6 ms·

They seem hellbent on having a rotten reputation. I do not know a single person who likes it other than recruiters (who all tell me they're upset about people n

by smcl 4y ago

They seem hellbent on having a rotten reputation. I do not know a single person who likes it other than recruiters (who all tell me they're upset about people not replying to their out-of-the-blue messages). Every developer I know either simply dislikes the LinkedIn experience, or knows about the company's shitty behaviour and despises the company (to the point of deleting their profile or not signing up). Surely this kind of thing will eventually come back to haunt them?

f6v 4y ago
I have the opposite experience. I don’t get any messages from recruiters after having set the appropriate preferences. And I use LinkedIn to connect to relevant people in my field.
- tedmiston 4y ago
  Consider yourself lucky. I get hundreds per year. Maybe 1 in 50 are decently relevant. Many are mass spams. A good amount will be in tech I have no interest in, haven't worked in in over a decade, or have never worked in. It's clear the messages are sent without ever actually reading your profile or even job titles. I wish there were a way to control only the handcrafted / non-spam messages reaching my inbox.
  - jjulius 4y ago
    The ones that really grind my gears are the ones that clearly guessed your current work email address based on your LI profile and standard business email username formats.
    - tedmiston 4y ago
      Oh for sure. I bet `<first name>@<small company>` or `<first.last>@<company>` goes a very long way. There are seem to be some techniques for verifying existence of an email address without actually emailing it. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/565504/how-to-check-if-an-email-address-exists-without-sending-an-email https://stackoverflow.com/questions/565504/how-to-check-if-a... I tried the below services with a custom G Suite domain and, to my surprise, they successfully worked, even for addresses that I know have never been posted publicly (!). https://email-checker.net/validate https://email-checker.net/validate https://clean.email/verifier/how-to-check-if-an-email-is-valid https://clean.email/verifier/how-to-check-if-an-email-is-val...
  - reillyse 4y ago
    I have a PhD and so have Dr as my first name on LinkedIn. All the automated messages address me as if Dr was my actual first name, So “hi Dr” or “Dr,…” So it’s a good filter for all the machine created messages, which is a very very high percentage of them.
- boredtofears 4y ago
  Yeah, I really don't have that much of a problem with LinkedIn. It definitely seems like they do scammy things, but I don't really notice since I really only login to it when I'm looking for a job. When I set my preference from "not looking" to "actively looking" or even the "casually looking" option (forgot what it's called), the flood gates get opened wide. Then it's pretty much just like picking a job from a job tree because there's usually so many options from recruiters. Then I turn it off, and the emails pretty much shut down (once in a while one or two seems to trickle through somehow, which is annoying but not that bad). For my intent it kinda works the exact way I want it to, but I really only ever login when I'm looking for a job.
  - sunsunsunsun 4y ago
    I wish I had this problem. I get maybe one or two messages from recruiters a month.
  - kar5pt 4y ago
    Am I crazy or did they get rid of this setting? I remember they used to have a way to set your status to "not looking", but I've been looking recently and can't find it.
- mostlyghostly 4y ago
  My recruiter invites have been dropping at a exponential rate once I passed age 45. LinkedIn is apparently a fairly efficient platform for age discrimination.
  - wyclif 4y ago
    One way to mitigate that somewhat is to never put your age online. I plan on being 39 for as long as possible.
    - t_mann 4y ago
      Your CV kinda gives it away though...
      - derekbaker783 4y ago
        Drop everything beyond N years...
        wyclif 4y ago
        Yes. Most people's CV's who have been around for a while are too long anyway. The goal should be one page, with only the most recent/relevant experience.
        mostlyghostly 4y ago
        Empirically, I'm getting about the same results from my 1 page and my 2 page CV, based on call back rates, funnel progression, and interviewer comments. Go ahead and use two pages if the incremental content is relevant to your overall pitch. (In my case the extra material is relevant... I've run pricing at five companies, which is usually a massively cross-functional job. Unlike my typical competitor, I've also mastered most of the supporting technical, accounting, and commercial disciplines... which makes me a one stop shop for serious pricing problems.)
        4y ago
gtirloni 4y ago
> Surely this kind of thing will eventually come back to haunt them? I doubt it. Network effects matter and nobody is switching from LinkedIn for fear of missing out. There is no other work-related social network like it. It's different with FB/Instagram that there isn't much at stake so people will just switch to test something and then stay. With LinkedIn, the "what if I miss a job opportunity?" factor means there's pressure to ignore the UI issues and just stick it out. I don't see a disruptor in this industry, do you know of any?
- TameAntelope 4y ago
  I see “network effects” cited so frequently as this impenetrable fortress, but… literally every site that now has “network effects” had to fight them to exist, so it seems kind of odd…
  - gtirloni 4y ago
    When LI started, it didn't have much competition so it was easier. Network effects is not an impenetrable fortress. It just means your product has to have a really good reason for people to switch, and I dont see anyone in the work network space doing anything really better than LI. I wish someone was.
    - monkeydust 4y ago
      How about a video only (or video first) network - companies can promote but has to be videos. Tiktok meets LinkedIn (!)
    - TameAntelope 4y ago
      That’s my point; nobody tries because harpies screech “network effects” every time it’s discussed…
  - nr2x 4y ago
    We talk about exponential growth a lot more than exponential collapse. Historically, social networks collapse as quickly as they grow. Even mighty Facebook recently hit the peak, and in their most important markets the network effect is utterly collapsing.
abirch 4y ago
It seems like it should be easy to replace LinkedIn but no one seems to do it. I've looked at Xing and a few others. I loved the premise of LinkedIn but you can't forward messages any more.
- ska 4y ago
  > it should be easy to replace Often network effects dominate this sort of thing, so that's probably not true.
  - abirch 4y ago
    You're right about the network effect.
shafyy 4y ago
I've deleted my LinkedIn profile years ago because it was annoying as hell.
pyb 4y ago
Linkedin succeeds because most companies suck at recruiting so much, that this bottom-feeder behaviour by recruiters and Linkedin actually gets people hired, much faster than they otherwise would be. Recruitment agencies and their cheesy, ignorant reach-outs are actually what gets the market going. This is because hiring managers at tech companies don't want to do the job themselves, even though they'd do a lot better.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  This is exactly the issue. As sucky as LinkedIn is, it actually did result in better results for me than average HR department at a given company. That should not be the case, but so very often it is.. therefore, LinkedIn remains one of the viable options. I am relatively lucky, because I am now old enough to have friends, colleagues and some reputation so I do not need it ( amusingly, my profile was flagged for something recently and I have not looked back ), but I remember when I did and recruiters were the least painful way to get my foot in the doors
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
brightball 4y ago
Honestly, this feels like a natural reaction to the ruling that they couldn’t stop people from scraping their site. They probably just decided, we may as well do it too.
oriettaxx 4y ago
> Every developer I know either simply dislikes the LinkedIn experience, or knows about the company's shitty behaviour and despises the company (to the point of deleting their profile omg, I had that feeling too (and I actually removed my profile): good: I thought I was alone :)
divbzero 4y ago
My hope that Microsoft’s professional oversight would be a healthy moderating influence has not panned out.
- TedShiller 4y ago
  You might notice that Microsoft has destroyed all of its acquisitions
- jacquesm 4y ago
  HN humor at its best.
nsonha 4y ago
tell me how you find job posts, do you disklike the concept of a search engine for jobs?
- smcl 4y ago
  I don't dislike the concept of a search engine for jobs. I haven't had to search for a job for a while, but there are plenty of places outside LinkedIn which provide job listings
  - nsonha 4y ago
    the whole idea of search engine is that you only go to one place, so, what that one place is gonna be?
vlunkr 4y ago
To be fair, who ever wanted a work-based social media platform? People have accounts because it’s expected as part of the recruiting process. The only people I see posting on there are embarrassing “workfluencers” sharing each other’s content into the void.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

