agree with you, but there's something here you're missing.

When I joined LinkedIn, I did so because I wanted to keep in touch with people
I worked with, like you know, a curated Facebook - which works well, because
the people I worked with aren't necessarily interested in pictures of my baby
boy or of me getting drunk this Holiday season and this goes both ways.

Unfortunately LinkedIn failed and failed hard at being that kind of social
network. Nowadays the only thing I receive in return for my membership is Spam
from incompetent recruiters that don't even bother reading my profile, and no
matter what I do I can't turn those emails off (a perk you get for paying
them), which is why I simply flag all LinkedIn emails as Spam.

I feel like LinkedIn missed a great opportunity here and now it's too late,
their role being filled in my life by Twitter, GitHub, Google Groups and even
Facebook.

~~~
bitcrunch
"which is why I simply flag all LinkedIn emails as Spam...."

That's really not what the "spam" button is for, and you probably know that.
You most certainly could turn those emails off - just go to email settings and
click "introductions only". There's even a link at the bottom of each email to
adjust your settings.

Don't make it more likely that my LinkedIn messages get marked as spam through
Spamhaus or gmail algorithms just because you don't want to click twice to
unsubscribe or prove some kind of hate-point.

(source: used to take care of an opt-in service's email spam rankings and had
tons of people not use the "easy unsubscribe", and others angry they couldn't
get their expected/important notifications sometimes when it got sent to a
spam folder)

~~~
jey
The problem is that they keep expanding the list of emails and auto-
subscribing everyone to each new one. So LinkedIn really is behaving like a
bad-faith spammer. And when I click the "unsubscribe" link in the email, I
don't get one-click unsubscribed, but instead it just dumps me on the "user
preferences" page, then I have to hunt for the email settings and the specific
box to uncheck.

The thing that infuriates me the most is when they send me a "reminder" email
about an invitation I've already ignored. It's like they expect me to
immediately log in and immediately respond to every piece of recruiter spam
and "connection request" from people I don't know.

Dear LinkedIn: If I'm ignoring an "invitation", it's because I don't care
about it, and I'll just click the "decline" button the next time I happen to
log in. I don't want the "invitation reminder" emails, and there is no setting
that I can find to unsubscribe from the "reminders".

~~~
jonnytran
I don't know if it's still like this, but I actually went through a ton of
trouble trying to unsubscribe from LinkedIn emails. I dug through all the
preferences and unchecked all the email notification boxes, but the LinkedIn
emails kept coming. After googling I found that I wasn't alone in having this
problem, as if it were some kind of bug or something.

At this point, I gave up and started marking all LinkedIn emails as spam.

This all happened a while ago, so they may have fixed it by now. But quite
frankly, I don't care. I would delete my account, but many legitimate
companies I've interviewed with specifically ask for my LinkedIn profile to
keep in touch. It's kind of annoying.

I've been using careers.stackoverflow.com as an alternative for an online
resume, but it's unexpected to potential employers.

~~~
hamoid
I still get their invitations to join a year after closing the account. I
don't remember how many times I clicked the leave-me-alone button.

------
bobdvb
I think the O/P is just doing it wrong. I have a 100% complete profile on my
LinkedIn and I have 770 connections, but I don't get spam, I do get the
occasional recruiter or app development company wanting to sell me their
services, but not so much that I would notice. But I am not in marketing, I am
just a senior R&D guy. I have that many connections because I go out, meet
people and remember to add them to my LinkedIn connections, plus I do accept
'random' connections from people who have mutual business interests with me
(but not just anyone).

The first thing to note is it isn't a social network like facebook, it is a
business meeting place. It isn't just a recruitment tool it is a place to
promote yourself and your organisation in a B2B context.

I know some programmers who sit in their cubicle and have no interest in
promoting themselves, fair enough, but I find it a valuable tool for meeting
my peers. If I want to contact someone in another company then I can see who
of my connections is linked to that organisation. If I need to keep track of
where one of my contacts is then LinkedIn is useful for seeing job movements.
I even connect to those dreaded recruiters, but only the ones I find relevant
and the first time they offer me something offensively irrelevant I shoot them
down quickly.

