9 ms·

I Finally Deleted my LinkedIn Account

71 points by renownedmedia 13y ago

general_failure 13y ago
+1 sir. Good devs need no stinking LinkedIn. Good recruitments happen through good contacts anyway.
kabdib 13y ago
I'm not on LinkedIn because of the recruiting. Most of the recruiting messages I've received have been either friendly (I tell them "No thanks, let's talk in a year or so") or so ham-handed and over the top that I've passed the howlers around. (The only time in 35 years that I found a job through a recruiter, it was a train wreck. I doubt the recruiters on LinkedIn are much different). I'm on LinkedIn because it's fun to find and talk to prior cow-orkers without involving the privacy catastrophe that is Facebook.
donretag 13y ago
I wish more recruiters actually used LinkedIn. I moved from NY almost two years ago, and I still get calls/emails for NY based positions. A quick glance at my LinkedIn profile will clearly show that I do not live in NY anymore. There is no magic behind LinkedIn. You are discoverable based on the amount of information you enter. Do not list skills or job descriptions (w/ buzzwords) and your hit rate will go down. Forget what LinkedIn suggests, your profile does not need to be 100% completed.
jmduke 13y ago
This seems like a silly post designed purely to preach to the "recruiters? Ha!" choir. There's literally zero downside to having a LinkedIn account. The emails are too annoying? Auto-archive them and send them to a 'Recruiting Spam' folder which you browse every few weeks (or never).
- prezjordan 13y ago
  Privacy concerns? Another company having a bunch of data on you including where you're from, where you went to school, and where you've worked? Disclaimer: I have a LinkedIn account, but I'm likely deleting it soon.
  - subway 13y ago
    Prior to using LinkedIn I, like many others, kept my resume on a publicly accessible website. For me this means there is zero downside to moving all that information to LinkedIn, and only upsides - While I haven't accepted any jobs that came my way via LinkedIn, I've learned about some interesting new companies I never would have been exposed to otherwise, and I now get some more useful metrics on who viewed my resume.
  - amirmc 13y ago
    All information you've explicitly disclosed to them yourself. If you'd complained about how much stuff companies like this infer about you then you'd have more of a case about privacy. e.g I've never given Facebook my phone number but I'm almost certain that FB already knows what it is since my friends have it in their address books. Address books which they've (perhaps unwittingly) handed over to countless companies. Even then, me leaving such services doesn't stop them from knowing things about me.
- eliasmacpherson 13y ago
  I would see friend requests from people you don't like on linked in as a downside. You don't want them to know you don't like them, yet you don't want to be 'linked' with them on linked in.
sergiotapia 13y ago
I owe my livelihood to both LinkedIn and my personal blog. Without either, I wouldn't have the great job I have at the moment; 100% remote work. I think deleting your LinkedIn account is a net loss, what's the downside of _having_ a LinkedIn account?
- popee 13y ago
  Well, remote job isn't exclusively connected to linkedin and personally i think that remote jobs are going to become more and more common with time. Linkedin is, mostly, useful for headhunters and people who want to sell themselves (which is totally legal, but it's personal choice). I've deleted my linkedin account and doing just fine with one important addition -> don't have to pump my ego on profile and live all that shit related to virtual narcissism. So, if you ask me, it's much better in mental sense.
  - sergiotapia 13y ago
    I don't know what you mean by 'better in a mental sense'. I have my LinkedIn account and log in at best every 2 months. I don't even realize when I have internal linkedin notifications. People contact me by email, not by linkedin.
- reinhardt 13y ago
  Do you have any tips about finding remote work on LinkedIn?
ghshephard 13y ago
I've never treated LinkedIn as anything but the modern corollary to a Rolodex. I happily deleted my Facebook account a couple years ago, but, at least once a month (if not more often) make good use of linked-in to track down the email address of a past coworker and/or see what they are up to these days.
ryguytilidie 13y ago
I'm a recruiter and I simply do not understand things like this. Sure, many of my colleagues have given us a reputation for being incompetent assholes. But many of my friends contact me the second they are looking for a new job because they know I like to help people out. Isn't pressing archive on a couple annoying emails worth meeting someone like that? When the market isn't so good, maybe people will stop thinking of these people as annoyances (though I understand 95% of them ARE worthless annoyances) and realize that these people can be a valuable tool to help them get a job. Hell, I don't charge for a single placement I make where it is a friend being placed. If a friend says "hey do you know a recruiter/hiring manager at place x? I'd like to work there." My answer is usually "yes" and they do. Call the people in the field annoying all you want, but I imagine someday people will realize they were being a bit immature with stuff like this. It's almost as if people need to pad their ego by bragging about how many of these annoying emails they get and then start doing things like writing blogs about how theyre deleting a useful tool because of it. Makes no sense to me.
- minimaxir 13y ago
