

LinkedIn - jfb
http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2013/5/8/linkedin

======
stuartcw
My biggest gripe with LinkedIn is that recently, I made the fatal mistake of
letting it look at my Gmail contacts. Getting suggestions for contacts who are
already using LinkedIn was the intention but they _invited_ anyone who had
ever mailed me!

Up until that point, my contact list was limited to people that I personally
knew and could recommend. Now, months later, I am still getting successful
"contact accepted" replies from people that I barely know. I.e everyone who
ever contributed to any mailing list that I was ever subscribed to.

I even got replies from people asking why I contacted them. I have no idea how
many people remain to accept my invitation or even who they are.

What a disaster. It has changed for me, an early user of the site, what was a
useful database of the people I know, to now some random connection of
strangers.

The worst part is the link to connect to Gmail still appears and I'm sure that
it doesn't clearly indicate what it's intention is. So, if you have connected
with an email provider in the past be wary of allowing it to connect again.

And yes, if you let any site connect to your personal data, expect the worst
outcome...

~~~
ben1040
>My biggest gripe with LinkedIn is that recently, I made the fatal mistake of
letting it look at my Gmail contacts. Getting suggestions for contacts who are
already using LinkedIn was the intention but they invited anyone who had ever
mailed me!

I sold a guy a couch on Craigslist in 2005 or 2006, and he must've uploaded
his Gmail contacts to LinkedIn not too long afterward. I only know this
because for the last six years or so, the "People You May Know" feature on
LinkedIn has kept trying to get me to add him as an e-friend.

~~~
mikescoffield
This has always interested me. I vaguely recall hearing somewhere that Gmail
sells contact info to LinkedIn? Can anyone confirm or invalidate this?

I've had countless cases similar to the Craigslist one that seem uncanny.

~~~
ben1040
I haven't heard that. I just assume that there are enough people out there
that I've conversed with that have uploaded their own contact list to LinkedIn
to find connections.

Gmail has/had that behavior where anyone you email ends up getting created as
a contact, and in the early days it seemed a lot more aggressive as to when it
would auto-add someone to the list. So there are a lot of people who have
spurious entries in their contact lists.

I know it wasn't worth the time to me to clean the list, up until I bought an
Android phone in 2010. So I had six years worth of auto-added contacts, going
back to when I first got a gmail invite.

------
ben1040
I am honestly questioning the utility of LinkedIn in general. It seems to be a
sink for recruiter messages when people don't know how to otherwise contact
me. I know when someone is hiring bioinformatics developers locally, because
within an hour I get LinkedIn messages from six different recruiters who are
all trying to pitch the exact same job.

I am not sure how it could be useful in a job search scenario. I don't
perceive it as any less annoying to send someone a cold-email just because
they are a FOAF on LinkedIn. Am I wrong on this?

I've been on there for 8 years and have accumulated a ton of connections, but
I've been tempted to just delete the account. I have avoided doing it though
because I have this idea that if someone Googled me and found no LinkedIn
profile, they'd think I don't care about my career.

~~~
k3n
I boycott them with the idea that I don't want any single company to become
any sort of de facto resume & hiring service, which they already try to bill
themselves as. Ostensibly, if you use their service, you don't need a resume
or a list of references -- it's all right there!

I also have grave reservations about giving so much of my personal info (job,
job history, colleagues, etc.) to a for-profit entity that has every
motivation to capitalize on that data while having few reasons not to.

I'll network the old-fashioned way, thank you.

~~~
harlanlewis
I am unclear on why you see low-effort resume and reference services as a
_bad_ thing.

~~~
k3n
I don't trust them with my data.

This stems back from a few years ago when they automatically created an
account for me based on information that a 3rd party had provided. I don't
know if they still do that, but it told me all I needed to know about them.

------
kevincrane
The thing I hate most about LinkedIn right now (apart from spamming me) is
their new system of friends endorsing your skills. I just got an email this
morning saying a friend endorsed my skills in Python. This guy played water
polo with me in college, why would he be in any position to endorse my
programming skills, and why was he asked to endorse me?

~~~
lessnonymous
Endorsements should use a web-of-trust.

Some people (undefined process) are given an endorsed skill (eg. Python). They
can now endorse anyone in their network _for python_. But they cannot endorse
anyone who claims a skill in 'goat herding'.

Now they have meaning as you can only endorse someone for a skill you have
also been endorsed for.

My former boss had added 'Oracle' as a skill. I didn't know until LinkedIn
asked me to endorse it. He's not even a technical guy, so I've no idea why he
had added it but he's _actually been endorsed for it_ by other business
owners.