Overall you get out what you put in to LinkedIn. It hasn't made me rich, but I
am sure I get value from the time I put in.

~~~
pknerd
Same here. 880+ connections and NO SPAM.

------
justjimmy
This is how _I_ use LinkedIn:

When I'm scoping out a position/company, I see who's on the team that I'll be
working with ie: Design. Then I hopefully, there's a link to the
blog/portfolio/Dribbble/Twitter. This is to get a sense of their work and
style, though it doesn't have to match the style of the company itself, but
you can an idea of experience of those people.

Then I look at employee insights - which shows those who left the company
recently. Again, I dig through till I find the ex designers. I also pay
attention to the duration - ie: if the company are churning out alot of ex
employees who stay no longer than 3 months, then I'd pay closer attention.

And I never initiate contact though LinkedIn. Twitter, email is the way to go
for me, which you can easily find as you dig through their profile.

In short, I don't use LinkedIn to find jobs. I use it to find out more about
the company, somewhat culture and its people.

 __Also I do it all when I'm not logged in - it gives you more info when
you're not logged vs logged in (they'll put up upgrade/pay walls). Really,
really dumb.

~~~
mtmoore55
Also, in the iOS app, it shows you "Who's View You". Better log out before
snooping around in those profiles.

~~~
illuminate
I believe paid accounts can also see who's scoped you out.

------
scrumper
It's not just job seeking: LinkedIn is pretty valuable for sales. The reps in
the enterprise sales team I work with use it extensively. With a premium
account you can find out who occupies a given position at your target firm,
then ask for them by name on the phone. It turns cold calling from truly
freezing to some level of initial connection, eg "I see you're connected to my
friend Brian on LinkedIn? Blah blah phi sigma kappa lacrosse MBA blah. Now how
about you hear my pitch?" Works enough of the time to be their default tool.

~~~
codva
"Blah blah phi sigma kappa"

really didn't expect to see my college frat in a comment on HN today, or any
day really!

~~~
scrumper
Is that a real frat?! Sorry if so, didn't mean to slight it :) Was just
throwing out random greek letters. (Not sure why you've been DV'ed for that
comment either.)

~~~
codva
Yep - it is real. No worries though, I wasn't offended :)

------
xpose2000
Just to recap over the past few months. We should quit Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, and LinkedIn. This effectively covers the top 4 social networks.
I'm wondering what this says about us more than these companies. Maybe we are
just burnt out with social networks in general?

The author makes some valid points. I mainly use LinkedIn to get an overview
about the person who is emailing me or just followed me on twitter. I find
that to be pretty useful.

As far as the recruiting emails. The more successful you are the more cold
emails you get.

~~~
corresation
_Just to recap over the past few months. We should quit Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, and LinkedIn._

Don't forget quitting Google (that was front page yesterday). And of course
caffeine, carbs, 8-hour sleeps, email, fructose, the office, the home, and on
and on.

While some of the "my silver bullet" posts seem to hold interesting
perspectives, recently such pretense is gone and it is simply people clucking
along.

------
crusso
I've never found any real use for linkedin. Never gotten any references to
hires that were worth it. Never gotten any work through it.

About all it's useful for is knowing when some people are dissatisfied with
their current job and looking for new employment... their linkedin activity
goes way up and you hear from them through the service.

~~~
jpdoctor
> _About all it's useful for is knowing when some people are dissatisfied with
> their current job and looking for new employment..._

Also, it's useful for knowing who just lost their job because that's about the
only time I see anyone update their page.

~~~
josteink
> Also, it's useful for knowing who just lost their job

I mostly see people updating LinkedIn prior to fusions or other big changes,
or when they're just fed up with their position.

------
driverdan
LinkedIn is my least favorite social network. Unless you're looking for a job
or are recruiting it's pretty worthless. Their spam controls are terrible.
Recruiter spam is rampant. Groups are full of spam and self promotors with no
easy way for non-admin users to stop it.

~~~
jowiar
> Unless you're looking for a job or are recruiting it's pretty worthless.

But if you're looking for a job or are recruiting it can pretty valuable. It
has its purpose - one it solves reasonably well. It answers questions like:
"Do I know anyone who can make SuperWidgets using MagicTechnology?" "I'm
interested in working at ABC Corp - did I used to work with someone who can
get me a foot in the door?"

------
telecuda
For me, LinkedIn is immensely useful and worth the $50/mo premium subscription
for InMail. I don't spam people, but when I want to reach a C_O or the Founder
of [Insert Company], I find that nearly all of my InMails are answered - much
higher than the rate of directly emailing that person.

It's actually quite difficult in most industries to Google someone's email
address, and if there's no profile/background attached to a simple Gmail like
there is in LinkedIn, your message gets dumped that much faster.