  I believe the author was more annoyed by bad recruiter emails ("dinky little HTML and CSS job positions from recruiters who don’t understand any of the technology requirements") than recruiter emails in general. Unfortunately, there's no way to easily differentiate when reading an email subject header.
- poloniculmov 13y ago
  Keyword: Friend. Most recruiters don't do the effort to make developers feel that they're cared for and in good hands. Hell, lots of times they don't even read the CV, all they care is that you have the right buzzword there.
- mratzloff 13y ago
  The problem is, as you say, 95% of tech recruiters are utterly incompetent, and even the good ones don't have a firm grasp of specific technologies. I once had a conversation with a recruiter that went like this: "I see you're very qualified for this senior back-end position I have. Do you know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript?" "I do, but those are front-end technologies, and I'm not interested in a front-end job at this time. Thanks, anyway." "No, this is a back-end job." "I think you have the definition of front-end and back-end switched around." "You know, I'm looking at your résumé again and I think maybe you're under qualified for this role. I have a junior position..." "Goodbye." (click) ---- It's not just the emails. It's the constant phone calls, too. Software developers get tired of talking to "air-quote recruiters", e.g., "Are you familiar with... 'Hadoop'?" I understand these guys aren't going to be experts, but given that most positions are found through referrals, some tech people just feel like it's not worth the hassle.
chrislaco 13y ago
Funny. I simply put "I'm not interested in recruiters or open positions at this time. I will mark them as spam." at the top of my profile. The spam connection request have stopped completely. I used to have this in my 'how to contact me" spot in the profile, but LinkedIn failed to surface that section correctly in the public profile. Half of this is their fault.
- mindcrime 13y ago
  I have a similar blurb in my profile, although I don't go as far as saying "I'll mark them as spam". But I have a very explicit section, labeled "NOTE TO RECRUITERS I am NOT interested in ..." in there. With that, I do still get a few recruiter contacts every now and then, but it's just a trickle.
exratione 13y ago
I don't have a LinkedIn account because I don't think that any social network's management can be trusted over the mid to long term on matters relating to privacy, etc. LinkedIn is better than others so far, but the incentives do not align. Yet I still get a not insignificant amount of spam connection requests.
- endianswap 13y ago
  Then don't give LinkedIn any information that you wouldn't want becoming public? The tool is just as useful with just your résumé transcribed into their system as it is with that plus a bunch of your secrets.
coopdog 13y ago
In an ideal world when it comes time to look for a new role you'd browse all the companies with positions open. It's frustrating though, that many, many companies don't advertise the positions because the effort of sorting through thousands of replies is too much, so they outsource that by going through a recruiter. The recruiters though are typically inexperienced due to high churn rate, so it's almost random luck that you'd get a good fit for a job interview, particularly if they lie to both you and the employer before the interview to make it seem like there's a fit. It's definitely inefficient, what's the solution here?
- praptak 13y ago
  Networking. Funny enough, LinkedIn is a pretty decent tool for that. I got my current job by contacting a friend here and I would not know I have a contact here without having found that via LI. It's a self-updating rolodex for me.
windsurfer 13y ago
I honestly don't get spammed by these recruiters. What's the difference between my account and all these other people who are getting "spammed"?
- renownedmedia 13y ago
  We probably throw way too many acronyms in there that don't need to be mentioned (e.g. HTML and CSS).
city41 13y ago
You will find you still get LinkedIn invites from recruiters. And LinkedIn will send you a "reminder" email about the invitation every couple of weeks. Still don't understand why LinkedIn feels it needs to be so slimy.
futhey 13y ago
We have a stupid amount in common, sent you an email with a question about something. I promise I'm not a recruiter.
peejaybee 13y ago
The "I tried to call you" e-mail brings me to my tangential pet peeve: why can't more recruiters do more of their business by e-mail? Seriously, if you want to chat with me on a matter that I'm going to need discretion in (like, say, leaving the company that owns the cubicles) we're going to have to arrange a time in advance. That's a lot of effort to find out that my skills are a poor match for the position, or (as happens a lot) that I've already been talking to your client.
thoughtcriminal 13y ago
Curious: what sites are alternatives to LinkedIn? Who is LinkedIn's competition?
- sdfjkl 13y ago
  There's xing.com (formerly OpenBC), which is very popular in Germany.
coherentpony 13y ago
I deleted my LinkedIn account and I still get emails from them. LinkedIn, I beg of you, please leave me alone.
eddieroger 13y ago
My presence on LinkedIn got me my last two jobs, and LinkedIn wasn't a thing when I started my first. This last job was through one of these cold-emails through a recruiter. As it has been said by other commenters, it's really what you make of it. I treat LinkedIn as a professional version of Facebook that I actually take care to prune, which really just makes it a glorified Rolodex. It's also worth noting that you don't even have to be notified of all these bothersome emails, let alone reply to them, and can clearly indicate whether or not you wish to be contacted about work (granted, that can be ignored, but the good ones won't).

