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I personally got contacted by Facebook, Google and LinkedIn themselves on LinkedIn with job opportunities. I worked for LinkedIn for a bit and am now working a

by rb2k_ 11y ago

I personally got contacted by Facebook, Google and LinkedIn themselves on LinkedIn with job opportunities. I worked for LinkedIn for a bit and am now working at Facebook. While I visit the site/app only every other week, I still think it's very valuable to connect to people I talked to at meetups and that I would like to stay connected with somehow. Some of the people I'd like to stay in touch with, don't have at twitter account or are so low frequency that I'd miss things I care about. I probably wouldn't connect with them on Facebook since to me it still feels a bit too "personal". Considering that LinkedIn was instrumental in the two biggest "moves" in my career and fills a good niche for me, I personally like them as a network. I agree that the UI is a bit annoying at times, but they're way better than they used to be in that regard. I don't even mind recruiter emails. I have a bit less than 5 years of experience, so I still think it's a bit flattering to receive them :)

vonklaus 11y ago
While I don't want to be presumptuous it sounds like you are ostensibly just super talented and, at this point, have some solid accomplishments. So while linkedIn may have opened doors, it is pretty unlikely through something like HN or your own irl network, you wouldve ended up unsuccessful. My own feelings towards linkIn aside, anecdotally it certainly seems that it was useful for you. It certainly has the ability to provide great things, or speed up connections/opportunity. I agree with the article in that it is a soft requirement for a lot of things: Entrepreneur: Helpful for hiring, networking looking at competition, finding investors. Freelancer: Getting gigs, proving reputation. Bigcompany: online presence, hiring. Recruiter: obvious. Etc. So while you certainly aren't unique in finding value in linkedIn, it is utterly painful to use and sometimes i feel like if I put my cursor in the wrong place I'll accidentally agree to realtime uploading of all my data & that of my friend. As an aside, it really can't survive much longer: * Users hate using it * it is totally unpleasant and insisistant on you conforming to what it demands. * signal to noise is so out of alignment it is painful. * Companies have to deal with the need to be on the platform and endorse enployees who are incentivized to self-promote sometimes to the company's detriment. * I personally, and I largely suspect this to be very common, have connections I don't know. Either we have drifted apart, were breifly engaged in something, or I was just to lenient with accepting/reaching out. * Increasingly, it is becoming less profitable as it struggles to give away enough data to be useful, but hold back enough to upsell premium packages. While facebook certainly seems to care little about privacy, there is a compelling engagement and feeling of human connection that is just not there with linked in. They should just sell to salesforce, that way the data and privacy could stay just as exploitive, but they could allow users latitude to enjoy/benefit from it a bit more.
- larrywright 11y ago
  OP may well be super talented, but he may also just have a specialized skill set that is in demand. My personal experience is that I regularly get contacted by companies that are interested in my skills (DevOps, Chef specifically). In fact, I found my current job through LinkedIn. LinkedIn most definitely has its warts, but I think as an online resume and a way to connect professionals, it succeeds.
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    >LinkedIn most definitely has its warts, but I think as an online resume and a way to connect professionals, it succeeds. Exactly. And very importantly: it doesn't have any real competition. It is the social network for professionals to network on, get contacted by recruiters, post their resume, etc. Facebook doesn't have all that, and FB is for your personal stuff anyway, and anyone who mixes their personal life on Facebook (with inane posts about politics or cat videos or whatever) with their professional life is asking to never be hired anywhere. Twitter obviously is useless for the things LinkedIn is used for. So until something comes along which does the stuff LinkedIn does, but better, we're stuck with it.
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
  Users hate using it That may very well be, but I have never heard anyone say this except on HN
  - vonklaus 11y ago
    You might very well be correct. However, (and I don't love FB) when is the last time someone in real life called you over to look at something on linkedIN? Professionally, it is dangerous as you can't show coworkers the great job you found. Most of the articles are advertisements or a logo and smiling people holding laptops, and the jobs (as all sites) are just crawled from every other companies site. I can only assume that if I have to pay to send you a linkedIn mail we're not connected, and if we are connected I would send you and email. So, the only reason I go on linkedIN, is because it is too hard to write a crawler to parse what I can only imagine is like 10K LOC of JS, and copy paste the source into my crawler to pull the info. Also, for potential investors & enterprise customers to view these profiles is $80 a month. So the top people who don't want to talk to us get unsolicited inbound emails from us because linkedin sold them out for $80 a month. so yes this is HN, and yes I bloody hate LI.
weinzierl 11y ago
> I probably wouldn't connect with them on Facebook since to me it still feels a bit too "personal". This is an interesting angle. There was a time when Facebook was only friends and family. My impression is that (for better or worse) this is changing rapidly. I wonder if Facebook will try to get into one of the fields mentioned in the four points in rdli's comment.
- rdli 11y ago
  FB made $6B in revenue in Q4 2015. LinkedIn made $862M in Q4 2015. Given the ultimate size of the global digital advertising market, it seems that there is much more growth potential in expanding share of advertising $$ than trying to expand to brand new businesses.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  Facebook is still only for friends and family, if you're smart. Mixing all your coworkers and professional contacts in with your friends and whatever personal stuff you post on FB is just asking for trouble.