------
ricardobeat
Who cares? Turn all e-mails off, use it as a self-updating business contact
list. Works great.

btw, am I the only one who get's confused by these "I quit xxx" thinking it's
a post by a former employee?

~~~
chris24
You're not the only one - I also initially thought this was going to be about
a LinkedIn employee quitting.

------
Spooky23
I like it with Outlook 2013 -- there's a built-in plugin that basically looks
up people that you communicate with on Linkedin. I find it handy as I meet
with alot of people, and I get a picture and brief bio, and I get you see who
they've "linked to" recently.

Before that, I found it to be completely useless -- sort of like a grown-up
version of baseball cards... you collect people for unknown reasons.

~~~
Ecio78
So they "copied" <http://rapportive.com/> for Gmail?

~~~
phsr
If it's Xobni, it's been around since at least 2008, I wouldn't say the copied
Rapportive

------
codegeek
I totally get what the author is talking about. However, to provide another
perspective on the other side, I have successfully used linkedin more than
once (3 times) to secure a new opportunity (both fulltime and contract) in the
past. 2 of them were passive i.e. I was not really looking that hard but was
open to it if it was the right fit for me.

Linkedin is just another tool like many others. You have to know _how_ to use
it to your advantage or usefulness. Yes there are countless and pointless
groups/recruiters who just spam (I get a lot of them as well) but if you
create a highly targeted profile, chances are that you also will get invites
from good recruiters or professionals in general. The percentage is more like
95% crap, 5% good. I am happy with the 5% part.

~~~
mnicole
This has been my experience as well. Obviously something else to consider is
that the author has held roles at various well-known companies, and from that
alone I'd wager the amount of noise he receives is greater than the average
Joe.

I'll be interested in what the endorsements do in the long-term as well. In my
circles, I've already seen a lot of people endorsed for skills they don't
have, and it is only getting worse. Because of the way LinkedIn coerces people
to endorse, lot of non-technical co-workers of mine have tried endorsing me
for things they've never even heard of, assuming that LinkedIn is making this
assumption based on something else I have written on my profile, which I think
is a big part of the problem.

~~~
typicalrunt
What worries me about endorsements the most is that there is no stopping
someone from listing a bunch of the hottest skills, and then asking his
friends to endorse him for it. At least with the people endorsement you have
to write a small blurb about why you are endorsing the person, but with the
skills endorsement I just need to click a link.

~~~
mnicole
Totally agree, and I've seen completely unqualified people that I thought knew
better do this and wished there was an (anonymous) opposite-of-endorsement.

------
debacle
Michael O Church of HN fame was the reason that I decided to dump LinkedIn. He
pointed out that a stupid mistake in entering information on a site like
LinkedIn can band you as a liar (even if the mistake was inadvertent) and give
you no ability to correct yourself.

It would be tantamount to sending out hundreds of resumes with a typo in your
email address.

~~~
rm999
That's an inane reason to throw out something that MAY have value to you. You
might as well as never send out a resume or CV because there may be a mistake.
Or you could just double check your dates... it's not rocket science.

I think Michael O Church may have more complex reasons to avoid linkedin.

------
zalew
> When it started, LinkedIn was about connecting you and the people you know
> (and endorse) professionally. It was the answer to not wanting to add your
> boss on Facebook.

LI launched before FB and years before FB opened to the public.

------
daemon13
Every tool has its purpose and shall be used accordingly.

LinkedIn - sold you to recruiters. OK, I got 1'000+ connections, most with the
people I never met [80%?], but who heard about me, or we share connections, or
work in similar fields [finance, multinational company, senior management,
etc]. I mainly use LI as an extended address book and public CV. So any
recruiter, who calls me, knows pretty much all about my skills / experience /
etc. Got bunch of interviews through LI. Yep, quite often see some spammy
stupid invitations to connect. So what? Just don't accept those. I login 2-3
times per month.

Facebook - FB is a timekiller, so I log in 2-3 times per month to kill some
time, exchange with people I know.

Twitter - info flood, cutting access to API, sold you to advertisers, etc,
etc. Sorry, never bothered to learn how to use it. Never made one tweet. Have
no time for Twitter, since I am already using FB 2-3 times per month.

To sum it all up - just understand how the tool can be useful for your needs
and use accordingly. No overlap, don't use the tool or build your own.

------
manishsharan
I like LinkedIn . However I am getting annoyed by my contacts who are
endorsing my skils without my asking them and who then expect me to do the
same for them and get all sullen when I don't. The funniest instance of
unsolicited endorsement was when people began endorsing my SOA skills ; anyone
who has worked with on a project knows that I despise SOA from the bottom of
my heart.

~~~
jrabone
And yet you listed it. No doubt you have it on your paper CV as well.