71 points by renownedmedia 13y ago

+1 sir. Good devs need no stinking LinkedIn. Good recruitments happen through good contacts anyway.

I'm not on LinkedIn because of the recruiting. Most of the recruiting messages I've received have been either friendly (I tell them "No thanks, let's talk in a year or so") or so ham-handed and over the top that I've passed the howlers around. (The only time in 35 years that I found a job through a recruiter, it was a train wreck. I doubt the recruiters on LinkedIn are much different). I'm on LinkedIn because it's fun to find and talk to prior cow-orkers without involving the privacy catastrophe that is Facebook.

donretag 13y ago

I wish more recruiters actually used LinkedIn. I moved from NY almost two years ago, and I still get calls/emails for NY based positions. A quick glance at my LinkedIn profile will clearly show that I do not live in NY anymore. There is no magic behind LinkedIn. You are discoverable based on the amount of information you enter. Do not list skills or job descriptions (w/ buzzwords) and your hit rate will go down. Forget what LinkedIn suggests, your profile does not need to be 100% completed.

jmduke 13y ago

This seems like a silly post designed purely to preach to the "recruiters? Ha!" choir. There's literally zero downside to having a LinkedIn account. The emails are too annoying? Auto-archive them and send them to a 'Recruiting Spam' folder which you browse every few weeks (or never).

