
Why do you need a LinkedIn account? - bush_dev
http://bush-dev.com/why-do-you-need-a-linkedin-account/
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SCdF
Over the last 6 months I've read and had to make decisions on somewhere north
of 500 cvs.

(I am a software developer, but I'm also doing hiring right now)

Linkedin means you exist[1]. It adds some (ie more than zero) legitimacy to
your experiences[2]. It gives a canonical link to places you've worked[3]. It
standardizes the way experience is described[4].

Let me clear: I hate linkedin. It sucks, I get it. The last time opened it
with an intention other than for hiring or updating my status due to a job
change was well over a decade ago. But I also hate CVs, and you have to make
calls somehow.

[1] People send in fake or dishonest names to imply they are a single
developer, but the goal is for you to hire their outsourcing company, or to
obfuscate themselves because... (I never got to the bottom of all of them)

[2] People lie. This doesn't completely solve that but it creates links you
can at least vaguely understand, connections implied you've worked with others
etc

[3] When you hire from every single company "Generic Corp" isn't helpful, and
it's often the case the company name people say is ungooglable, or at least
gets multiple potential hits, then you have to try to guess which one the mean
by where they live, if you can work that out from other companies they've
listed... it's a mess

[4] everyone writes CVs differently, which is great for self expression, but
makes it harder to get a common feel for things

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torgian
Maybe Linked In was bad for me, or maybe I was using it incorrectly but...

I deleted my account. I don't know if I'd ever make another one or not. I'm a
self-taught developer with three years of experience, two in a single company
that I still work for.

To be clear, I actually do want to find a part-time contract on the side, but
I'm loathe to create yet another profile on yet another page. I already have
GIthub/gitlab ( which actually doesn't showcase the work I've been doing for
the past two years since I can't put any of that code on there ).

I deleted Linked In partially because I kept getting recruiter spam for my
previous career (teacher), and also because I was tired of all the spam posts
from different companies bragging how nice their gym is or what it's like to
work for them.

Quite frankly, I think my CV gets passed over a lot due to my age, and my
experience. So yeah. I don't think Linkedin would even help me.

Oh, and Linkedin looooovves data mining. They ask so many invasive questions
that it gives employers a free pass on judging you without even interviewing
you.

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Piisamirotta
Oh god I hate LinkedIn. Full of "I'm awesome and smart" people. But maybe it's
just me.

~~~
rumanator
I would replace "awesome and smart" with "self promoting".

LinkedIn is a social network aimed at recruiters and job seekers. Of course
there's a lot of posing on each side to get what they are looking for.

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thereyougo
The problem with Linkedin is that after certain amount of connections, it
loses exclusivity and just turns into any other social media out there....

~~~
rumanator
LinkedIn was always a social media thing, no matter the amount of connections.

It's just that some people simply decide to include in their network people
who they don't even know if they exist at all.

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lordnacho
Until I figured this out, I just left my LinkenIn account bare, with very few
connections:

\- LinkedIn is where new jobs are announced. You may have noticed in finance
that there's a layer of recruitment consultants who have placed themselves
between the banks/funds/fintechs and the potential employess. Quite often one
of them will post a list of jobs they are working to place someone in. Quite
often these job listings also include salaries and perks. And the big plus is
that the experience is interactive. You simply ping them about the job and
they chat with you. If it's not for you, not much time is wasted.

\- Recruitment guys are not picky about who they link with. I've turned my
news feed into a continuous stream of jobs from various people. Now and again,
I'll ping one of them and find out who the employer is and what exactly they
want. It tells me what's going on in the industry.

\- If you pepper your LinkedIn CV with tech keywords, you will get a load of
people contacting you with potential jobs. Most are not quite what you want,
but how many jobs does one person need? I've gotten really good offers as
well, just by sitting there and doing nothing.

\- People who want to sell you stuff are there too. I'm a hiring manager, so I
get a lot of "hey I've got this guy, do you want him?" messages. Or "We are
looking to partner with someone with xyz skills". You can quite quickly decide
if there's any interest.

So that's why it's worth having a LinkedIn profile.

I wish they'd update their site though, it's getting pretty stale. They need a
dark theme (fairly minor) and they need a way to group your contacts. That
last one is especially important, as I often add people who don't know me but
seem interesting.

