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Quitting LinkedIn
- hughw 14y agoYeah, lots of group spam, but today, I used LI to contact a scientist at a company whose thesis I'd read. I'd like to meet him in person, possibly to try to hire him, or possibly just to have the business relationship. I rarely use LI fruitfully but this is its value proposition, to me. Once a year or so, I can make a contact like this.
- sardonicbryan 14y agoAs a hiring manager, I also like to verify people's resumes against their Linkedin profiles. I generally find some kind of useful context (something they left out), recommendation or discrepancy on about 1 out of 10 resumes.
- k3n 14y agoSo it sounds like it'd be more likely to be used against me, then for me, if my app landed on your desk?
- sardonicbryan 14y agoOnly if it looks like you are trying to mislead me about your experience.
- driverdan 14y agoLinkedIn is my least favorite social network. Unless you're looking for a job or are recruiting it's pretty worthless. Their spam controls are terrible. Recruiter spam is rampant. Groups are full of spam and self promotors with no easy way for non-admin users to stop it.
- jowiar 14y ago> Unless you're looking for a job or are recruiting it's pretty worthless. But if you're looking for a job or are recruiting it can pretty valuable. It has its purpose - one it solves reasonably well. It answers questions like: "Do I know anyone who can make SuperWidgets using MagicTechnology?" "I'm interested in working at ABC Corp - did I used to work with someone who can get me a foot in the door?"
- wpietri 14y agoI'm definitely with you on the groups. When they introduced groups I joined a couple of relevant ones and the signal/noise ratio dove like a fishing pelican. I tried fighting it, but made barely a dent in all the self-promotional BS.
- crusso 14y agoI've never found any real use for linkedin. Never gotten any references to hires that were worth it. Never gotten any work through it. About all it's useful for is knowing when some people are dissatisfied with their current job and looking for new employment... their linkedin activity goes way up and you hear from them through the service.
- tferraz 14y agoI agree with you, but now that I'm searching for a job, I'm seeing a lot of integration with linkedin where you can apply by clicking just one button, what is better than complete a huge form for every job offer.
- gvb 14y agoThat is either sarcasm which needs to be marked, or you are in trouble. "[B]y clicking just one button [you can] complete a huge form for every job offer" is the definition of how to produce spam. All "how to write an effective job application" articles emphasize writing cover letters/emails that show you've read and understood the job requirements and demonstrate how you can fill the position, including a resume with applicable information.
- tferraz 14y agoYes, but tools such as Taleo does not help the user, as it is likely the user will be typing the same information many times. This free the user to write better cover letters and emails. Thinking from a HR perspective, maybe linkedin API can help automate the search for a fit and avoid spams. Spams may occurs because they don't have the right tools.
- jpdoctor 14y ago> About all it's useful for is knowing when some people are dissatisfied with their current job and looking for new employment... Also, it's useful for knowing who just lost their job because that's about the only time I see anyone update their page.
- codegeek 14y agoI totally get what the author is talking about. However, to provide another perspective on the other side, I have successfully used linkedin more than once (3 times) to secure a new opportunity (both fulltime and contract) in the past. 2 of them were passive i.e. I was not really looking that hard but was open to it if it was the right fit for me. Linkedin is just another tool like many others. You have to know how to use it to your advantage or usefulness. Yes there are countless and pointless groups/recruiters who just spam (I get a lot of them as well) but if you create a highly targeted profile, chances are that you also will get invites from good recruiters or professionals in general. The percentage is more like 95% crap, 5% good. I am happy with the 5% part.
- mnicole 14y agoThis has been my experience as well. Obviously something else to consider is that the author has held roles at various well-known companies, and from that alone I'd wager the amount of noise he receives is greater than the average Joe. I'll be interested in what the endorsements do in the long-term as well. In my circles, I've already seen a lot of people endorsed for skills they don't have, and it is only getting worse. Because of the way LinkedIn coerces people to endorse, lot of non-technical co-workers of mine have tried endorsing me for things they've never even heard of, assuming that LinkedIn is making this assumption based on something else I have written on my profile, which I think is a big part of the problem.
