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From a professional standpoint LinkedIn gave me a lot of value for free so I'm mostly feeling positive about it, but I agree that like any social network it has

• aivosha 6y ago
  All these mechanisms are not 100%. They are averaged around "an average" person as all these things are. I would argue that anybody that realizes the true intention poses enough intuition to stay away from it. Its a tool. Use parts of it you need and dont pay attention to the rest. Its not hard. If it is hard - be thankful it revealed something about you that you want to work on overcoming.
• ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  > Personally I live by the mantra that "scrolling is dangerous" I like that way of looking at it. I have to agree. I no longer even load the FB timeline. I have to have an FB account in order to interact with the community for one of my open-source projects, but I check it maybe once a day.
• diminish 6y ago
  I am one of the first LinkedIn members. Closed my account this year. It gave me nothing much. Recent 'x mentioned u r reporting to Y' was the turning point for me. Too much fuss for nothing.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • coldpie 6y ago
    On the hiring side, we tried using LinkedIn during a recent hiring round of about 5 highly skilled C developers. We flipped through hundreds of LinkedIn candidates and exactly zero made it past the resume filter. Completely useless. The only successful hiring method we found was actually the monthly Who's Hiring threads here on Hacker News.
    • madengr 6y ago
      Are you saying the filter was useless, or you couldn’t find a single candidate out of hundreds?
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      • coldpie 6y ago
        Sorry. What I meant by "resume filter" was us manually scanning through the candidates. We put some criteria for C programmers into LinkedIn and got a bunch of web and .NET devs who had also mentioned C someplace. Perhaps skilled C devs just aren't looking for jobs on LinkedIn (totally possible! I wouldn't if I were looking), but I was kind of surprised that we got literally zero viable candidates. I expected at least a couple to look interesting enough to contact.
        • drchickensalad 6y ago
          I highly recommend more niche sources, like triplebyte, angel list/angel co, stack overflow, indeed, glassdoor, etc.
        • laurentdc 6y ago
          Many universities (at least in Europe) still teach some C in introductory level courses to build basic terminal apps with file I/O, string manipulation and pointers. One of my exams was to build a basic address book with fseek or draw a tic-tac-toe board form a struct. When I see C on a resume with 0 industry experience I'm 99% sure it's that knowledge level of C which is nearly useless in real world.
• Nextgrid 6y ago
  LinkedIn has value as a rolodex and should've stopped at that. The social media features are, just like any mainstream social network, a cesspool. If you want to use LinkedIn and keep your sanity, I suggest disabling all notifications except the email notifications for new messages and then don't log back in unless you get an e-mail and you need to respond to that person.
  • dm33tri 6y ago
    Easy in Russia because LinkedIn website and apps are blocked and enabling VPN just to scroll the feed is not worth it Maybe ban it in hosts and unban when needed?
    • thefounder 6y ago
      I don't think Putin's censorship is the solution. After all you have skillsnet.ru
  • NalNezumi 6y ago
    Something you got to give to LinkedIn is at least that this is the default behavior (as far as I know, I haven't changed any notification setting since I got it) It's great for someone that just want to have a "easy CV" so that recruiters at least know where/what you've worked with without back&forth mailing. Recently I tried to get Twitter for the first time and my gosh what a mess that platform is. I only wanted it to follow some researcher to get up-to-date research topic but the damn app just have to fill the feed with "retweet" and other tweet I didn't even ask for (and I can't turn this off!)
    • chrismatheson 6y ago
      This has not been my experience. Any recruiter I talk to asks for a CV. If I tell them my linked in is up to date they just ask me to convert it into a CV
      • A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
• 42_ 6y ago
  Now that I think about it, most of my complaints about LinkedIn is about the "news feed". Its full of mostly useless content by wannabe thought leaders drowning out a few posts which may have been insightful/relevant. Job search and add/message connections are the only features I have found useful.
  • distances 6y ago
    It's easy enough to block the feed in your browser. I've done exactly that with Facebook. I haven't deleted my FB account as I still get some random messages from old acquaintances that don't have my phone number, but I removed the feed with uBlock to make sure I'm not exposed to that.
    • smhmd 6y ago
      I did something similar lately. But it's hard to keep up with local news, now. I couldn't find a news aggregator for my country/province. Maybe, I need to build that myself.