prezjordan 13y ago
Privacy concerns? Another company having a bunch of data on you including where you're from, where you went to school, and where you've worked? Disclaimer: I have a LinkedIn account, but I'm likely deleting it soon.
- subway 13y ago
  Prior to using LinkedIn I, like many others, kept my resume on a publicly accessible website. For me this means there is zero downside to moving all that information to LinkedIn, and only upsides - While I haven't accepted any jobs that came my way via LinkedIn, I've learned about some interesting new companies I never would have been exposed to otherwise, and I now get some more useful metrics on who viewed my resume.
- amirmc 13y ago
  All information you've explicitly disclosed to them yourself. If you'd complained about how much stuff companies like this infer about you then you'd have more of a case about privacy. e.g I've never given Facebook my phone number but I'm almost certain that FB already knows what it is since my friends have it in their address books. Address books which they've (perhaps unwittingly) handed over to countless companies. Even then, me leaving such services doesn't stop them from knowing things about me.
eliasmacpherson 13y ago
I would see friend requests from people you don't like on linked in as a downside. You don't want them to know you don't like them, yet you don't want to be 'linked' with them on linked in.

sergiotapia 13y ago

I owe my livelihood to both LinkedIn and my personal blog. Without either, I wouldn't have the great job I have at the moment; 100% remote work. I think deleting your LinkedIn account is a net loss, what's the downside of _having_ a LinkedIn account?

popee 13y ago
Well, remote job isn't exclusively connected to linkedin and personally i think that remote jobs are going to become more and more common with time. Linkedin is, mostly, useful for headhunters and people who want to sell themselves (which is totally legal, but it's personal choice). I've deleted my linkedin account and doing just fine with one important addition -> don't have to pump my ego on profile and live all that shit related to virtual narcissism. So, if you ask me, it's much better in mental sense.
- sergiotapia 13y ago
  I don't know what you mean by 'better in a mental sense'. I have my LinkedIn account and log in at best every 2 months. I don't even realize when I have internal linkedin notifications. People contact me by email, not by linkedin.
reinhardt 13y ago
Do you have any tips about finding remote work on LinkedIn?

ghshephard 13y ago

I've never treated LinkedIn as anything but the modern corollary to a Rolodex. I happily deleted my Facebook account a couple years ago, but, at least once a month (if not more often) make good use of linked-in to track down the email address of a past coworker and/or see what they are up to these days.

ryguytilidie 13y ago

I'm a recruiter and I simply do not understand things like this. Sure, many of my colleagues have given us a reputation for being incompetent assholes. But many of my friends contact me the second they are looking for a new job because they know I like to help people out. Isn't pressing archive on a couple annoying emails worth meeting someone like that? When the market isn't so good, maybe people will stop thinking of these people as annoyances (though I understand 95% of them ARE worthless annoyances) and realize that these people can be a valuable tool to help them get a job. Hell, I don't charge for a single placement I make where it is a friend being placed. If a friend says "hey do you know a recruiter/hiring manager at place x? I'd like to work there." My answer is usually "yes" and they do. Call the people in the field annoying all you want, but I imagine someday people will realize they were being a bit immature with stuff like this. It's almost as if people need to pad their ego by bragging about how many of these annoying emails they get and then start doing things like writing blogs about how theyre deleting a useful tool because of it. Makes no sense to me.

minimaxir 13y ago
I believe the author was more annoyed by bad recruiter emails ("dinky little HTML and CSS job positions from recruiters who don’t understand any of the technology requirements") than recruiter emails in general. Unfortunately, there's no way to easily differentiate when reading an email subject header.
poloniculmov 13y ago
Keyword: Friend. Most recruiters don't do the effort to make developers feel that they're cared for and in good hands. Hell, lots of times they don't even read the CV, all they care is that you have the right buzzword there.
mratzloff 13y ago
The problem is, as you say, 95% of tech recruiters are utterly incompetent, and even the good ones don't have a firm grasp of specific technologies. I once had a conversation with a recruiter that went like this: "I see you're very qualified for this senior back-end position I have. Do you know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript?" "I do, but those are front-end technologies, and I'm not interested in a front-end job at this time. Thanks, anyway." "No, this is a back-end job." "I think you have the definition of front-end and back-end switched around." "You know, I'm looking at your résumé again and I think maybe you're under qualified for this role. I have a junior position..." "Goodbye." (click) ---- It's not just the emails. It's the constant phone calls, too. Software developers get tired of talking to "air-quote recruiters", e.g., "Are you familiar with... 'Hadoop'?" I understand these guys aren't going to be experts, but given that most positions are found through referrals, some tech people just feel like it's not worth the hassle.