- codegeek 14y agoYea I totally agree about the endorsement feature. I think it is not working out well. But isn't the endorsement suggestion based on what you list in your profile ? For example, I get endorsements for things that I have listed in my skills keywords.
- mnicole 14y agoI believe initially it does, but I know one of my co-workers was endorsed for a framework he'd never even heard of before and that our co-worker "endorsed because it sounded techie!" I believe you can even add custom ones for other people, as someone tagged me as simply "Front-end", and as a woman that's a little awkward, if not vague in and of itself. I almost wish there was a way for me to approve them, because depending on who the endorsement comes from (i.e. if they are someone I've never even worked with before or like the aforementioned scenario, I don't even work in the same department as that person), it means absolutely nothing and I'd expect smarter employers to pick up on that. I'm already concerned that if it looks like I'm farming endorsements, I won't be taken seriously.
- deanclatworthy 14y agoWhilst I remain on LinkedIn, I have yet to get any value from it. Furthermore the new endorsements feature is utterly useless. I consider myself a back-end AND front-end developer but for some reason I am heavily endorsed in CSS, making it look as if I am not as skilled in back-end work.
- Spooky23 14y agoI like it with Outlook 2013 -- there's a built-in plugin that basically looks up people that you communicate with on Linkedin. I find it handy as I meet with alot of people, and I get a picture and brief bio, and I get you see who they've "linked to" recently. Before that, I found it to be completely useless -- sort of like a grown-up version of baseball cards... you collect people for unknown reasons.
- drivebyacct2 14y agoI care so little about LinkedIn that I don't know why I'd bother quitting.
- sebnukem2 14y agoIt's the first time I ever read or hear that somebody got something useful out of LinkedIn.
- scrumper 14y agoIt's not just job seeking: LinkedIn is pretty valuable for sales. The reps in the enterprise sales team I work with use it extensively. With a premium account you can find out who occupies a given position at your target firm, then ask for them by name on the phone. It turns cold calling from truly freezing to some level of initial connection, eg "I see you're connected to my friend Brian on LinkedIn? Blah blah phi sigma kappa lacrosse MBA blah. Now how about you hear my pitch?" Works enough of the time to be their default tool.
- codva 14y ago"Blah blah phi sigma kappa" really didn't expect to see my college frat in a comment on HN today, or any day really!
- orangethirty 14y agoYes, that's the value of LinkedIn. Turning Cold prospects into warm ones. Its wroks very nicely in enterprise situations. When you know who your target entry point is (meaning, the person you are leveraging to sneek in your pitch) things go much smoother. Its just a matter of finding out more about them and easily creating a profile around their likes. You can't really fail at rapport if you know what the person likes. And rapport is how you open sales negotiations.
- tarr11 14y agoIt's fairly easy to control where and when you get email in LinkedIn. It's even easier to control in GMail (as the user states) https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?trk=hb_acc https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?trk=hb_acc I know that's not the author's entire point, but the "tragedy of the commons" argument becomes less compelling without all the spamming complaints.
- ddunkin 14y agoYeah, the sign-in to unsubscribe junk is BS. Unsubscribe should be a simple direct link, nothing to fill out. I end up blocking domains instead of unsubscribing at that point.
- btilly 14y agoMy use case for linked in is simple. I think I might want to work with place X. Who do I know, directly or indirectly, who works there? Let me talk to them directly.
- publicfig 14y agoI'm kind of becoming tired of the argument that a service is bothersome with the amount of emails it's sending if there are ways to disable the emails. When I was seeking employment, I was getting multiple emails a day from the service, many of which were helpful (Alumni network postings, messages, connections). However, once I took an offer (One I happened to be recruited for on LinkedIn), I disabled all of those emails coming through. I still check the site fairly frequently but can still just use it for the way I like to use it, to keep a record of my professional journey.
- law 14y agoThat's not the problem. The problem is that the e-mails, by their very nature, are opt-out rather than opt-in. One reason people seem to complain is because they have to waste time logging into the site, finding the e-mail opt-out section, and disabling whatever "service" is responsible for the torrent of spam. And that only works until the site's next "user experience" update.
