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Does LinkedIn Suck? (techcrunch.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the professional-social-networks dept.

"LinkedIn Sucks" writes TechCrunch's John Biggs: I hate LinkedIn. I open it out of habit and accept everyone who adds me because I don't know why I wouldn't. There is no clear benefit to the social network. I've never met a recruiter on there. I've never gotten a job. The only messages I get are spam from offshore dev teams and crypto announcements. It's like Facebook without the benefit of maybe seeing a picture of someone's award-winning chili or dog. I understand that I'm using LinkedIn wrong. I understand I should cultivate a salon-like list of contacts that I can use to source stories and meet interesting people. But I have my own story-sourcing tools and my own contacts. It's not even good as a broadcast medium....

LinkedIn is a spam garden full of misspelled, grunty requests from international software houses that are looking, primarily, to sell you services. Because it's LinkedIn it's super easy to slip past any and all defenses against this spam.... I know people have used LinkedIn to find jobs. I never have. I know people use LinkedIn to sell products. It's never worked for me.
The article ends with advice for people trying to contact him on LinkedIn for promotional purposes. "LinkedIn isn't a game. It isn't an alternative to MailChimp. It's a conversational tool. Use it that way." But what do Slashdot's readers think? Is LinkedIn a valuable resource for finding recruiters and job offers, interesting perspectives, and updates on your friends' careers?

Or does LinkedIn suck?

20 of 308 comments (clear)

  1. No shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Was that before or after you found out LinkedIn sends spam on your behalf?

    1. Re: No shit by Pseudonym · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So how do you use LinkedIn correctly? Because nobody has explained it to me, either.

      In my experience, if you need it explained to you why you need something after you already have it, then you probably didn't need it.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    2. Re: No shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Start by not accepting EVERY FUCKING INVITATION you receive. My entire network is 250 people. I consider them all a part of my professional resume.

    3. Re: No shit by iamgnat · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Start by not accepting EVERY FUCKING INVITATION you receive. My entire network is 250 people. I consider them all a part of my professional resume.

      DING! DING! DING!

      People think it's about your number of connections, but it's about the quality. I'm been using it since 2007 and have a whooping 136 connections. I only accept people that A) I actually know and B) am willing to suggest to others for a job.

      I don't use any of the silly social features of it and most of the people I connect to don't either. In fact I only log into the site when I need to update my resume.

      Between those two things I don't get anything I would consider spam. I do get invites from random people, but I simply ignore them. There are of course the weekly "we think you'd be perfect for this job that we won't tell you about because we did a keyword search and didn't bother to actually read your profile" BS, but again that is easy to ignore. I also get at least one real (that actually fits my profile) ping from a recruiter a week.

      As far as an impact on my career, my current employer (3 years and counting) found me via LinkedIN and my job before that (5 years) came from me being able to use it to see where previous co-workers had ended up and using them as contacts to move there too.

      So yeah, as long as you treat it professionally (e.g. skip all the FB-esque garbage) and use it to manage your career, it's a very useful tool. If you treat it as some type of scoring game, then it's going to be garbage.

    4. Re: No shit by Pseudonym · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't know why millions of users use it. I believe I already made that clear.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    5. Re: No shit by Sarten-X · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Curate the information you present, much like a resume. Make sure it lists skills and technologies you'd like to use again, because those are what recruiters are searching on. Put in employment-relevant information about yourself like location and employment history.

      The biggest difference between LinkedIn and a resume, from a curation perspective, is the amount of information that LinkedIn can reasonably organize. Where a resume is mostly limited in length, LinkedIn is only limited by your desire for privacy. Online, you can (and probably should) list every skill you hold expertise in, rather than keeping a carefully-pruned list of eye-catching skills. A resume is written to pass a human HR drone's quick review, but LinkedIn searches don't care how irrelevant skills they have to parse to include you as a match.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    6. Re: No shit by jd · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't use LinkedIn, I just have an account. That's because you're discriminated against if you don't. But I've never used it and I've never heard of anyone else who does. It's cyberbling.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  2. No it doesn't by Harlequin80 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I am a recuiter, linkedin provides about 25% of the people i place. I approach ~200 people per week via the platform.

    If you are not getting approaches you should look at what your profile portrays you as. Also you can mark yourself as actively looking which highlights you to recruiters.

    1. Re:No it doesn't by Octorian · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Tons of recruiters are constantly trying to contact me via LinkedIn. Its basically the primary tool they use. (Of course I also only actually accept invites from people I at least vaguely know.)

      Of course this only started the moment I moved to Silicon Valley. Before that, they basically ignored me. I'm guessing the author doesn't live in Silicon Valley.

      P.S. A co-worker once told me that before he moved out here, his friends would fake an SV address on their profiles just to get noticed. They'd then deal with the reality afterwards, but it worked for them.

    2. Re:No it doesn't by CaptainDork · · Score: 4, Funny

      ... highlights you to recruiters.

      And to current employer.

      I retired from a law firm and I recommended that the lawyers stay off the platform because none of the lawyers were looking to work somewhere else.

      However, I signed up on LinkedIn under an alias so I could snoop -- for my lawyers.

