5 ms·

I have never got a job through LinkedIn, even though I get loads of contacts from recruiters - as many as 10 per week. The problem is that those contacts are po

I have never got a job through LinkedIn, even though I get loads of contacts from recruiters - as many as 10 per week. The problem is that those contacts are poor quality. They are spammy as heck, basically mass emailing anyone who has a specific search phrase anywhere in their profile. For the last year my profile bio has opened with the statement "Recruiters: Please tell me what your favourite colour is if you want me to respond to your message." Not one recruiter has actually done that. They literally do not even look at your profile.

wmgreen 5y ago
Would you find any utility in an app, or a service, or something ... that would interact with recruiters on your behalf, screening offers so you only ever see the 2% that might be interesting?
CSSer 5y ago
I love the bio bit. That's a hilarious and really nice touch.
- DoubleGlazing 5y ago
  It's interesting what happens when certain recruiters send a follow up message when I don't answer first time. When that happens I tell them to read my profile carefully. Some then get it and send me a colour and a few have got a bit shirty saying I am being unprofessional or that I am being unreasonable expecting them to read my profile given the pressures they are under.
  - nsxwolf 5y ago
    I had one send me a 4th follow up email this morning which seems excessive. The funny thing is, all the emails are spammy - it's clear that she sends all 4 of these to everyone on some schedule.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    Wait, you're contacting me. Why should I care what kind of pressure you're under? Who's being unprofessional here? Isn't it the recruiter?
    - paulcole 5y ago
      If this person needs a job more than they don't want to be inconvenienced by recruiters, then they really don't have a leg to stand on. You can always be as demanding as you want but don't be surprised when somebody else doesn't give in.
      - tata71 5y ago
        Just seems like GGP is trying to avoid being hired by a string of people not detail oriented.
        DoubleGlazing 5y ago
        Pretty much. I have always found that it is better to send out fewer customised job applications, rather than send out loads that are all the same. I wish recruiters would do the same. If I engage with recruiters that use the scatter gun approach then it is inevtable that they will be wasting my time as they just aren't interested in detail and effort.
        fivea 5y ago
        > Just seems like GGP is trying to avoid being hired by a string of people not detail oriented. I'd add that recruiters that spam people without any criteria or attention are a telltale sign that you are already expected to be treated as disposable and unworthy of attention even way before you are even made an offer. So, strong start.
      - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        True, but DoubleGlazing didn't answer the first time. That isn't someone who "needs a job more than they don't want to be inconvenienced". That's a recruiter that wants to find someone to fill a job more than they want to respect your desire to not be inconvenienced. And I don't have any sympathy.
evanelias 5y ago
I feel like the quality issue is only getting worse over time. Yesterday I received a LinkedIn message from a recruiter that began with "I wanted to reach out as it is almost the end of the year" ... The same recruiter previously emailed me in December and did not use that phrase, so it's not like he always copy-and-pastes the same thing. However, in his December message, he misspelled my name (which is only 4 letters long), and never even mentioned which company he is hiring for -- it was only apparent in his signature line. This was a Google recruiter, hiring for staff+ level SWE roles.
- DoubleGlazing 5y ago
  A really common one I get is emails about Java jobs where the recruiter praises me for all my Java skills and experience and talks about how I would be the perfect candidate for the job they have. The thing is nowhere in my profile does it say I have Java experience (I'm all C#/.Net), however it does mention JavaScript in a few places. They couldn't be any more obvious with their laziness.
  - jliptzin 5y ago
    Yea that's the best, when they start out saying how they went over your profile and all the amazing things you've done in XXX language even though that's not listed on your profile at all!
  - wizzerking 5y ago
    That is why I have a NO JAVA Gmail template that tells the recruiter to learn to properly use their search engine https://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/20-tips-use-google-search-efficiently.html https://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/20-tips-use-goo... https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/topics/googleapps/ https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/topics/googleapps/ Since it is a template it takes 20 - 30 seconds to respond
  - ojl 5y ago
    I sometimes get messages where they are searching for candidates with C# or Java experience, also telling me that I seem like a perfect candidate. I do have a little bit of that but for the past ten years I have only been working with embedded sw development (C and C++) so obviously they didn’t read very carefully. I have gotten good contact with good recruiters using LinkedIn as well though so it varies quite a lot.
encryptluks2 5y ago
This is why I deleted my LinkedIn profile and would suggest others to the same. It has become nothing more than a spammy network that collects way too much personal information.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fivea 5y ago
  > This is why I deleted my LinkedIn profile and would suggest others to the same. It has become nothing more than a spammy network that collects way too much personal information. Could you please elaborate on your concerns? I mean, LinkedIn is a professional network whose whole point is to allow people like you and me to expose personal details we chose to disclose to recruiters and companies with the goal, direct or indirect, of advancing our career. Knowing this, how exactly can anyone complain that a service whose sole point is to allow you share your profile info with recruiters is sharing your profile info with recruiters?