- manishsharan 14y agoI like LinkedIn . However I am getting annoyed by my contacts who are endorsing my skils without my asking them and who then expect me to do the same for them and get all sullen when I don't. The funniest instance of unsolicited endorsement was when people began endorsing my SOA skills ; anyone who has worked with on a project knows that I despise SOA from the bottom of my heart.
- codva 14y agoMy top endorsement on LI is Salesforce.com. My first action at any employer where I had sufficient authority would be get rid of Salesforce.com. I hate the software.
- jrabone 14y agoAnd yet you listed it. No doubt you have it on your paper CV as well. And when I ask you about it in a tech. interview, what then? Will you have the balls to tell me why it's all crap?
- manishsharan 14y agoActually, I do have the integrity and expertise to back up my assertions with reasonable arguments.
- fusiongyro 14y agoI deleted my account two years ago and haven't regretted it. In fact I get more legitimate (and nicer) job offers by having an email address in my account info here than I ever did on LinkedIn. I had a lot of friends who insisted I would not be able to get a job in the future by not being on LinkedIn. I haven't looked since I quit, but I think being "hard to get" usually makes you more desirable rather than less.
- bobdvb 14y agoI think the O/P is just doing it wrong. I have a 100% complete profile on my LinkedIn and I have 770 connections, but I don't get spam, I do get the occasional recruiter or app development company wanting to sell me their services, but not so much that I would notice. But I am not in marketing, I am just a senior R&D guy. I have that many connections because I go out, meet people and remember to add them to my LinkedIn connections, plus I do accept 'random' connections from people who have mutual business interests with me (but not just anyone). The first thing to note is it isn't a social network like facebook, it is a business meeting place. It isn't just a recruitment tool it is a place to promote yourself and your organisation in a B2B context. I know some programmers who sit in their cubicle and have no interest in promoting themselves, fair enough, but I find it a valuable tool for meeting my peers. If I want to contact someone in another company then I can see who of my connections is linked to that organisation. If I need to keep track of where one of my contacts is then LinkedIn is useful for seeing job movements. I even connect to those dreaded recruiters, but only the ones I find relevant and the first time they offer me something offensively irrelevant I shoot them down quickly. Overall you get out what you put in to LinkedIn. It hasn't made me rich, but I am sure I get value from the time I put in.
- pknerd 14y agoSame here. 880+ connections and NO SPAM.
- fourstar 14y agoThen opt out. This happens on any social network in which you have a public profile that gets a lot of exposure. Hell, my brother who works at Google explicitly lists Google as his employer on his public G+ profile, and he's been added to thousands of peoples circles who he doesn't know. If you aren't interested, then there is an email preferences setting tab that you can easily customize what gets sent to your inbox (https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?trk=hb_acc https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?trk=hb_acc). LinkedIn is the only social network that I've had and will continue to keep, since it's focused on one thing -- professional networking.
- xpose2000 14y agoJust to recap over the past few months. We should quit Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. This effectively covers the top 4 social networks. I'm wondering what this says about us more than these companies. Maybe we are just burnt out with social networks in general? The author makes some valid points. I mainly use LinkedIn to get an overview about the person who is emailing me or just followed me on twitter. I find that to be pretty useful. As far as the recruiting emails. The more successful you are the more cold emails you get.
- corresation 14y agoJust to recap over the past few months. We should quit Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Don't forget quitting Google (that was front page yesterday). And of course caffeine, carbs, 8-hour sleeps, email, fructose, the office, the home, and on and on. While some of the "my silver bullet" posts seem to hold interesting perspectives, recently such pretense is gone and it is simply people clucking along.
- ricardobeat 14y agoWho cares? Turn all e-mails off, use it as a self-updating business contact list. Works great. btw, am I the only one who get's confused by these "I quit xxx" thinking it's a post by a former employee?
- chris24 14y agoYou're not the only one - I also initially thought this was going to be about a LinkedIn employee quitting.
- ghaff 14y agoThat's basically what I use LinkedIn for. Well, that, and occasionally looking up where someone or other works. I know it's "supposed" to be good for a whole lot more but my use is pretty limited. And, yes, I get mail I don't care about from LinkedIn. I could probably turn a lot of it off but I'm pretty good at ignoring lots of routine emails I get from lots of places.
