Is LinkedIn worth keeping?

[hans]

I am genuinely wondering why I'm still on LinkedIn and if I should keep it. The feed page is like Facebook nowadays. Lots of circlejerk, plain commercial advertisements, etc. Maybe its great for "public speakers" or sales people to get a kick from their delusional circle of influence.. (they appear as "recommended" from nowhere) but to me plain social media garbage. For this reason I ditched Facebook about 10 years ago. I also don't like my data being in the hands of a large corporation.

However, in contrast to Facebook, to me I perceive LinkedIn to have some value from e.g. network connections, jobs section or heck.. try to play a game with recruiters to snatch a better deal. However are these points really worth it vs the cons?

It's not like I'm chatting with my professional network on a daily basis. In reality, it never happens spontaneousely..

The recruiters are a hassle. Some random kid straight from corporate BS school with zero people knowledge.. giving sparse details on a job that probably doesn't exists.. in the wrong area.. the wrong industry.. the wrong pay.. only to catch a commision. Their 2nd InMail always asks for a phone number so they can keep on bugging you for years to come.

So that leaves only the jobs search section of their website. But I wonder if that's really a high enough USP against competing vacancy sites.. or doing my own scouting for interesting companies/jobs and applying directly instead.

I wonder what guys think?

[madires]

LinkedIn is great for training SPAM filters. They had so many data scraping incidents that my email address should be on most address lists. This is the only good thing about them, seriously. As with other social media platforms there's also scam and foreign intelligence services looking for opportunities. It might be useful for finding a new job, but be careful.

[bd139]

https://old.reddit.com/r/LinkedInLunatics/

[tggzzz]

I joined linkedin when it first appeared. Seemed like a good idea.

Then acquaintances started to repeatedly request that I "recommend them". Er no. "Recommendation" implies more than "have talked to them on the phone".

I left pretty soon afterwards.

I've recently rejoined to see what's happened to colleagues who have now retired. I get a lot of spam from "people" (and I use that term loosely) advertising things/themselves.

Only tolerable since it is easy to train spamfilters

[tom66]

I maintain a LinkedIn account but rarely contribute.

I have gotten all of my previous jobs through the platform, besides the very first one, so I regard it as being useful from that end, but it is mostly recruiter spam these days.

[Stray Electron]

  I never joined.

   X2.  SHORT answer to OP:  No! 

   Linkedin is about as useful as Change.Org; it only exists to collect your personal data.

[tszaboo]

I got my last 2 jobs from contacts/headhunters on linkedin, and both time I got a salary bump.
If I scale those raises for the next 20 years, then my linkedin page has about the same monetary value as an asset as my house.

[Gyro]

LinkedIn, like many good things, started very well but eventually switched to sh*t. Most thing purchased by Microsoft also switch to sh*t. I suspect there's probably a link there.

I used to use LinkedIn extensively to keep in touch with old contacts and seeing what they were up to. I never got a job directly through LinkedIn but several through contacts (I think the statistics still say that most engineering jobs happen through contacts). I signed up early but left some time around 2018 when it no longer made sense for me.

[joeqsmith]

I just looked it up and sure enough, they are owned by Microsoft.  Like most things I don't care about, I had no idea.   Because I attempt to block all known Microsoft traffic, I thought I would try to go to their main page:

The connection has timed out

An error occurred during a connection to www.linkedin.com.

    The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments.
    If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer’s network connection.
    If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

[floobydust]

LinkedIn is shit - Microsoft inept at running it. No Electronics Engineering as a profession, antique categories.
Same old same old algorithm- repeatedly asking you if you want to connect with people from companies you have previously worked for, including the assholes.
Someone viewed your profile, you were in a search hit!!!! Have to bounce, redirect, log in to see who or what, or just pay for premium. It's so childish. Are we in jr. high?

I'm told the site is much better, more menus and options appear when using Microsoft's Edge browser. One peer has that browser installed only for using LinkedIn.
I was surprised stay at home moms are struggling to use the site- which is all built around what corporation you are working for right now. Officially unemployed category moms are not really understood by the website.

[aeberbach]

LinkedIn started out in a deceitful spammy way, requesting access to your local computer's contacts database and then sending email to all those contacts to join LinkedIn. It's the original WhatsApp. I do not find anything there that is at all useful most times and do not care for the profile-boosting and endless "I wholly agree" that is most of the site's content.

However... I have gotten (good!) jobs through LinkedIn. I'd say keep it but don't bother with it unless you're looking for something specific.

[Halcyon]

I hate social media, but to Linkedin's credit, I found my current job on Linkedin (it wasn't advertised anywhere else).

For certain industries it can be very useful.

[artag]

I joined some years ago, dumped it when they started to get a reputation for spam and worthless recommendations.
Haven't missed it.