And when I ask you about it in a tech. interview, what then? Will you have the
balls to tell me why it's all crap?

~~~
manishsharan
Actually, I do have the integrity and expertise to back up my assertions with
reasonable arguments.

------
k3n
IMO if there's a single social network to worry about [going evil], it's
LinkedIn. It's a phisher's wet dream right behind genealogy sites, and the
data they have access to is worth magnitudes more than your run-of-the-mill
"social" data.

Sure, you can better target me for a small-time sale because you saw that I
"liked" some nuanced TV show on FB, but that's chump change compared to having
pretty much unfettered access to 1000's of executives....execs who write
checks on a monthly basis that are larger than what most households spend in a
year.

There's also the worry that if they become a sort of de facto hiring platform,
then we'll be forced to ante up for a premium membership in order to simply be
considered for an interview.

Warranted fears or not, I don't trust them and never will.

------
shawndrost
Refer to the following handy graph of "how useful linkedin is" vs "how much
people want to talk to you":

    
    
        _   |          _________
         \  |         /         \
          \ |        /           \
           \|_______/             \_______
        
          - 0 +

------
city41
I deleted my LinkedIn account about 1.5 years ago. I was getting hammered by
recruiters constantly, and I felt like I needed to politely decline them all.
After a while it got to to be too much so I just pulled the plug.

That decision isn't without consequences. I've greatly reduced my
possibilities for networking by doing this. If I had to do it over again, I
probably would not have deleted my account.

But, on the other hand, when I now get contacted by recruiters they find me
through StackOverflow, github or my website; and thus they have infinitely
better opportunities for me and generally seem to be higher caliber recruiters
to boot.

------
koko775
Chris, you've jumped from Zoosk, to Formspring, to Amazon, to Etsy all in the
period of two to three years. Maybe you've proven yourself resourceful enough
at this point to not need the value it gives?

(also, hi, former coworker!)

------
ddunkin
Yeah, the sign-in to unsubscribe junk is BS. Unsubscribe should be a simple
direct link, nothing to fill out. I end up blocking domains instead of
unsubscribing at that point.

------
devsatish
LinkedIn is the best tool out there, as a software engineer, I was able to get
all my recent jobs (last 5 years) only by LinkedIn and the premium membership
is totally worth it. Make sure to have a good profile, good recommendations,
and if you are not interested in job offers, mention it on your profile.
LinkedIn is much more than a recruiting site. Prune useless connections
(especially those who have LION 1000+ connections etc on their profile).

------
fusiongyro
I deleted my account two years ago and haven't regretted it. In fact I get
more legitimate (and nicer) job offers by having an email address in my
account info here than I ever did on LinkedIn.

I had a lot of friends who insisted I would not be able to get a job in the
future by not being on LinkedIn. I haven't looked since I quit, but I think
being "hard to get" usually makes you more desirable rather than less.

------
tarr11
It's fairly easy to control where and when you get email in LinkedIn. It's
even easier to control in GMail (as the user states)

<https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?trk=hb_acc>

I know that's not the author's entire point, but the "tragedy of the commons"
argument becomes less compelling without all the spamming complaints.

------
jeffool
I often include a link to my profile in emails with the idea that if the
person has or cares about it, they can see recommendations. If not, well, then
hopefully it doesn't matter to them and it's not a negative. A few people have
commented on it positively, not many. The vast majority seem oblivious. That's
not overly surprising considering how many people in TV news seem to not be
overly "techy".

Usually something small, like: Here is my LinkedIn profile, with
recommendations from previous coworkers:
<http://www.linkedin.com/in/jwbridges>

(I know, I need to re-write that summary pretty bad.) The only thing that
leaves me scratching my head is that my profile is stuck at 90%. It asks me to
fill in my current position, and describe my current position. I don't have
one. You'd think a site focused around looking for jobs would have that as an
option.

------
fourstar
Then opt out. This happens on any social network in which you have a public
profile that gets a lot of exposure. Hell, my brother who works at Google
explicitly lists Google as his employer on his public G+ profile, and he's
been added to thousands of peoples circles who he doesn't know. If you aren't
interested, then there is an email preferences setting tab that you can easily
customize what gets sent to your inbox
(<https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?trk=hb_acc>). LinkedIn is the only social
network that I've had and will continue to keep, since it's focused on one
thing -- professional networking.

------
publicfig
I'm kind of becoming tired of the argument that a service is bothersome with
the amount of emails it's sending if there are ways to disable the emails.
When I was seeking employment, I was getting multiple emails a day from the
service, many of which were helpful (Alumni network postings, messages,
connections). However, once I took an offer (One I happened to be recruited
for on LinkedIn), I disabled all of those emails coming through. I still check
the site fairly frequently but can still just use it for the way I like to use
it, to keep a record of my professional journey.