- devsatish 14y agoLinkedIn is the best tool out there, as a software engineer, I was able to get all my recent jobs (last 5 years) only by LinkedIn and the premium membership is totally worth it. Make sure to have a good profile, good recommendations, and if you are not interested in job offers, mention it on your profile. LinkedIn is much more than a recruiting site. Prune useless connections (especially those who have LION 1000+ connections etc on their profile).
- dsowers 14y agoToday I just launched a new app that acts as a portfolio/resume for programmers and other people who build things. If you are unsatisfied with linkedin, maybe it's worth checking out: http://www.mycelial.com http://www.mycelial.com
- dsowers 14y agodiscussion happening here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5022075 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5022075
- zacharyz 14y agoIt looks good! I am not a huge fan of the name though.
- dsowers 14y agoThanks! This is my first big rails application. I'm kind of bummed that my show hn announcement died so quickly.
- justjimmy 14y agoThis is how I use LinkedIn: When I'm scoping out a position/company, I see who's on the team that I'll be working with ie: Design. Then I hopefully, there's a link to the blog/portfolio/Dribbble/Twitter. This is to get a sense of their work and style, though it doesn't have to match the style of the company itself, but you can an idea of experience of those people. Then I look at employee insights - which shows those who left the company recently. Again, I dig through till I find the ex designers. I also pay attention to the duration - ie: if the company are churning out alot of ex employees who stay no longer than 3 months, then I'd pay closer attention. And I never initiate contact though LinkedIn. Twitter, email is the way to go for me, which you can easily find as you dig through their profile. In short, I don't use LinkedIn to find jobs. I use it to find out more about the company, somewhat culture and its people. Also I do it all when I'm not logged in - it gives you more info when you're not logged vs logged in (they'll put up upgrade/pay walls). Really, really dumb.
- reinhardt 14y agoIn short, I don't use LinkedIn to find jobs. I use it to find out more about the company, somewhat culture and its people. Spot on. I use LinkedIn just like Twitter: 99% of the time I'm in read-only mode and with the privacy settings as locked down as possible.
- mtmoore55 14y agoAlso, in the iOS app, it shows you "Who's View You". Better log out before snooping around in those profiles.
- illuminate 14y agoI believe paid accounts can also see who's scoped you out.
- TY 14y agoOh boy. When has it become fashionable to quite X and announce it to the whole world? LinkedIn is just a tool - it's usefulness depends on what your current needs are. It's useless today and useful tomorrow. Just like any other tool - i.e. take hammers for example. Would it sound absurd for someone to announce that they quit hammers tomorrow? Does any of this make sense? - Yeah, hammer was really useful to me when I hanged that picture on the wall last year. Not so much any more, I should quit it! - I'm past hammers - electric drill with screws can do 90% of it does and for the 10% it does not I should really re-assess whether I'm doing the right thing in the first place. - I tried to make a cereal with a hammer this morning, but it did not work! WTF??? - I watched this movie where someone was killed with a hammer. What an evil tool, I should quit it as it stains my karma! - I don't use it any more, but every time I pass by the toolbox it reminds me that I still have it and I get this strong urge to get rid of it. It depresses me so much, that I want to throw away the whole box or move out of the house! Don't mean to be harsh on Cap Watkins, I'm just tired of reading this kind of posts. Oh wait, I know - I should quit the Internet!
- bad_user 14y agoI totally agree with you, but there's something here you're missing. When I joined LinkedIn, I did so because I wanted to keep in touch with people I worked with, like you know, a curated Facebook - which works well, because the people I worked with aren't necessarily interested in pictures of my baby boy or of me getting drunk this Holiday season and this goes both ways. Unfortunately LinkedIn failed and failed hard at being that kind of social network. Nowadays the only thing I receive in return for my membership is Spam from incompetent recruiters that don't even bother reading my profile, and no matter what I do I can't turn those emails off (a perk you get for paying them), which is why I simply flag all LinkedIn emails as Spam. I feel like LinkedIn missed a great opportunity here and now it's too late, their role being filled in my life by Twitter, GitHub, Google Groups and even Facebook.