      It's incredible what people share out there.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    3. Re:No it doesn't by pauljlucas · · Score: 4, Interesting

      99% of the recruiters on LinkedIn do not even bother to read my profile where the very first line says I am not looking and please do not contact me about jobs. They probably just do a keyword search and send the same impressed-with-your-career-history-devoid-of-specifics lie. Some of the time, my skill set is not even a match. And I get a few such messages every week. Recruiters are some of the most irritating people.

      --
      If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
  3. The only 'It doesn't suck" comments... by Rick+Zeman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...will be from people who make money from the platform.

    1. Re:The only 'It doesn't suck" comments... by h33t+l4x0r · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No. Those from whom the sucking originates.

  4. I've gotten two jobs via LinkedIn by howardjp · · Score: 5, Funny

    One was the worst job I ever had. One was the best. On average, it is okay.

  5. It does have some (limited) benefits by Faizdog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I pretty much just use the core LinkedIn features. I don't post blogs there, don't really post anything at all on their stream, neither do I take their trainings, or participate at all in any of the many groups I joined years ago.

    However:
    1) In my career I have had many offers, and actually taken 3 jobs (including my current one and the one right before that) because recruiters found me on LinkedIn. Whether it was my profile, connections through my network, I don't know, but they found me.

    I've found many headhunters rely very heavily on LinkedIn.

    2) It's a good way to stay in touch with people, if you have the discipline to do so. Professional contacts will stay in touch via LinkedIn, whereas they would be reluctant to connect on Facebook, or to share personal phone #s or email addresses. They'll share business phone numbers and email addresses, but if they leave that job, you can't get in touch with them anymore. LinkedIn connections provide a way to do that.

    About once a year I set aside one day on a weekend, and just drop notes to all my contacts who I'd like to stay in touch with. I write up a core letter which gets customized a bit, but it summarizes what I've been up to, and inquires after the recipient. It's a good way to keep the network alive by sending out a ping and just staying in touch with folks.

    I've also in recent years developed a general rule that for the most part, I don't accept invites unless I know the person somewhat substantially ie we worked together, or spent a few days together in some training etc and had meaningful interactions there. I rarely accept "cold call" invites, and am quite selfish about accepting invites from bare acquaintances, that guy I spent 5 minutes talking to at that conference, unless I think there may be something in it for me (he's at a high/senior position at a company I may want to be at someday).

    Finally, when applying to jobs, I do like being able to just click on a job on LinkedIn and apply with my profile. Upload resume and done. When they take me to the company's website and I have to register and create a profile or remember the login info from the last time I did that, it's painful. I do like that near one-click experience for the few companies which allow doing so on their LinkedIn postings.

    So long story short, I think LinkedIn has some value to me, but not to the extent that they'd like to think they do. All the expansion in features they're doing, I don't use them.

    --
    -"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
  6. Re:LinkedIn only helps Recruiters, Not Job Seekers by Octorian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    - Everyone on there just "vouches" for each other like some sort of bizarre prisoners dilemma.

    I couldn't help but think of their "endorsements" when you said this. Thankfully they're not pushing it anymore.

    (I mean seriously... When someone who's never seen a line of code in their life endorses you for SVN, that's gotta mean something about the platform.)

  7. LinkedIn's weird subscription model by tambo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The value of LinkedIn is vastly diminished by its weird subscription model. You have two choices:

    1) Receive about 80% of the Facebook experience for $0; or

    2) Receive a few modest but nice premium features, such as messaging and more detailed "who viewed your profile" info, for $$$$$$$$$$. The cheapest plan starts at $30/month.

    That's it. There is no in-between.

    The costs are such that the only reason I would ever "subscribe" would be when I had a specific, acute need - and once that need was satisfied, probably after one month, I'd immediately cancel. On the other hand, at a price point of around $10/month (which, incidentally, is what Apple Music charges...), I'd just sign up to have the features available at my whim.

    LinkedIn is one of many companies that just doesn't seem to understand how people view its features. It could really boost its user base *and value* by making its subscription plans not suck.

    --
    Computer over. Virus = very yes.
  8. Didn't Used To, But It Does by Tau+Neutrino · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Before Microsoft bought it, It was more of a meeting and news site. Sucked only a little. But also the source of several gigs, so I'm not complaining.

    It started going downhill about six months after Microsoft bought it. Now TFA gives an accurate description. I used to have browser tab open there all the time. Now I go there once or twice a year. And respond to (almost) all connection requests with, "Have we met?" Usually the last I hear from them.

    --
    Lemmings are silly; dinosaurs are extinct.
  9. Research gate by goombah99 · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you write papers then Research Gate is a much more logical social network to belong to since it gives people access to copies of your papers and track how many people grazed and how many people actually downloaded your paper.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  10. Is LinkedIn better or worse because of Microsoft? by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How did Microsoft buying LinkedIn affect your experience?

    4 Reasons Microsoft Wasted $26.2 Billion To Buy LinkedIn.

    3 Quotes:

    1) "... there is no reason to believe that Microsoft has the strategic skills needed to revive LinkedIn's growth."

    2) "Nadella touted the idea that business people working on projects will love the way the combined company will be able to spam them with more targeted newsfeeds! Is this the kind of magic that $26.2 billion buys? It sounds like a good reason for me to dump my LinkedIn account."

    3) "This deal makes no sense to me and in the wake of its efforts to force people like me to upgrade to Windows 10 malware style, I am beginning to question Microsoft's governance."