by rb2k_ 11y ago

vonklaus 11y ago

While I don't want to be presumptuous it sounds like you are ostensibly just super talented and, at this point, have some solid accomplishments. So while linkedIn may have opened doors, it is pretty unlikely through something like HN or your own irl network, you wouldve ended up unsuccessful. My own feelings towards linkIn aside, anecdotally it certainly seems that it was useful for you. It certainly has the ability to provide great things, or speed up connections/opportunity. I agree with the article in that it is a soft requirement for a lot of things: Entrepreneur: Helpful for hiring, networking looking at competition, finding investors. Freelancer: Getting gigs, proving reputation. Bigcompany: online presence, hiring. Recruiter: obvious. Etc. So while you certainly aren't unique in finding value in linkedIn, it is utterly painful to use and sometimes i feel like if I put my cursor in the wrong place I'll accidentally agree to realtime uploading of all my data & that of my friend. As an aside, it really can't survive much longer: * Users hate using it * it is totally unpleasant and insisistant on you conforming to what it demands. * signal to noise is so out of alignment it is painful. * Companies have to deal with the need to be on the platform and endorse enployees who are incentivized to self-promote sometimes to the company's detriment. * I personally, and I largely suspect this to be very common, have connections I don't know. Either we have drifted apart, were breifly engaged in something, or I was just to lenient with accepting/reaching out. * Increasingly, it is becoming less profitable as it struggles to give away enough data to be useful, but hold back enough to upsell premium packages. While facebook certainly seems to care little about privacy, there is a compelling engagement and feeling of human connection that is just not there with linked in. They should just sell to salesforce, that way the data and privacy could stay just as exploitive, but they could allow users latitude to enjoy/benefit from it a bit more.

larrywright 11y ago
OP may well be super talented, but he may also just have a specialized skill set that is in demand. My personal experience is that I regularly get contacted by companies that are interested in my skills (DevOps, Chef specifically). In fact, I found my current job through LinkedIn. LinkedIn most definitely has its warts, but I think as an online resume and a way to connect professionals, it succeeds.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  >LinkedIn most definitely has its warts, but I think as an online resume and a way to connect professionals, it succeeds. Exactly. And very importantly: it doesn't have any real competition. It is the social network for professionals to network on, get contacted by recruiters, post their resume, etc. Facebook doesn't have all that, and FB is for your personal stuff anyway, and anyone who mixes their personal life on Facebook (with inane posts about politics or cat videos or whatever) with their professional life is asking to never be hired anywhere. Twitter obviously is useless for the things LinkedIn is used for. So until something comes along which does the stuff LinkedIn does, but better, we're stuck with it.
HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
Users hate using it That may very well be, but I have never heard anyone say this except on HN
- vonklaus 11y ago
  You might very well be correct. However, (and I don't love FB) when is the last time someone in real life called you over to look at something on linkedIN? Professionally, it is dangerous as you can't show coworkers the great job you found. Most of the articles are advertisements or a logo and smiling people holding laptops, and the jobs (as all sites) are just crawled from every other companies site. I can only assume that if I have to pay to send you a linkedIn mail we're not connected, and if we are connected I would send you and email. So, the only reason I go on linkedIN, is because it is too hard to write a crawler to parse what I can only imagine is like 10K LOC of JS, and copy paste the source into my crawler to pull the info. Also, for potential investors & enterprise customers to view these profiles is $80 a month. So the top people who don't want to talk to us get unsolicited inbound emails from us because linkedin sold them out for $80 a month. so yes this is HN, and yes I bloody hate LI.

weinzierl 11y ago

> I probably wouldn't connect with them on Facebook since to me it still feels a bit too "personal". This is an interesting angle. There was a time when Facebook was only friends and family. My impression is that (for better or worse) this is changing rapidly. I wonder if Facebook will try to get into one of the fields mentioned in the four points in rdli's comment.

rdli 11y ago
FB made $6B in revenue in Q4 2015. LinkedIn made $862M in Q4 2015. Given the ultimate size of the global digital advertising market, it seems that there is much more growth potential in expanding share of advertising $$ than trying to expand to brand new businesses.
Grishnakh 11y ago
Facebook is still only for friends and family, if you're smart. Mixing all your coworkers and professional contacts in with your friends and whatever personal stuff you post on FB is just asking for trouble.