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    If you create a professional profile, yet still opt out of looking for new work, LinkedIn still sells your data to recruiters and not just public data but your hidden data as well and allows recruiters to pay a small fee to obtain private information that you have intentionally hidden and to contact you about jobs that you've specifically said you don't want to be contacted about.
givemeethekeys 5y ago
I suggest putting the blurb somewhere in your employment history. Your LinkedIn profile gets scraped and imported by various recruiting software. They often don't import the bio blurb (although they probably should). This won't eliminate the spam, but will increase your chance of a recruiter seeing the blurb.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Are you trying to force them to see the blurb though? Van Halen could have put a callout to the brown M&M clause in a very prominent place in the contract, had a lot more venues see the clause and, by so doing, make it no longer a useful measurement of their attention to detail and level of effort. https://www.insider.com/van-halen-brown-m-ms-contract-2016-9?amp https://www.insider.com/van-halen-brown-m-ms-contract-2016-9...
edmundsauto 5y ago
My counter anecdote 1 I’d never really used LinkedIn much, but a FAANG recruiter found me on it. That’s how I got my interview, which I passed, which changed my life for the better. Mass recruiters are the problem here. I’ve never tried the brown M&M strategy, Instead I prefer to just tell them no thanks when it’s not interesting.
Mc91 5y ago
I am a programmer and indirectly got my current job via Linkedin. In 2019, a big four accounting firm contacted me on Linkedin to do consulting work for them. I would not have thought of applying to them but since they reached out I talked to them and was hired, and was placed at a Fortune 100 company. A year later (2020) I was hired by the F100 company. Recruiters from Meta/Facebook and other companies have reached out to me since then. The non-spammy ones directly from companies I respond to, but told them I am not currently interviewing. In your settings you can check if you're active looking, casually browsing etc. If you're marked as actively looking you might get more incoming.
rapfaria 5y ago
While I understand the sentiment and don't like LinkedIn, I would assume a recruiter view in the app shows aggregated data, or they would be looking at hundreds of profiles everyday. I also did something similar saying that "My rates start at $150", and recruiters were still contacting me for $13.
paulcole 5y ago
If they can fill their roles with acceptable candidates without reading individual profiles, what's their incentive to do so? Do you want a new job enough to be inconvenienced by recruiters? If not, then this system seems to be working perfectly.
- DoubleGlazing 5y ago
  There is a high likelihood that that those scatter-gun recruiters aren't placing people into appropriate jobs. Most recruiters have one goal, get candidates into a job - any job. Then they get their fee. They do not have an obligation to get a candidate in to the most suitable job. In my experience they will happily lie, flatter and cajole you in to doing their bidding and taking a job that is not right for you. I don't want to deal with recruiters like that and that's why I try to filter them out.
HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
> They are spammy as heck Spam sandwiches can be tasty though: that's how I got my current job. A recruiter sent me a LinkedIn message that was either intended for someone else, or she forgot to change the name at the beginning of the message. Didn't matter; got job. I just replied "Hi Rebecca, I'm not Bhargav, but that position looks interesting" Fast forward a few months and I'm at a new place that seems pretty nice so far.
- davidwritesbugs 5y ago
  hey! I AM BHARGAV, you took my job you SOB.
opportune 5y ago
The way it usually works is: Recruiter sends out spam to everybody fitting X parameters. If you find the company and position interesting you can respond. A recruiter will actually look at your profile and if they think you’re a good match, go from there. I still find it useful overall because once you respond to the recruiter, you have a decent in with the company. You do need to wait for actually good positions to come in (which would be true anyway if they were looking at your profile), but you can literally just ignore them all until you are looking to actually job hop.
medium_spicy 5y ago
This doesn’t apply to folks who want contacts for what’s in their profile, but: sometimes you’d like employers to know what relevant adjacent skills you have, without recruiters hitting them as search terms. For that purpose, I masked all of my software terms like “java” from my EE profile with homoglyphs: humans can read them, but they don’t match search terms. I used this site: http://www.irongeek.com/homoglyph-attack-generator.php?decoded=developer&idn_version=2003&encode=Encode+%3E%3E http://www.irongeek.com/homoglyph-attack-generator.php?decod... This is an example: ѕoftwаrе looks like “software” to humans, but I’ve pulled from Cyrillic characters, so the ascii codes don’t match. I cut down my spam by about 80% instantly. (One weird trick!)
hddherman 5y ago
Lifehack: put an emoji as the first character in your name. If a recruiter includes that emoji in a message, such as “ Hi :fire: John,”, then you know that it’s spammy.
kingsstammer 5y ago
Same here. have worked 13 years in senior Data Analytics roles and I got an alert recently from LinkedIn that I would be a perfect fit as a Data Analytics Trainee...
- lanej0 5y ago
  To be fair, you would be the PERFECT candidate to fill that role for a company. You'd probably have to accept a fairly hefty pay cut though!

wmgreen 5y ago

Would you find any utility in an app, or a service, or something ... that would interact with recruiters on your behalf, screening offers so you only ever see the 2% that might be interesting?