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lostlogin
I created a throwaway account to get the details of someone who crashed into
me approximately 10 years ago. It still periodically attacks my spam box and
it hasn’t been used excerpt for that 1 time.

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unnouinceput
This article reads like an ad for LinkedIn. Also the new hype is to have a
GitHub account with plenty pet projects when you apply for a position (not
that it matter anyway, none going to actually look at them).

~~~
rumanator
I've been involved in a recruitment process some years ago and I can assure
you my company combed through all GitHub accounts referred by clients.

In a couple of cases these accounts supplied critical clues to the chasm
between the experience a candidate claimed to have and the skill actually
exposed in the repos.

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robin_reala
I was getting repeated spam from LinkedIn (“x wants to connect with you”)
around 2012. Hitting unsubscribe would stop it for a calendar month, but then
it would start again.

I ended up sending them an email threatening court action under UK spam
legislation if I ever had another unsolicited email from a LinkedIn.com domain
again, and since then it’s been blissful silence. Highly recommended.

Having since moved to Sweden, I can tell you that not having an account here
is viewed as somewhere between wilfully contrarian and bizarre. It doesn’t
seem to have affected my career though.

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saagarjha
The “do you know this person on LinkedIn“ have been quite successful in making
sure I never make a LinkedIn, something I would like to uphold even as we
enter an economic recession.

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mirkodrummer
Some time ago I realized that over the years I never started a new job that
was coming from a LinkedIn connection. So it was basically useless to me, now
more than ever as it’s just like any other social media out there full of
“success” stories and noise. I already keep “connections” with ex colleagues
with IM apps. For now I just removed the app from my iPhone and already
experienced I got some time back like when I deleted my facebook and instagram
account a couple of years ago. Eventually I’ll delete linkedin as well. If I
need to find a new job or make new “connections” I’ll use hn like I did before

~~~
rumanator
> Some time ago I realized that over the years I never started a new job that
> was coming from a LinkedIn connection.

Personal experiences may vary, but in my experience from the last decade or
so, all the recruitment processes I was involved and all the jobs I had
involved linkedin in some way or another.

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melicerte
Linkedin can be very helpful when doing business dev and looking for key
contacts in your target companies.

But I must say my good-looking woman colleague is much more successful than me
in acquiring connections. Go figure...

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jjgreen
I've never had a LinkedIn account and don't intend to start. Where I work,
there's an "our staff" page which used to have links to staff webpages,
LinkedIn etc, and from the web-stats, I know that I used to get 4-5 people a
month clicking on the "web page" link. About a year ago, they changed the
design of the page so that it had only LinkedIn links, so I have a LinkedIn
link which leads to my website. Since then not a single person has clicked
that link.

People do not want to read your LinkedIn page.

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pferde
Nice advertisment. As long as there is no single negative thing about LinkedIn
mentioned (and we all know there are plenty), this article can't be taken as
anything else. Flagged.

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s1t5
I think that for me there's _some_ value in having an account and very little
value in spending significant amounts of time on the platform.

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aroberge
Perhaps, if you are at a stage in your career where you might be changing jobs
somewhat regularly, LinkedIn might be useful. However, be prepared to be
spammed.

I am in a steady job, nearing retirement. I used to get a lot of spam loosely
related to my work. Since I deleted my LinkedIn account, the volume of such
spam emails has decreased by at least 80%.

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xtiansimon
LinkedIN thinks of your career as a monolithic thing--that you have the same
career path, growing ever upward, your experience a rationally clear whole.

In all the years I've been on LinkedIN they have not responded or innovated
nor altered the basic template.

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cpach
I got my two last jobs via Linkedin so for me at least it has been useful.

But yes, lots of noise there.

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pan69
It can be useful. I have one rule when it comes to Linkedin though; I only
connect to/with people I have either met in person or spoke to with over the
phone.

~~~
sneak
Why would you optimize for smaller public stats on a marketing website?

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GrumpyNl
Its becoming the facebook for the workforce, lots of noice.

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misrab
To be fair HN is probably not LinkedIn's typical audience :P

I say this as a techie who embraced the Dark Side and started using LI a few
years ago...

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mr_woozy
the true value with linkedin was always the one-click apply for this job
integration it spawned, no cv no filling out 200 fields over and over with the
same information.