- codegeek 14y ago"I wanted to keep in touch with people I worked with, like you know, a curated Facebook " I have used linkedin since its early days (06-07ish) along with facebook. I learnt that "keeping in touch with ppl" is quite different b/w fb which is personal vs. linkedin which is professional. fb is more engaging where u can share pictures, stories, wall posts, fun stuff whatever. But it is extremely difficult to keep oneself engaged on linkedin just to keep in touch. Other than sharing a status update and checking linked profiles, what else can you really do on linkedin actively? Thats why, if you try and use linkedin thinking along lines of facebook, you will fail. In my opinion and experience, linkedin is more effective about keeping track of who is who in the industry specfiically in industries/domains you are interested in. Lets say you found a job listing for a company somewhere. You can actually go to linkedin and try a search "Company xxx recruiter" or "company xxx talent aquisition" etc. You can probably get a result of actual recruiters who are on linkedin for that company. You can then try and reach out to them directly (through linkedin or whatever). Btw, I did this successfully once for a job posting that I was interested in and this possting was on the company's direct careers section. Insteaed of filling out "Apply now" crap, I found a direct recruiting contact in the division through some search skills on linkedin and called the guy directly. He was happy to talk to me since I was a good fit for the role. He said that the online application portal is probably going to reject me auto (dont ask why) and hence it was a good idea to find him.
- zalew 14y ago> When it started, LinkedIn was about connecting you and the people you know (and endorse) professionally. It was the answer to not wanting to add your boss on Facebook. LI launched before FB and years before FB opened to the public.
- ianstallings 14y agoThis title confused the hell out of me. I thought he/she was leaving a job at LinkedIn.
- telecuda 14y agoFor me, LinkedIn is immensely useful and worth the $50/mo premium subscription for InMail. I don't spam people, but when I want to reach a C_O or the Founder of [Insert Company], I find that nearly all of my InMails are answered - much higher than the rate of directly emailing that person. It's actually quite difficult in most industries to Google someone's email address, and if there's no profile/background attached to a simple Gmail like there is in LinkedIn, your message gets dumped that much faster.
- daemon13 14y agoEvery tool has its purpose and shall be used accordingly. LinkedIn - sold you to recruiters. OK, I got 1'000+ connections, most with the people I never met [80%?], but who heard about me, or we share connections, or work in similar fields [finance, multinational company, senior management, etc]. I mainly use LI as an extended address book and public CV. So any recruiter, who calls me, knows pretty much all about my skills / experience / etc. Got bunch of interviews through LI. Yep, quite often see some spammy stupid invitations to connect. So what? Just don't accept those. I login 2-3 times per month. Facebook - FB is a timekiller, so I log in 2-3 times per month to kill some time, exchange with people I know. Twitter - info flood, cutting access to API, sold you to advertisers, etc, etc. Sorry, never bothered to learn how to use it. Never made one tweet. Have no time for Twitter, since I am already using FB 2-3 times per month. To sum it all up - just understand how the tool can be useful for your needs and use accordingly. No overlap, don't use the tool or build your own.
- bicknergseng 14y agoWhile I'm sure many people would be happy to have Cap's problem, this seems easily fixable from LinkedIn's side. Simply allow people to filter or dial down who can message them. While it might hurt their InMessage product, it seems better to nerf that than to force people like Cap off the platform.
- pknerd 14y agoYou should expect this when you're part of a social network. First you join it free, you share your data which is ...then used to get bucks. What do you want? should not they earn money? I bet you will be doing same. Instead of complaining and wastint a few hundred bytes and CPU cycles and more important..your energy, you could simply delete account and move on. Expecting something extra ordinary personalize from a social network is nothing but day dreaming.
- michaelochurch 14y agoHere's my take on it (I didn't quit, and I don't get spam, but I think LinkedIn is taking the wrong approach: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/why-i-wiped-my-linkedin-profile/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/why-i-wiped-m...