CSSer 5y ago

I love the bio bit. That's a hilarious and really nice touch.

DoubleGlazing 5y ago
It's interesting what happens when certain recruiters send a follow up message when I don't answer first time. When that happens I tell them to read my profile carefully. Some then get it and send me a colour and a few have got a bit shirty saying I am being unprofessional or that I am being unreasonable expecting them to read my profile given the pressures they are under.
- nsxwolf 5y ago
  I had one send me a 4th follow up email this morning which seems excessive. The funny thing is, all the emails are spammy - it's clear that she sends all 4 of these to everyone on some schedule.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Wait, you're contacting me. Why should I care what kind of pressure you're under? Who's being unprofessional here? Isn't it the recruiter?
  - paulcole 5y ago
    If this person needs a job more than they don't want to be inconvenienced by recruiters, then they really don't have a leg to stand on. You can always be as demanding as you want but don't be surprised when somebody else doesn't give in.
    - tata71 5y ago
      Just seems like GGP is trying to avoid being hired by a string of people not detail oriented.
      - DoubleGlazing 5y ago
        Pretty much. I have always found that it is better to send out fewer customised job applications, rather than send out loads that are all the same. I wish recruiters would do the same. If I engage with recruiters that use the scatter gun approach then it is inevtable that they will be wasting my time as they just aren't interested in detail and effort.
      - fivea 5y ago
        > Just seems like GGP is trying to avoid being hired by a string of people not detail oriented. I'd add that recruiters that spam people without any criteria or attention are a telltale sign that you are already expected to be treated as disposable and unworthy of attention even way before you are even made an offer. So, strong start.
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      True, but DoubleGlazing didn't answer the first time. That isn't someone who "needs a job more than they don't want to be inconvenienced". That's a recruiter that wants to find someone to fill a job more than they want to respect your desire to not be inconvenienced. And I don't have any sympathy.

evanelias 5y ago

I feel like the quality issue is only getting worse over time. Yesterday I received a LinkedIn message from a recruiter that began with "I wanted to reach out as it is almost the end of the year" ... The same recruiter previously emailed me in December and did not use that phrase, so it's not like he always copy-and-pastes the same thing. However, in his December message, he misspelled my name (which is only 4 letters long), and never even mentioned which company he is hiring for -- it was only apparent in his signature line. This was a Google recruiter, hiring for staff+ level SWE roles.

DoubleGlazing 5y ago
A really common one I get is emails about Java jobs where the recruiter praises me for all my Java skills and experience and talks about how I would be the perfect candidate for the job they have. The thing is nowhere in my profile does it say I have Java experience (I'm all C#/.Net), however it does mention JavaScript in a few places. They couldn't be any more obvious with their laziness.
- jliptzin 5y ago
  Yea that's the best, when they start out saying how they went over your profile and all the amazing things you've done in XXX language even though that's not listed on your profile at all!
- wizzerking 5y ago
  That is why I have a NO JAVA Gmail template that tells the recruiter to learn to properly use their search engine https://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/20-tips-use-google-search-efficiently.html https://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/20-tips-use-goo... https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/topics/googleapps/ https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/topics/googleapps/ Since it is a template it takes 20 - 30 seconds to respond
- ojl 5y ago
  I sometimes get messages where they are searching for candidates with C# or Java experience, also telling me that I seem like a perfect candidate. I do have a little bit of that but for the past ten years I have only been working with embedded sw development (C and C++) so obviously they didn’t read very carefully. I have gotten good contact with good recruiters using LinkedIn as well though so it varies quite a lot.

encryptluks2 5y ago

This is why I deleted my LinkedIn profile and would suggest others to the same. It has become nothing more than a spammy network that collects way too much personal information.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fivea 5y ago
> This is why I deleted my LinkedIn profile and would suggest others to the same. It has become nothing more than a spammy network that collects way too much personal information. Could you please elaborate on your concerns? I mean, LinkedIn is a professional network whose whole point is to allow people like you and me to expose personal details we chose to disclose to recruiters and companies with the goal, direct or indirect, of advancing our career. Knowing this, how exactly can anyone complain that a service whose sole point is to allow you share your profile info with recruiters is sharing your profile info with recruiters?
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  If you create a professional profile, yet still opt out of looking for new work, LinkedIn still sells your data to recruiters and not just public data but your hidden data as well and allows recruiters to pay a small fee to obtain private information that you have intentionally hidden and to contact you about jobs that you've specifically said you don't want to be contacted about.