~~~
snagage
I believe LinkedIn automatically define these skills by crawling for keywords
in your profile. I've never added a skills section yet every now and then I
get emails stating I've been endorsed for a specific skill.

~~~
X-Istence
I believe users can also suggest them? I've got a couple on my LinkedIn
profile that I didn't add, and weren't there earlier but I got a notification
I was endorsed for that skill anyway.

~~~
illuminate
It's really bizarre, I have skills I've been endorsed for for jobs where I
didn't use those skills around the endorsers!

~~~
finnw
I've had former colleagues offended that I did not endorse them for skills
(that I had not witnessed them using, though I knew they used them at that
company.)

------
leeny
I'm a recruiter, but I hate LinkedIn. In some ways, that's a gross
exaggeration because LinkedIn does one thing very, very well: it standardizes
people's work experience and puts it all in one place. Once you get used to
reading LinkedIn profiles you can get the context you need about a person
very, very quickly. This is great.

The rest of it sucks. In particular, LinkedIn Recruiter (the module that lets
you see pretty much anyone, no matter how many degrees of separation exist
between you and them and lets you send some number of InMails per month) is a
giant spam factory. Its design encourages impersonal spams by making it super
easy to send exactly the same InMail to large volumes of people. If I'm a
recruiter, I can search for everyone who attended MIT and now works at, say,
Oracle very easily, and then do the moral equivalent of throwing a bunch of
spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Ugh.

~~~
shurane
What are the clever, resourceful, and truly evil recruiters doing? I guess the
amateur ones can filter by universities and organizations, but surely there's
a more efficient way to wade through the swamp of linkedin?

~~~
leeny
I guess I don't see being clever and resourceful synonymous with being evil. I
don't know what the other guys are doing, but I try to use LinkedIn only as a
reference (e.g. "where is this person working now, and how long have they been
there?", "what kind of stuff has this person worked on historically?")

I try to look at blogs, GitHub, dribbble, HN posts, tweets, Quora submissions,
and whatever else I can to try to get some idea of what the person in question
is interested in and good at. At the end of the day, I'm trying to surface
smart people. Then I try to figure out whether I can offer said smart people
interesting work that's in line with what they seem to be passionate about.

~~~
L0j1k
You sound like a good recruiter.

------
robobenjie
google _has_ a search app: (<https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-
search/id284815942>) and facebook has a "just share photos with your friends"
app: (<https://www.facebook.com/mobile/camera>).

While you can bemoan feature creep all you want, the truth is that its hard to
remove features one they are in (see
<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html>). On the other
hand having a specialized tool for a common task is really handy. I like these
specialized apps, (though I can't comment on LinkedIn's in particular).

~~~
gbog
Why is it so hard to remove features? Because user complains? Reading
Antifragile; there is this idea that evolution works via negativa. We should
applaud to any removal of dead parts, even Google Reader, yes.

------
S_A_P
LinkedIn has become the equivalent of spray and pray for job seeking. This
article hits the nail on the head. They are more worried about monitizing >5
people who have viewed my profile than truly allowing me to connect with other
professionals. I would love to see more dialog options. Groups ala G+ to
partition personal info. There is so much more linkedin can be and they fall
flat.

------
DigitalSea
Linkedin is a Facebook for recruiter spam. The article raises some valid
points, you can't advertise you're looking for a new job because your boss
will see or if not, one of your colleagues will and they'll most likely report
you to get brownie points with the boss or even take your job.

Half of my connections are recruiters, I get daily emails offering me
Wordpress development and SEO services (even though I am a front-end developer
and can do that stuff myself), people add me I've never met before who don't
even live in the same country as me. Linkedin is a giant mess, it's kind of
like the professional equivalent of Myspace circa 2007 when that scantily clad
girl wanting to add you was some low-life in a basement trying to spam
affiliate links at you, only that scantily clad girl is a guy in a suit trying
to get a recruiting commission from spamming your inbox.

Don't get me started on the skill endorsements feature. I get tonnes of emails
everyday saying "Joe X has endorsed you for Java" even though Joe knows
nothing about Java nor do I. People are endorsing me for skills that I don't
even posses or have, what a joke.

Want to network? Get someone's business card and their phone number, store it
into your phone and don't rely on a website comprised of spam to build up a
network.