by smcl 4y ago

f6v 4y ago

I have the opposite experience. I don’t get any messages from recruiters after having set the appropriate preferences. And I use LinkedIn to connect to relevant people in my field.

tedmiston 4y ago
Consider yourself lucky. I get hundreds per year. Maybe 1 in 50 are decently relevant. Many are mass spams. A good amount will be in tech I have no interest in, haven't worked in in over a decade, or have never worked in. It's clear the messages are sent without ever actually reading your profile or even job titles. I wish there were a way to control only the handcrafted / non-spam messages reaching my inbox.
- jjulius 4y ago
  The ones that really grind my gears are the ones that clearly guessed your current work email address based on your LI profile and standard business email username formats.
  - tedmiston 4y ago
    Oh for sure. I bet `<first name>@<small company>` or `<first.last>@<company>` goes a very long way. There are seem to be some techniques for verifying existence of an email address without actually emailing it. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/565504/how-to-check-if-an-email-address-exists-without-sending-an-email https://stackoverflow.com/questions/565504/how-to-check-if-a... I tried the below services with a custom G Suite domain and, to my surprise, they successfully worked, even for addresses that I know have never been posted publicly (!). https://email-checker.net/validate https://email-checker.net/validate https://clean.email/verifier/how-to-check-if-an-email-is-valid https://clean.email/verifier/how-to-check-if-an-email-is-val...
- reillyse 4y ago
  I have a PhD and so have Dr as my first name on LinkedIn. All the automated messages address me as if Dr was my actual first name, So “hi Dr” or “Dr,…” So it’s a good filter for all the machine created messages, which is a very very high percentage of them.
boredtofears 4y ago
Yeah, I really don't have that much of a problem with LinkedIn. It definitely seems like they do scammy things, but I don't really notice since I really only login to it when I'm looking for a job. When I set my preference from "not looking" to "actively looking" or even the "casually looking" option (forgot what it's called), the flood gates get opened wide. Then it's pretty much just like picking a job from a job tree because there's usually so many options from recruiters. Then I turn it off, and the emails pretty much shut down (once in a while one or two seems to trickle through somehow, which is annoying but not that bad). For my intent it kinda works the exact way I want it to, but I really only ever login when I'm looking for a job.
- sunsunsunsun 4y ago
  I wish I had this problem. I get maybe one or two messages from recruiters a month.
- kar5pt 4y ago
  Am I crazy or did they get rid of this setting? I remember they used to have a way to set your status to "not looking", but I've been looking recently and can't find it.
mostlyghostly 4y ago
My recruiter invites have been dropping at a exponential rate once I passed age 45. LinkedIn is apparently a fairly efficient platform for age discrimination.
- wyclif 4y ago
  One way to mitigate that somewhat is to never put your age online. I plan on being 39 for as long as possible.
  - t_mann 4y ago
    Your CV kinda gives it away though...
    - derekbaker783 4y ago
      Drop everything beyond N years...
      - wyclif 4y ago
        Yes. Most people's CV's who have been around for a while are too long anyway. The goal should be one page, with only the most recent/relevant experience.
        mostlyghostly 4y ago
        Empirically, I'm getting about the same results from my 1 page and my 2 page CV, based on call back rates, funnel progression, and interviewer comments. Go ahead and use two pages if the incremental content is relevant to your overall pitch. (In my case the extra material is relevant... I've run pricing at five companies, which is usually a massively cross-functional job. Unlike my typical competitor, I've also mastered most of the supporting technical, accounting, and commercial disciplines... which makes me a one stop shop for serious pricing problems.)
        4y ago