givemeethekeys 5y ago

I suggest putting the blurb somewhere in your employment history. Your LinkedIn profile gets scraped and imported by various recruiting software. They often don't import the bio blurb (although they probably should). This won't eliminate the spam, but will increase your chance of a recruiter seeing the blurb.

sokoloff 5y ago
Are you trying to force them to see the blurb though? Van Halen could have put a callout to the brown M&M clause in a very prominent place in the contract, had a lot more venues see the clause and, by so doing, make it no longer a useful measurement of their attention to detail and level of effort. https://www.insider.com/van-halen-brown-m-ms-contract-2016-9?amp https://www.insider.com/van-halen-brown-m-ms-contract-2016-9...

edmundsauto 5y ago

My counter anecdote 1 I’d never really used LinkedIn much, but a FAANG recruiter found me on it. That’s how I got my interview, which I passed, which changed my life for the better. Mass recruiters are the problem here. I’ve never tried the brown M&M strategy, Instead I prefer to just tell them no thanks when it’s not interesting.

Mc91 5y ago

I am a programmer and indirectly got my current job via Linkedin. In 2019, a big four accounting firm contacted me on Linkedin to do consulting work for them. I would not have thought of applying to them but since they reached out I talked to them and was hired, and was placed at a Fortune 100 company. A year later (2020) I was hired by the F100 company. Recruiters from Meta/Facebook and other companies have reached out to me since then. The non-spammy ones directly from companies I respond to, but told them I am not currently interviewing. In your settings you can check if you're active looking, casually browsing etc. If you're marked as actively looking you might get more incoming.

rapfaria 5y ago

While I understand the sentiment and don't like LinkedIn, I would assume a recruiter view in the app shows aggregated data, or they would be looking at hundreds of profiles everyday. I also did something similar saying that "My rates start at $150", and recruiters were still contacting me for $13.

paulcole 5y ago

If they can fill their roles with acceptable candidates without reading individual profiles, what's their incentive to do so? Do you want a new job enough to be inconvenienced by recruiters? If not, then this system seems to be working perfectly.

DoubleGlazing 5y ago
There is a high likelihood that that those scatter-gun recruiters aren't placing people into appropriate jobs. Most recruiters have one goal, get candidates into a job - any job. Then they get their fee. They do not have an obligation to get a candidate in to the most suitable job. In my experience they will happily lie, flatter and cajole you in to doing their bidding and taking a job that is not right for you. I don't want to deal with recruiters like that and that's why I try to filter them out.

HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago

> They are spammy as heck Spam sandwiches can be tasty though: that's how I got my current job. A recruiter sent me a LinkedIn message that was either intended for someone else, or she forgot to change the name at the beginning of the message. Didn't matter; got job. I just replied "Hi Rebecca, I'm not Bhargav, but that position looks interesting" Fast forward a few months and I'm at a new place that seems pretty nice so far.

davidwritesbugs 5y ago
hey! I AM BHARGAV, you took my job you SOB.

opportune 5y ago

The way it usually works is: Recruiter sends out spam to everybody fitting X parameters. If you find the company and position interesting you can respond. A recruiter will actually look at your profile and if they think you’re a good match, go from there. I still find it useful overall because once you respond to the recruiter, you have a decent in with the company. You do need to wait for actually good positions to come in (which would be true anyway if they were looking at your profile), but you can literally just ignore them all until you are looking to actually job hop.

medium_spicy 5y ago

This doesn’t apply to folks who want contacts for what’s in their profile, but: sometimes you’d like employers to know what relevant adjacent skills you have, without recruiters hitting them as search terms. For that purpose, I masked all of my software terms like “java” from my EE profile with homoglyphs: humans can read them, but they don’t match search terms. I used this site: http://www.irongeek.com/homoglyph-attack-generator.php?decoded=developer&idn_version=2003&encode=Encode+%3E%3E http://www.irongeek.com/homoglyph-attack-generator.php?decod... This is an example: ѕoftwаrе looks like “software” to humans, but I’ve pulled from Cyrillic characters, so the ascii codes don’t match. I cut down my spam by about 80% instantly. (One weird trick!)

hddherman 5y ago

Lifehack: put an emoji as the first character in your name. If a recruiter includes that emoji in a message, such as “ Hi :fire: John,”, then you know that it’s spammy.

kingsstammer 5y ago

Same here. have worked 13 years in senior Data Analytics roles and I got an alert recently from LinkedIn that I would be a perfect fit as a Data Analytics Trainee...

lanej0 5y ago
To be fair, you would be the PERFECT candidate to fill that role for a company. You'd probably have to accept a fairly hefty pay cut though!