Ask HN: Do you use LinkedIn? - waqasaday
======
jbrimble85
LinkedIn has allowed me to experience what it's like to be a pretty girl on a
dating site, except that my suitors are idiot recruiters offering terrible
jobs I don't want.

------
shaburn
Probably the best tool for b2b customer development and b2c professional
services ever created. Testing concepts early by having documented third party
validation on domain expertise is pretty invaluable.
[https://hunter.io/](https://hunter.io/) maps emails, where people are far
more responsive, however referencing having looked them up on Linkedin to
qualify the relevance of your outreach is overwhelmingly effective.

~~~
taasda12sd
There are a bunch of tools to map LinkedIn profiles to emails. I've found
[https://www.nymeria.io](https://www.nymeria.io) to be best so far, especially
if you want personal emails as well as business emails...

------
kup0
I have a profile set up there, but so far it's been useless to me other than
to stay in touch with one or two others from a prior job. I hate their "news
feed". None of the content is ever relevant or useful. The design is poor.

They also make poor use of notifications. My "friend requests" always shows 1
new notification- but it's a fake notification trying to get you to send out
invites. I find user-hostile actions like that very off-putting.

Considering deleting the account, but I'm curious if just "having a
profile/presence" on the service is useful or desired by employers? Not sure
if I'm "losing out" on anything by not having an account.

The one thing I do like is that others you've worked with can "endorse" you
for certain skills, but in reality I'm not sure how useful that is,
ultimately.

~~~
waqasaday
Interesting, I too have considered deleting the account few times.

In my opinion, the endorsement feature is totally useless and doesn't
represent any real value.

The only thing useful in LinkedIn case is that sometime I want to connect to a
person, and upon looking at their LinkedIn I can find that they are connected
to someone in my network.

------
rpod
I have received a lot of job offers through LinkedIn, but none of them ever
appealed to me, so as far as my career prospects go it doesn't add much value.
But it's nice to keep in touch with former colleagues, and to be able to see
at a glance what your network is up to professionally.

------
fapjacks
I do not _want_ to use LinkedIn. It is clearly not there to help _me_ do
anything except quantify myself to recruiters, which often becomes just
another awful interview experience followed by a bad offer. And of course,
used as a surveillance platform for my personal information, for the benefit
of the creators of LinkedIn.

------
mrmondo
Yes, and although I'd probably land a job in a day from it - I hate it and
will likely delete it soon.

------
csixty4
If you're only interested in it for job hunting, there's WAY better options.

I reopened my LinkedIn account after a long absence once I got into
management. One of the first thing clients are going to do before hopping in a
meeting with you is to pull up your LinkedIn page, and it's a way to show them
you know WTF you're talking about. I keep joking with my team that I still
need to add the obligatory "smiling white guy in a suit" headshot to my
profile.

I also find interesting management/leadership articles in my feed. So, Twitter
for deep down geeky tech stuff, LinkedIn for the business side, Facebook for
what my niece had for dinner. Each serves a different purpose.

------
Raed667
As a recent graduate (actively looking for a job) I have been using LinkedIn
for a while, and I am very disappointed.

I get around one response per 50 applications I send via the platform.

Recruiters don't classify their posts correctly, so when I search for "entry-
level" positions, I get mostly positions that require 5 years of experience,
or just list all possible web technologies so they land more search queries,
etc...

Example : I search for a position with PHP/JavaScript listed as technologies.
Then when contacted by the recruiter it turns out to be a JavaEE position, but
"knowing PHP and JavaScript is a plus".

I'd close my account if I wasn't this desperate.

Edit: Added example

~~~
waqasaday
Have you considered using AngelList?

~~~
eugenefedoto
I've tried AngelList, as a recent grad. It's been a disappointment. I've
managed to snag several interviews. They were classified into one of the
following:

1) Unprofessional -- schedule an interview, then never show up.

2) Unpaid/low salary -- startup interviews you for a founding member role for
$35k/year in Boston.

3) Requires deep knowledge -- startup expects you to know everything and have
incredible experience about their listed tech.

I'd also prefer sending in my resume over just using their profile template.
AngelList seems to rely on having live projects up for showcasing purposes.

------
atsaloli
I use LinkedIn to promote my training activities and to find connections --
for example, I used it to find a connection to the CEO of GitLab which
resulting in a partnership that has already brought in additional training
income (plus a really cool partner!!).

I used to write recommendations and have gotten some nice recommendations
back. But then LinkedIn changed their UI and buried the recommendations.

------
fratlas
So many recruiter requests. Current contract is from LinkedIn. Was able to
negotiate pretty hard just from the sheer quantity of offers.

------
a3n
Linkedin uses me.

------
dirktheman
My employer kinda mandates using LinkedIn... I have a couple of IFTTT recipes
set up so that it looks as if I'm super active, while I only check once every
other week to accept random friend requests.

------
waqasaday
I am curious if any of you actively use LinkedIn, if yes how? Or may be you
can share tips on making use of LinkedIn, for hiring, networking or publishing
content.

~~~
bsvalley
Depends where you live. I can give you the San Francisco Bay Area use of
linkedin

1\. sharing linkedin accounts is more natural than sharing FB accounts here.
And I'm talking about social events, friends, meeting someone new. Not about
formal stuff... It's really your social profile here. The rest people don't
really care anymore since it's all about networking

2\. Looking for jobs. If you're looking for jobs and you're not on linkedin
then you're invisible in the Bay Area. Plus, all companies career websites ask
for your linkedin profile

3\. You can lie to a lot of people about your career. Linkedin acts as your
professional ID too.

------
DrNuke
Overall still ok but spam & tinderisation diluting its value fast.

------
nyddle
No. It's blocked in Russia.