gtirloni 4y ago

> Surely this kind of thing will eventually come back to haunt them? I doubt it. Network effects matter and nobody is switching from LinkedIn for fear of missing out. There is no other work-related social network like it. It's different with FB/Instagram that there isn't much at stake so people will just switch to test something and then stay. With LinkedIn, the "what if I miss a job opportunity?" factor means there's pressure to ignore the UI issues and just stick it out. I don't see a disruptor in this industry, do you know of any?

TameAntelope 4y ago
I see “network effects” cited so frequently as this impenetrable fortress, but… literally every site that now has “network effects” had to fight them to exist, so it seems kind of odd…
- gtirloni 4y ago
  When LI started, it didn't have much competition so it was easier. Network effects is not an impenetrable fortress. It just means your product has to have a really good reason for people to switch, and I dont see anyone in the work network space doing anything really better than LI. I wish someone was.
  - monkeydust 4y ago
    How about a video only (or video first) network - companies can promote but has to be videos. Tiktok meets LinkedIn (!)
  - TameAntelope 4y ago
    That’s my point; nobody tries because harpies screech “network effects” every time it’s discussed…
- nr2x 4y ago
  We talk about exponential growth a lot more than exponential collapse. Historically, social networks collapse as quickly as they grow. Even mighty Facebook recently hit the peak, and in their most important markets the network effect is utterly collapsing.

abirch 4y ago

It seems like it should be easy to replace LinkedIn but no one seems to do it. I've looked at Xing and a few others. I loved the premise of LinkedIn but you can't forward messages any more.

ska 4y ago
> it should be easy to replace Often network effects dominate this sort of thing, so that's probably not true.
- abirch 4y ago
  You're right about the network effect.

shafyy 4y ago

I've deleted my LinkedIn profile years ago because it was annoying as hell.

pyb 4y ago

Linkedin succeeds because most companies suck at recruiting so much, that this bottom-feeder behaviour by recruiters and Linkedin actually gets people hired, much faster than they otherwise would be. Recruitment agencies and their cheesy, ignorant reach-outs are actually what gets the market going. This is because hiring managers at tech companies don't want to do the job themselves, even though they'd do a lot better.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
This is exactly the issue. As sucky as LinkedIn is, it actually did result in better results for me than average HR department at a given company. That should not be the case, but so very often it is.. therefore, LinkedIn remains one of the viable options. I am relatively lucky, because I am now old enough to have friends, colleagues and some reputation so I do not need it ( amusingly, my profile was flagged for something recently and I have not looked back ), but I remember when I did and recruiters were the least painful way to get my foot in the doors
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

brightball 4y ago

Honestly, this feels like a natural reaction to the ruling that they couldn’t stop people from scraping their site. They probably just decided, we may as well do it too.

oriettaxx 4y ago

> Every developer I know either simply dislikes the LinkedIn experience, or knows about the company's shitty behaviour and despises the company (to the point of deleting their profile omg, I had that feeling too (and I actually removed my profile): good: I thought I was alone :)

divbzero 4y ago

My hope that Microsoft’s professional oversight would be a healthy moderating influence has not panned out.

TedShiller 4y ago
You might notice that Microsoft has destroyed all of its acquisitions
jacquesm 4y ago
HN humor at its best.

nsonha 4y ago

tell me how you find job posts, do you disklike the concept of a search engine for jobs?

smcl 4y ago
I don't dislike the concept of a search engine for jobs. I haven't had to search for a job for a while, but there are plenty of places outside LinkedIn which provide job listings
- nsonha 4y ago
  the whole idea of search engine is that you only go to one place, so, what that one place is gonna be?

vlunkr 4y ago

To be fair, who ever wanted a work-based social media platform? People have accounts because it’s expected as part of the recruiting process. The only people I see posting on there are embarrassing “workfluencers” sharing each other’s content into the void.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deleted 4y ago
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