~~~
law
That's not the problem. The problem is that the e-mails, by their very nature,
are opt-out rather than opt-in. One reason people seem to complain is because
they have to waste time logging into the site, finding the e-mail opt-out
section, and disabling whatever "service" is responsible for the torrent of
spam. And that only works until the site's next "user experience" update.

------
pknerd
You should expect this when you're part of a social network. First you join it
free, you share your data which is ...then used to get bucks. What do you
want? should not they earn money? I bet you will be doing same.

Instead of complaining and wastint a few hundred bytes and CPU cycles and more
important..your energy, you could simply delete account and move on. Expecting
something extra ordinary personalize from a social network is nothing but day
dreaming.

------
btilly
My use case for linked in is simple. I think I might want to work with place
X. Who do I know, directly or indirectly, who works there? Let me talk to them
directly.

------
laureny
As much as I find LinkedIn's web site overloaded and hard to follow,
unsubscribing from the emails is trivial. It's not just that they have a
convenient "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom of the email, you can actually use
that link even if 1) you're not currently logged in or 2) you are logged in as
another user (I have several accounts).

I give them credit for that.

------
hughw
Yeah, lots of group spam, but today, I used LI to contact a scientist at a
company whose thesis I'd read. I'd like to meet him in person, possibly to try
to hire him, or possibly just to have the business relationship. I rarely use
LI fruitfully but this is its value proposition, to me. Once a year or so, I
can make a contact like this.

------
bicknergseng
While I'm sure many people would be happy to have Cap's problem, this seems
easily fixable from LinkedIn's side. Simply allow people to filter or dial
down who can message them. While it might hurt their InMessage product, it
seems better to nerf that than to force people like Cap off the platform.

------
deanclatworthy
Whilst I remain on LinkedIn, I have yet to get any value from it. Furthermore
the new endorsements feature is utterly useless. I consider myself a back-end
AND front-end developer but for some reason I am heavily endorsed in CSS,
making it look as if I am not as skilled in back-end work.

------
dsowers
Today I just launched a new app that acts as a portfolio/resume for
programmers and other people who build things. If you are unsatisfied with
linkedin, maybe it's worth checking out: <http://www.mycelial.com>

~~~
zacharyz
It looks good! I am not a huge fan of the name though.

~~~
dsowers
Thanks! This is my first big rails application. I'm kind of bummed that my
show hn announcement died so quickly.

------
dgudkov
LinkedIn is the only one really useful social network for me. I got several
times excellent jobs thanks to LinkedIn, my professional blog got good
promotion via LinkedIn connections and I get orders for my product because of
networking effect in LinkedIn.

------
sebnukem2
It's the first time I ever read or hear that somebody got something useful out
of LinkedIn.

------
sardonicbryan
As a hiring manager, I also like to verify people's resumes against their
Linkedin profiles. I generally find some kind of useful context (something
they left out), recommendation or discrepancy on about 1 out of 10 resumes.

~~~
k3n
So it sounds like it'd be more likely to be used against me, then for me, if
my app landed on your desk?

~~~
sardonicbryan
Only if it looks like you are trying to mislead me about your experience.

------
seenxu
I'm another victim of linkedin's shameless mailing spam, I had disabled my
account, but they still try to send me connect emails again and again, und you
got no way to stop them...

------
codexnight
Honestly, I don't know why LinkedIn is so "cool".There is nothing innovative
there.I knew it from the beginning.But awesome advertising wins.

------
atul_wired
Title of this post reminded me to checkout my linkedin account(after so long
time).. :-)

------
michaelochurch
Here's my take on it (I didn't quit, and I don't get spam, but I think
LinkedIn is taking the wrong approach:

[http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/why-i-
wiped-m...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/why-i-wiped-my-
linkedin-profile/)

------
eli_gottlieb
But if I quit LinkedIn, what will be my honeypot for professional interviewing
or recruiters, and where will I keep my long-form resume ;-)?

------
ianstallings
This title confused the hell out of me. I thought he/she was leaving a job at
LinkedIn.

------
drivebyacct2
I care so little about LinkedIn that I don't know why I'd bother quitting.

------
OGinparadise
_"Quitting LinkedIn"_

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the sun will still rise tomorrow, just
as it rose when people "quit Facebook" ...Google, Twitter, iPhones or
whatever.