      • eddieroger 6y ago
        I recently started reinvesting in RSS via reader that I can sync, and was pleased to remember that my local paper (a Gannett paper, which matters since they use the same engine on all their properties) supports several RSS feeds, from a site-wide news feed to counties or topics. It's been good enough for me to not push further, but I imagine my local TV news sites have similar feeds. This should scale up from county to city and state, I'd think.
      • colek42 6y ago
        I went through an "unfollowed" everyone in my feed except very close family and friends, the local farmers market, and my local newspaper. Facebook is actually useful now.
        • bonoboTP 6y ago
          Some people don't believe it when I say this, but when I unfollowed lots of people, after some time Facebook just automatically re-follows a few. It has happened multiple times. I explicitly unfollow someone, never interact with them in any way, and then they again pop up in my feed after two weeks. Somehow if you follow too few people, Facebook just picks some more people for you to follow without ever asking you or telling you.
• anthonybennis 6y ago
  I always exit HN with a positive mental head space. The discussion is generally informed, balanced and insightful . I wonder how the positive and respectful space here may be reproduced in other social media platforms.
  • bonoboTP 6y ago
    I think it's the people and the nature of the "hacker" topics. You need a certain amount of attention span to read plain text comments, enjoy a front page with no images, you need patience to learn programming and tech stuff. You need some explicit thinking and less knee jerk reactions. There is some actual object level to discuss, some objective technical things, not only who stands for what and who likes who political games. Of course this could be reproduced in other similar communities as well.
  • Nextgrid 6y ago
    > I wonder how the positive and respectful space here may be reproduced in other social media platforms. It's very simple once you stop chasing growth and engagement metrics. The main reasons the other social media platforms are cesspools is because outrage generates engagement so the platform is designed to encourage it as well as encouraging users to join and stay regardless of the quality of their contributions, where as here the design itself acts as a small barrier to entry, in addition to a karma system and competent, human moderation that discourages (and eventually bans) bad behavior.
    • coldpie 6y ago
      Strongly agreed. 95% of the web's problems can be blamed squarely on advertising-based business models. HN does not have ads, so the focus is not on getting more users and clicks (i.e. generating outrage), and the excellent moderators are quick to punish harmful users, because there is no motivation to keep them around.
      • wolco 6y ago
        HN is an ad. You are part of that ad model. It doesn't show you ads because it is not trying to sell you anything. You could make a point that the hiring posts for ycombinator grads are ads.
• hliyan 6y ago
  Counter-example to the original author: I refused to have a LinkedIn account for the first 12 years of my career (LinkedIn launched the same year I started my career, I believe). But after I opened one, it really helped my career. I found my last two jobs through it. My timeline looks OK because I unfollow a lot of people. I've done the same with Facebook. I rarely come away from either site with my blood pressure any higher than it was going in.
  • SamuelAdams 6y ago
    > I unfollow a lot of people This is the trick to turning platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn into a tool, not a vice. You need to curate who you follow. Facebook in particular has many tools to do this, from preventing their content posting to your news feed to unfriending them altogether. Too many people just follow everyone they know, then complain when they start seeing content that gives them negative outcomes. There's also this weird social stigma where people think that if you unfollow them on a social website, you can't be friends in real life. That's not true either! They're just really bad at posting content I'm interested in viewing.
    • hliyan 6y ago
      Exactly this. I learned this principle from a recent HN post: The Paradox of Abundance: The average quality of information is getting worse and worse. But the best stuff is getting better and better. Markets of abundance are simultaneously bad for the median consumer but good for conscious consumers. You just need to curate your timeline. You have the tools. If you timeline looks bad, you probably haven't curated it properly. If it still looks bad after curation, then perhaps it's time to take a long hard look at your friends and acquaintances!
    • snarfy 6y ago
      My problem with Facebook is they actively try to make your feed controversial. You can unfriend 95% of the haters and some how that remaining 5% will fill up 50% of your feed, and it's not because they are posting more frequently.
• moksly 6y ago
  LinkedIn is the only social media that has had a positive impact on my career. I’m being followed by possibly future employers, networking with peers and talking about shared issues, planning working lunches at conventions and getting job offers. I never scroll through the news feed.