IMHO personal contacts and scouting are the best ways to find a job. The vacancy websites are just full of recruiter spam jobs which always turn out to be filled when you ask. They just want you on their database and won't make an effort to find things quickly.

[hans]

Okay then, so probably my best bet is to ignore the feed, InMail spam (you can turn that off), don't add recruiters as contacts, and only log on when I need something done.

I've now hibernated my account to see if I will use it in the future. I'm actually going to jobhunt within now and a year probably, so lets see if I can do it without.. That would be final nail for me, as my gut feeling is still to get rid of it but only if that's to no (real) disadvantage

[mendip_discovery]

I initially thought of it as a Facebook for work related stuff. So you could make use of the contacts you have at work and not have them see the crazy stuff you get up to at the weekend.

I avoid it mostly as it wants to be a job advertising website and is infested with agencies trying to sell me a job that I left years ago.

[coppice]

LinkedIn started out as a spam machine. At one point over half of all the spam being filtered from my in boxes was from LinkedIn, and that was a LOT. I have never been able to take such scumbags seriously as a service provider.

[tszaboo]

I initially thought of it as a Facebook for work related stuff. So you could make use of the contacts you have at work and not have them see the crazy stuff you get up to at the weekend.

I avoid it mostly as it wants to be a job advertising website and is infested with agencies trying to sell me a job that I left years ago.

Some of the headhunters are completely useless. I had one that cold called me on my work phone to try to poach me. I was sitting 1.5m from my boss. Another one sent me a job profile, that "I would be a good match", that I wrote because it was an opening in my engineering department. But there are also good agents and postings on it.

[coppice]

I joined some years ago, dumped it when they started to get a reputation for spam and worthless recommendations.

You must have missed something, since they started out as a spam machine on day one. They used to do really sleazy things like harvest email addresses of professional people, and cross send invites to join like sending you "Your buddy Joe Blogs in on LinkedIn, and has invited you to join" while sending Joe Blogs the same invite claiming you were on LinkedIn.

[schmitt trigger]

I initially thought of it as a Facebook for work related stuff. So you could make use of the contacts you have at work and not have them see the crazy stuff you get up to at the weekend.

I avoid it mostly as it wants to be a job advertising website and is infested with agencies trying to sell me a job that I left years ago.

Exactly my perception.
I did get a couple of job interviews about 15 years ago. But nowadays it is more of a nuisance.
I allowed my password to expire and never renewed it.

[mendip_discovery]

l

You must have missed something, since they started out as a spam machine on day one. They used to do really sleazy things like harvest email addresses of professional people, and cross send invites to join like sending you "Your buddy Joe Blogs in on LinkedIn, and has invited you to join" while sending Joe Blogs the same invite claiming you were on LinkedIn.

That is how 90% of the internet worked back then. Facebook was no better. Remember a few years back everyone was sharing the next PayPal thing.

[coppice]

l

You must have missed something, since they started out as a spam machine on day one. They used to do really sleazy things like harvest email addresses of professional people, and cross send invites to join like sending you "Your buddy Joe Blogs in on LinkedIn, and has invited you to join" while sending Joe Blogs the same invite claiming you were on LinkedIn.

That is how 90% of the internet worked back then. Facebook was no better. Remember a few years back everyone was sharing the next PayPal thing.

Sure, but Facebook never tried to present itself as a professional service for professional people. Facebook and its ilk just washed over me, but I learned to despise LinkedIn. I had to sift through so may semi-plausible messages that I actually had to read through before confirming someone wasn't trying to meaningfully contact me over something professional.

[mendip_discovery]

I go in there every now and then to just laugh at the corporate head shots they have. Some of course have cool pictures, as they are way too cool for school, you know picture of them and their midlife crisis.

EDIT: For a laugh, I logged in on a private tab, and within a few scrolls past the adverts, a message/bot popped up asking if I was looking for a job. Feck me it's 9 adverts and maybe an odd post by someone I know. Its really not worth it.

[bd139]

I get the same auto generated crap in my corporate drone inbox. Absolute garbage most of it.

If you want work it's about who you know and keep on contact with, not who reaches out to you anonymously. "Oh I know a guy" is much better than "we need to hire a recruiter" for every org.

[tggzzz]

... not who reaches out to you anonymously...

Anyone who "reaches out" to me gets a tart request to stop being creepy and keep their hands to themselves.

[SiliconWizard]

I initially thought of it as a Facebook for work related stuff. So you could make use of the contacts you have at work and not have them see the crazy stuff you get up to at the weekend.

I avoid it mostly as it wants to be a job advertising website and is infested with agencies trying to sell me a job that I left years ago.

Some of the headhunters are completely useless. I had one that cold called me on my work phone to try to poach me. I was sitting 1.5m from my boss.

I've had a headhunter call me at my workplace too, company phone! - which I thought was pretty dumb.