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- debacle 14y agoMichael O Church of HN fame was the reason that I decided to dump LinkedIn. He pointed out that a stupid mistake in entering information on a site like LinkedIn can band you as a liar (even if the mistake was inadvertent) and give you no ability to correct yourself. It would be tantamount to sending out hundreds of resumes with a typo in your email address.
- rm999 14y agoThat's an inane reason to throw out something that MAY have value to you. You might as well as never send out a resume or CV because there may be a mistake. Or you could just double check your dates... it's not rocket science. I think Michael O Church may have more complex reasons to avoid linkedin.
- koko775 14y agoChris, you've jumped from Zoosk, to Formspring, to Amazon, to Etsy all in the period of two to three years. Maybe you've proven yourself resourceful enough at this point to not need the value it gives? (also, hi, former coworker!)
- eli_gottlieb 14y agoBut if I quit LinkedIn, what will be my honeypot for professional interviewing or recruiters, and where will I keep my long-form resume ;-)?
- laureny 14y agoAs much as I find LinkedIn's web site overloaded and hard to follow, unsubscribing from the emails is trivial. It's not just that they have a convenient "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom of the email, you can actually use that link even if 1) you're not currently logged in or 2) you are logged in as another user (I have several accounts). I give them credit for that.
- city41 14y agoI deleted my LinkedIn account about 1.5 years ago. I was getting hammered by recruiters constantly, and I felt like I needed to politely decline them all. After a while it got to to be too much so I just pulled the plug. That decision isn't without consequences. I've greatly reduced my possibilities for networking by doing this. If I had to do it over again, I probably would not have deleted my account. But, on the other hand, when I now get contacted by recruiters they find me through StackOverflow, github or my website; and thus they have infinitely better opportunities for me and generally seem to be higher caliber recruiters to boot.
- OGinparadise 14y ago"Quitting LinkedIn" I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the sun will still rise tomorrow, just as it rose when people "quit Facebook" ...Google, Twitter, iPhones or whatever.
- k3n 14y agoIMO if there's a single social network to worry about [going evil], it's LinkedIn. It's a phisher's wet dream right behind genealogy sites, and the data they have access to is worth magnitudes more than your run-of-the-mill "social" data. Sure, you can better target me for a small-time sale because you saw that I "liked" some nuanced TV show on FB, but that's chump change compared to having pretty much unfettered access to 1000's of executives....execs who write checks on a monthly basis that are larger than what most households spend in a year. There's also the worry that if they become a sort of de facto hiring platform, then we'll be forced to ante up for a premium membership in order to simply be considered for an interview. Warranted fears or not, I don't trust them and never will.
- jeffool 14y agoI often include a link to my profile in emails with the idea that if the person has or cares about it, they can see recommendations. If not, well, then hopefully it doesn't matter to them and it's not a negative. A few people have commented on it positively, not many. The vast majority seem oblivious. That's not overly surprising considering how many people in TV news seem to not be overly "techy". Usually something small, like: Here is my LinkedIn profile, with recommendations from previous coworkers: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jwbridges http://www.linkedin.com/in/jwbridges (I know, I need to re-write that summary pretty bad.) The only thing that leaves me scratching my head is that my profile is stuck at 90%. It asks me to fill in my current position, and describe my current position. I don't have one. You'd think a site focused around looking for jobs would have that as an option.
- codexnight 14y agoHonestly, I don't know why LinkedIn is so "cool".There is nothing innovative there.I knew it from the beginning.But awesome advertising wins.
- shawndrost 14y agoRefer to the following handy graph of "how useful linkedin is" vs "how much people want to talk to you": _ | _________ \ | / \ \ | / \ \|_______/ \_______ - 0 +
- seenxu 14y agoI'm another victim of linkedin's shameless mailing spam, I had disabled my account, but they still try to send me connect emails again and again, und you got no way to stop them...
- atul_wired 14y agoTitle of this post reminded me to checkout my linkedin account(after so long time).. :-)
- dgudkov 14y agoLinkedIn is the only one really useful social network for me. I got several times excellent jobs thanks to LinkedIn, my professional blog got good promotion via LinkedIn connections and I get orders for my product because of networking effect in LinkedIn.