~~~
alex_doom
I've never used LinkedIn and got along just fine. But if someone were to build
a better alternative they could be the Facebook to MySpace's death.

~~~
corin_
Small bit of syntax feedback - should be "the Facebook to LinkedIn's MySpace".
Sorry, just a pet peeve of mine, since so many people word it like you in a
way that is obvious to understand but doesn't technically make any sense.

------
corin_
Complaints such as " _Sadly, I didn't take a screenshot of the suggestion I
apply to work as a SAP consultant in Germany, though I don't speak German or
have the word 'SAP' on my profile._ "

The thing to keep in mind is that LinkedIn's job, in this area, is to offer
great options to advertisers. On Facebook I can put an advert out targeting a
specific age, a specific city, and specific interests. Or I can just target...
a huge number of people. If I do the latter, do you blame Facebook for not
using their data properly?

I've never advertised on LinkedIn. Maybe it's awful, it could well be. But
seeing badly targeted adverts means absolutely nothing.

~~~
Thrymr
> But seeing badly targeted adverts means absolutely nothing.

You don't think that advertisers are willing to pay more for well-targeted
ads? This is a strong sign that LinkedIn is not leveraging their data as well
as they could.

~~~
corin_
I have often experienced:

    
    
      - Advertisers who don't understand what they are doing with automated systems [1]
      - Advertisers whose specific target is too small, so they widen the net [2]
      - Advertisers who would rather waste a bit more money to keep the net wide [3]
    

Point 1: remember that plenty of advertisers are old-school, they're used to
signing off campaigns over lunch or drinks, not to fiddling with settings on a
website. Hell, I'm 23, so far from oldschool, and a.) I have often chosen less
targeted advertising options (based on performance of KPIs) and b.) I don't
like getting involved in specific stuff like Facebook advertising - I hired
someone to do that for me, but maybe if I knew even less about it I wouldn't
have even thought to do that.

Points 2/3: Some people are going to be your target audience without the data
showing it. Just because someone doesn't list SAP as a skill, doesn't mean
they don't have it. Just because they aren't in Germany, doesn't mean they
wouldn't consider moving for the right opportunity. Just because someone isn't
a fan of McDonalds on Facebook it doesn't mean they won't be interested in a
KFC advert.

edit: Of course, LinkedIn offering poor features is also a possible
explanation. As I said I've never used it (for advertising) and have no
interest in exploring it as I only deal with B2C marketing.

------
lumens
We're solving these exact problems by developing Mighty Spring
(<https://www.mightyspring.com>).

LinkedIn has always been a good professional networking tool. But because it's
a professional networking tool, exploring new opportunities is rife with risk
(as the OP alludes to). Great opportunity discovery is about what you want to
do, not just what you have done, and that isn't necessarily public
information.

Mighty Spring helps you find interesting jobs discretely -- a private place
for you to manage your career.

ps. We're in private beta, but will expedite invites to all you hacker news
folks that sign up :)

~~~
berberous
I'm getting a standard http "authentication required" dialog from bugherd.com
when visiting your site.

I'm guessing this is because I have httpsEverywhere installed (a firefox
extension that tries to use https wherever possible). Visiting bugherd.com
gives me the same error, so it appears it's a problem on their end. Still, it
leaves a bad impression. You might want to disable whatever you are using from
them.

~~~
ultimatedelman
Looks like they had an issue, but it's fixed now:

<https://twitter.com/bugherd/status/332323807601754112>

------
avenger123
LinkedIn is fantastic!

This will be next.

------
mooreds
Does it make sense to look at the linked in API
<http://developer.linkedin.com/apis> and build useful tools on top of the
data?

Not sure what the monetization strategy would be, or whether it'd be a TOS
violation, but some of the features mentioned in the article would be great to
have.

------
holms
yeah linkedin has tons of useless stuff.. i just keep my cv updated, trying to
avoid reading news, or subscribing to groups. i've actually have found few
jobs through linkedin posted job offers. Most of recruiters sending automated
messages with invitations which I always decline. there's no way to
communicate with your connected person.. no chat, no email provided.. it's
easier to grab name and surname, and write PM through facebook. in my country
linkedin is not so popular and recruiters actually writing nice messages with
a good suggestions, that's how i've found a job in barclays. After living 2
years in netherlands.. i still get lot's of spam from there. Sometimes it's
seems for me that only my country has a culture of recruiting, all others just
spamming to get your attension.

------
igorgue
I just closed my account, and I bet I'd still get a shiton of emails from them
or people who finds me there.

------
vampirechicken
Maybe those are the premium features...

------
Sven7
Compared to the other ongoing social networking experiments that generate
constantly exploding datasets of worthless noise, LinkedIn is a very different
story. Their data is the most interesting.

Today the focus is on individuals. Tomorrow it will be groups.

------
saltzman
Agreed. LinkedIn's been awful for a long time and unfortunately nothing has
paralleled its popularity... hoping something that doesn't suck will come up
and sink it into irrelevance in the abyss of the interwebs as Facebook did to
MySpace.

------
smtddr
Well, LinkedIn has been great for me and allowed me to land an awesome job
recently. However, I babysit my linkedin account. I check it daily, update my
profile with links people would find of interest, reply to all recruiters,
comment on stories in the news section. Yeah, I'm pretty engaged in LinkedIn.
I don't have facebook, so maybe I use it as a replacement....

------
mikescoffield
This reminds me of a comment my former VP made. It was something to the effect
of...

Oh, so and so is looking for a new job. I see he's adding recruiter
connections on LinkedIn.

------
qqg3
Click on about on his blog. He has a link to his own goddamn LinkedIn profile
right there. If he hates it so much why does have such a nicely filled out and
active LinkedIn profile.