  • Hoasi 6y ago
    > LinkedIn is the only social media that has had a positive impact on my career. It looks as if the site is beneficial when used strictly for professional contact(s), it's working as expected most of the time. The marketing side, which is part of its business model, is annoying. Groups used to provide valuable and interesting information in some professional fields. Now, not so much. When everyone tries to push their agenda all of the time, it is just noise. Despite this, some people are still surprisingly listening and engaging, so it still works from a marketing standpoint. > I never scroll through the news feed. That's the way to use it.
  • allthecybers 6y ago
    I dislike the news feed but have gotten four of my last six jobs from being discovered on LinkedIn. I’d love to close my LinkedIn but I never know when I’ll be job searching again. I kind of wish there was an HN like job site that was widely used in corporate America but didn’t have all the ‘content’. Just an online resume.
    • rileyt 6y ago
      Have you seen https://standardresume.co https://standardresume.co? You can import your LinkedIn profile, choose a template and publish it as a web resume in minutes.
• cpjk 6y ago
  I completely agree. Extract the utility (eg. Facebook’s events and groups) without getting sucked into the cycle of shallow dopamine hits that is the news feed.
• covidien 6y ago
  > From a professional standpoint LinkedIn gave me a lot of value for free i'm curious what others see as value from the platform. in my narrow view: - i have a list of connections id most likely be able to contact off platform - a feed full of virtue signaling and mostly useless content - messages from random recruiters. usually the full extent of the interaction is: phonecall, redo resume and send over, ghost (40+ interactions like this last year with 2 interviews resulting) i spoke with someone in career services and their #1 suggestion was to start messaging people i don't know on linkedin looking for "connections" to expand my network. perhaps i don't get "it" but it seems like for some its incredibly valuable and for the rest its actually a net negative all things considered.
  • ghaff 6y ago
    I think people's job patterns varying is part of it. For me, I've mostly stayed at my relatively few jobs for a long time (10 years or more) and every job after the one immediately after grad school have been through people I knew. Others are hopping around a lot more and are more often through recruiters looking for some particular keyword skill. LinkedIn is pretty useless for the former--except as a Rolodex--but anecdotally can be very useful for the latter.
    • virgilp 6y ago
      I also tend to stay a lot at a given job (e.g. slightly more than 10y at the last one) but still found the current job through LinkedIn. I do 2 things: 1. connect to all recruiters, politely decline with a standard message if obviously not interested 2. when I get a potentially-interesting offer, I reply with "that's all fine and well, but I make <absurdly_high_total_comp> now; do you want to continue the discussion?". (note: I'm not lying). I used to ignore recruiters at point 1, until I realized it costs me almost nothing to politely decline and earns goodwill; today's junior recruiter that works for a crappy company might be in 10 years the HR director at a company you want to work for. Why not be in touch? Over the years, this adds up, a handful of opportunities actually said "yes" at point 2, and for one of them I actually went to interviews & got the job (and the very-good-offer).
• stevage 6y ago
  I find this fascinating, as my experience is the opposite. I have hundreds of connections, mostly people I've met throughout my career. And yet, it has never actually delivered anything of value to me. A few potential freelancing gigs which didn't pan out. A lot of random encounters from people I would never want to work with. By contrast, StackOverflow and Twitter have given me some really great work opportunities.
  • wolco 6y ago
    Is there a good way to search twitter for jobs?
    • ghaff 6y ago
      I don't think it's so much "searching twitter for jobs" as having a good professional network that twitter can help maintain connections with (but not passively).
• john4532452 6y ago
  > From a professional standpoint LinkedIn gave me a lot of value for free Could you please explain like what value you derive out of it. LinkedIn primary purpose is to build your professional network so that you can find your next job easily. It does not work out because programmers does not vouch for someone unless they have worked directly in my experience.
  • aplummer 6y ago
    I know of at least half a dozen people who have found great jobs by HR reaching out to recruit them on LinkedIn.
• bofadeez 6y ago
  Ad-based media is not free. It changes you on a subconscious level and manufactures demand in your mind. And if you're using an ad blocker, you're stealing from them.
• lostcolony 6y ago
  I never visit LinkedIn except to update my profile (rare), or following a link in my email from either a message I feel I should reply to, or a job alert that actually interests me. I...guess I knew there was a newsfeed, I just didn't know anyone actually looked at it.
• kashug 6y ago
  I wonder if the value of linked-in depends on where you live. I live in Norway and when I had linked-in I kept getting contacted by recruiters for totally uninteresting jobs. Often in England or Ireland.