4 ms·

Unfortunately, LinkedIn is the only game in town. It's pretty worthless though. In 2019 I received 6,000+ contacts from headhunters, maybe 25 were relevant and

Unfortunately, LinkedIn is the only game in town. It's pretty worthless though. In 2019 I received 6,000+ contacts from headhunters, maybe 25 were relevant and 3 were actually worth responding to. LinkedIn's bread and butter seems to be spammers in India with addresses from New Jersey. You will probably not find a good job on LinkedIn. Find niche-specific slack job boards and network with people. LinkedIn is mostly a waste of time. It was shit before Microsoft, now it's diarhea. I'm glad I will be retiring soon and will never remove a connection for re-posting an Oleg Vishnepolsky post. Fuck LinkedIn.

Nextgrid 5y ago
> LinkedIn's bread and butter seems to be spammers in India with addresses from New Jersey. I've had to deal with those. The answer is to ruthlessly block/reject anyone you have doubts about. Thankfully most of these put up a very poor show and just a quick look at the quality of their website will tell you whether they're telling the truth. Frankly, you don't even need to dig that far - even just the quality/suitability of the roles they pitch will be a good enough indicator. At least in the UK however there are decent local recruitment agencies that are worth having on your side. They don't proactively reach out (at least not as much as the aforementioned spammers) so you may need to seek them out yourself but if you get in touch and explain them your situation they will be helpful either now or in the future. Whether this applies to the US is a different story however. When searching for jobs in my niche I often see tons of US-based positions posted by the aforementioned spammers, so it may very well be that US-focused recruitment has been completely overtaken by them.
- iwasnothere 5y ago
  I've heard that the headhunters in the UK are the polar opposite of the spammers, I mean, recruiters we have in the states. 99% of the contract headhunters out there are basically functional illiterates when it comes to the tech spear (some of them aren't even that). LinkedIn feels a lot like Myspace at the end, when it had been completely overrun by spammers and the company itself stopped caring.
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
LinkedIn sucks until it doesn't. That is, when someone other than a recruiter -- say someone who is connected to you through your broader social network, reaches out to you. That's when it's useful. The "news feed" -- insipid at best. The farms of recruiters -- not super useful, I already have a job at a FAANG and I'm not looking to switch to a different flavour. But the social network, which has been there for 15 years and kept me in touch with all sorts of professional contacts? Gold.

Nextgrid 5y ago

> LinkedIn's bread and butter seems to be spammers in India with addresses from New Jersey. I've had to deal with those. The answer is to ruthlessly block/reject anyone you have doubts about. Thankfully most of these put up a very poor show and just a quick look at the quality of their website will tell you whether they're telling the truth. Frankly, you don't even need to dig that far - even just the quality/suitability of the roles they pitch will be a good enough indicator. At least in the UK however there are decent local recruitment agencies that are worth having on your side. They don't proactively reach out (at least not as much as the aforementioned spammers) so you may need to seek them out yourself but if you get in touch and explain them your situation they will be helpful either now or in the future. Whether this applies to the US is a different story however. When searching for jobs in my niche I often see tons of US-based positions posted by the aforementioned spammers, so it may very well be that US-focused recruitment has been completely overtaken by them.

iwasnothere 5y ago
I've heard that the headhunters in the UK are the polar opposite of the spammers, I mean, recruiters we have in the states. 99% of the contract headhunters out there are basically functional illiterates when it comes to the tech spear (some of them aren't even that). LinkedIn feels a lot like Myspace at the end, when it had been completely overrun by spammers and the company itself stopped caring.

cmrdporcupine 5y ago

LinkedIn sucks until it doesn't. That is, when someone other than a recruiter -- say someone who is connected to you through your broader social network, reaches out to you. That's when it's useful. The "news feed" -- insipid at best. The farms of recruiters -- not super useful, I already have a job at a FAANG and I'm not looking to switch to a different flavour. But the social network, which has been there for 15 years and kept me in touch with all sorts of professional contacts? Gold.