~~~
shurane
He sees the use of LinkedIn, but wants it to be MUCH MUCH better for certain
simple tasks.

------
drorweiss
I get a little too much spam from LinkedIn. The default mail digest option is
daily, and unless one changes it each time after joining a new group, one can
expect an inbox flood

------
itsybitsycoder
Why would you add your current boss to LinkedIn to begin with?

~~~
corin_
The purpose of LinkedIn is to connect in the business world, I don't know a
single user who _doesn't_ connect to their current colleagues, including their
boss.

~~~
stuartcw
I didn't and have had people say to me that they don't connect with current
colleagues.

I also don't connect with recruiters until I have announced that I am leaving.
I'll happily chat with them via private messages or give an alternative email
address.

There is no benefit in the default behavior of having the system send all your
contacts, including your boss and HR colleagues that you have made a new
recruiter friend today.

~~~
corin_
I guess it depends on what you want to get out of LinkedIn, and your
situation. Personally, my relationship with colleagues/boss is such that if I
think about leaving they'll know about it from me first, and if I added a
recruiter as a contact they wouldn't even think about it. But apart from that,
my use-case for LinkedIn is primarily connecting with people I do/have work/ed
with, to help us stay connected should we need to work again in the future,
and so other people can see who I know and who knows me. If and when I leave
my job, I won't be looking at adverts or to be contacted by recruiters, I'll
be leaving for a job offered by someone I already know in the industry.

But appreciate that for other people, they might want to use it completely
differently.

------
J_Darnley
What a stupid webpage! It looks like it wants to do some fancy javascript just
to show an image that should be: <img src="URL">

~~~
rachelbythebay
View source on this thing. The entire post is there at least two times in
different formats. I like the whole "&amp;nbsp" thing in one of them. I didn't
go looking for others.

------
jamieb
"If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer, you're the product."
would seem to explain the complaints made here.

~~~
xxbondsxx
A lot of people pay for LinkedIn...

Regardless, why is this such a common response to these types of posts? I
understand the angle of "don't be entitled to a free service," but there's
also the alternative interpretation of "here are some fundamentals your
business is missing, and my humble suggestions."

------
elchief
anybody else get Mining Engineer job "recommendations" when they work in Data
Mining?

------
cityzen
could have stopped with "LinkedIn annoys me."

------
L0j1k
I have a feeling in my soul that "social media" is going to move into a more
organic space in a way that means the most to the advertisers (or governments)
that want deep information about target demographics. What I mean by this is
that as the companies grow (and thus move away from niche market into
infrastructure), they become too large to retain meaning to end users in an
important way. What I'm saying here might be a little too cerebral for 2am,
but it's the same reason Google just doesn't have the granularity to capture
the mom-and-pop advertising market like they want (and consistently cannot
achieve, if you pay attention to their stream of product inventions and
reinventions). Facebook has started to lose its appeal on an accelerating
timeline, and I believe that companies like Facebook and LinkedIn -- that are
desperate for growth curves and thereby "smoothing off" the niche market
granularity in an effort to streamline the company to afford maximal growth --
are going to be a "yeah, I knew that chick in high school" kind of utility
that contains cursory information, but really lacks the _depth_ of social
networking that is the sought-after distilled end product that everyone dreams
about, where your close friends are able to keep up with you online in a
fashion that closely resembles your real life social graph. This information
and depth -- the kind that is highly marketable and extremely valuable to all
kinds of enormous, information-hungry organizations -- will be contained in
little "what app.net wanted to be" bubbles that all intermix through network
APIs to other social media bubble companies.

Unless someone is capable of building a Facebook/LinkedIn that won't info grab
and bother the shit out of every contact you've ever had, while maintaining
that "niche market" feel for every user, and while keeping that "closely
resembling real life social activity graph" feel.

Or maybe I'm just stupid.

------
mbrock
Fuck LinkedIn and everything it symbolizes and reinforces. Die, die, die.