chrislaco 13y ago

Funny. I simply put "I'm not interested in recruiters or open positions at this time. I will mark them as spam." at the top of my profile. The spam connection request have stopped completely. I used to have this in my 'how to contact me" spot in the profile, but LinkedIn failed to surface that section correctly in the public profile. Half of this is their fault.

mindcrime 13y ago
I have a similar blurb in my profile, although I don't go as far as saying "I'll mark them as spam". But I have a very explicit section, labeled "NOTE TO RECRUITERS I am NOT interested in ..." in there. With that, I do still get a few recruiter contacts every now and then, but it's just a trickle.

exratione 13y ago

I don't have a LinkedIn account because I don't think that any social network's management can be trusted over the mid to long term on matters relating to privacy, etc. LinkedIn is better than others so far, but the incentives do not align. Yet I still get a not insignificant amount of spam connection requests.

endianswap 13y ago
Then don't give LinkedIn any information that you wouldn't want becoming public? The tool is just as useful with just your résumé transcribed into their system as it is with that plus a bunch of your secrets.

coopdog 13y ago

In an ideal world when it comes time to look for a new role you'd browse all the companies with positions open. It's frustrating though, that many, many companies don't advertise the positions because the effort of sorting through thousands of replies is too much, so they outsource that by going through a recruiter. The recruiters though are typically inexperienced due to high churn rate, so it's almost random luck that you'd get a good fit for a job interview, particularly if they lie to both you and the employer before the interview to make it seem like there's a fit. It's definitely inefficient, what's the solution here?

praptak 13y ago
Networking. Funny enough, LinkedIn is a pretty decent tool for that. I got my current job by contacting a friend here and I would not know I have a contact here without having found that via LI. It's a self-updating rolodex for me.

windsurfer 13y ago

I honestly don't get spammed by these recruiters. What's the difference between my account and all these other people who are getting "spammed"?

renownedmedia 13y ago
We probably throw way too many acronyms in there that don't need to be mentioned (e.g. HTML and CSS).

city41 13y ago

You will find you still get LinkedIn invites from recruiters. And LinkedIn will send you a "reminder" email about the invitation every couple of weeks. Still don't understand why LinkedIn feels it needs to be so slimy.

futhey 13y ago

We have a stupid amount in common, sent you an email with a question about something. I promise I'm not a recruiter.

peejaybee 13y ago

The "I tried to call you" e-mail brings me to my tangential pet peeve: why can't more recruiters do more of their business by e-mail? Seriously, if you want to chat with me on a matter that I'm going to need discretion in (like, say, leaving the company that owns the cubicles) we're going to have to arrange a time in advance. That's a lot of effort to find out that my skills are a poor match for the position, or (as happens a lot) that I've already been talking to your client.

thoughtcriminal 13y ago

Curious: what sites are alternatives to LinkedIn? Who is LinkedIn's competition?

sdfjkl 13y ago
There's xing.com (formerly OpenBC), which is very popular in Germany.

coherentpony 13y ago

I deleted my LinkedIn account and I still get emails from them. LinkedIn, I beg of you, please leave me alone.

eddieroger 13y ago

My presence on LinkedIn got me my last two jobs, and LinkedIn wasn't a thing when I started my first. This last job was through one of these cold-emails through a recruiter. As it has been said by other commenters, it's really what you make of it. I treat LinkedIn as a professional version of Facebook that I actually take care to prune, which really just makes it a glorified Rolodex. It's also worth noting that you don't even have to be notified of all these bothersome emails, let alone reply to them, and can clearly indicate whether or not you wish to be contacted about work (granted, that can be ignored, but the good ones won't).