Okay, let's talk about linkedin

cause the only ilx posts are mostly tombot and jon slamming it.
I finally caved and joined over the weekend and got over 200 "Associates" in like two days. Several people gave me the "this website will change your life" spiel.
Stories, experiences, lolz, general scoffing?

I don't get it all.

Every so often, another co-worker or former co-worker invites me to link in and I do. And there you go.

The only reason I keep it is the feeling that well, if I ever do need to get a hold of Bryce from Sales at the old place again, I've got a way to do it.

Otherwise, it's facebook without the crap, which is okay in my book.

I'd use it if I had confidence the right kind of contacts in my circles of work also used it - which I have a feeling they wouldnt. It strikes me as more a tool that sales and HR/accounting/finance types who like to "network" would use.

And anyway, my work circles all pass jobs round by word of mouth on forums and usenet and things.

amount of activity on linkedin (in my network anyway) has increased steadily in last few months, for obv reasons. also i know several ppl who've been approached by recruiters on it - seems the more 'complete' your profile is the more likely that is to happen. if i was looking for a job right now i'd be all over it.

I'm there because I'm worried that it hurts me somehow not to be.

Actually, I just started another profile, because my old one was apparently under an email addy that no longer exists. What a pain.

BUT it was the second result if you google my name, so there ought to be SOMETHING there, right? Especially as I cannot delete the old profile.

this isn't how people get jobs.

I suspect not. But I at least want to google well.

It's been useful to me - I got two consulting contracts within a few weeks of signing up. Mostly though I look at it as a way to see where I don't want to work - if the underhanded hr person from the last place lands somewhere, if the batshit IT guy goes somewhere else, etc.

Whiney: actually, the director of group sales in my office was hired because my boss grabbed her of linkedin. She's the person that talked me into joining base on that.

baseD

I love that they deliberately design the site to look like a bad PowerPoint presentation.

People I know who want nothing personal about themselves on the Internet use the site quite a bit.

Apparently this has taken off around Portland(and elsewhere) and folks now use it more than Craigslist.

That being said, I could use more links to folks. If you're on it, plz to invite my gmail acct, name is j d s a l m o n.

How do you use linkedin like facebook? I've got a lawnmower I'm trying to get rid of.

my resume is in Word, and when i try to upload it I get "plz put yr resume in Word."

Yeah, I tried to do the upload thing and got the same response. Had to do yet another manually entered deal.

As for getting rid of a lawnmower, I figure you can do a status update for that, or find the discussion section of a local group.

i think it's used more than craigslist FOR JOBs, not selling stuff.
I got a job via linked in (from a recruiter); it was horrible and ended badly. But it's still a useful enough tool for congregating all the people you used to work with together in a more professional place than facebook, where you should be allowed to act like a fool.

Pruning off unneeded social-whatever sites and I'm trying to come up with a compelling reason to keep my LinkedIn account.

World conquest?

Isn't it for getting a job?

I had a guy contact me last week about a potential contract (meeting on Friday), and had a random person send me a link to a pertinent govt rfp a month or two before that (out of my league, but garnered me a few new contacts), so it still seems worth it to me.

culture war

job/networky stuff

is this website worth shit? i made a profile to feel better about myself

NO imo

but you'll end up having a profile there

but the person who made this site is a genius:

-copy facebook and remove all the fun features

-get people to sign up for free

-sell it as a "service" to gullible businesses desperate to blow money on things

so i shouldn't be all sending a link to this instead of an actual resume or anything

NO
but do go ahead and do it. i do know people who've been hired off it.

i mean people with more experience job searching recently than me should answer but no i don't think so

alright, word

possibly depends what kind of job you're after, some of the senior managers at my old political consultancy job used it (and i can't imagine them using fbook at all, certainly not for work purposes). i haven't signed in since i signed up though. obviously in the media twitter and facebook have been lots more useful.

Depends on your location. There are great ways to use it to find a job or contacts. I talked to an alumni of my engineering school who just told me that anybody I found connected to him thru his workplace to ask him about them, and he'd hook me up.

LI can help you build your list of targeted companies, and see what the industry hubbub is for whichever flavor you're in or what to be in.

A local career coach I know swears by it, and has posted several bits about using it effectively: http://careerenlightenment.net/category/linkedin-tips

They post jobs on LI that arent' listed elsewhere online.

Also, it's really funny to see what inappropriate rightwing/libertarian screeds get copy/pasted into the general purpose alumni groups.

And for anybody who hasn't connected with me on LI, here's my profile, and my email addr is listed upthread:

http://bit.ly/YNdzi

reposted from the other thread:

whoa! LinkedIn is actually useful! After spotting a job listing, I was able to find the name of the HR/tech recruiter lady at this laser place by looking up the company's local site, then checking the titles of employees currently listing themselves as working there.

I now have the name, phone number, and company email of an actual human!

Now, what to do with this information....

So I received my first "please endorse my work at ---------" from a friend who uses LinkedIn a lot. Grounds for immediate unfriending/deletion?

Uh, maybe I'm in the minority here, but I don't think theres anything wrong with that request, assuming your in a position to accurately talk about their work.

I am, but it was from something 7-8 years ago and unsolicited. Just struck me kinda funny.

Peeps be needing love.

i don't see a problem with it, if you've worked with the person and they deserve it.

heh - actually my only endorsement is from another ilxer!

My brother sent me an endorsement request, which maybe would have been okay if I'd ever actually worked with him. But yeah, friends and family - I'm not going to endorse you if I don't have firsthand experience with your work. Otherwise, it's a fair request.

Thermo, I get compliments on that logo all the time btw.

cool!

i just got laid off - so if any of said complimentors are in need of a designer, i'm available!

my condolences, thinwall ... :-(

nothing wrong w/ LinkedIn recommendations -- though certain professions (i.e., mine) don't look too kindly on LinkedIn recommendations.

why's that? you're in law iirc?

it depends state by state, but the folks who govern attorney advertising don't like anything that *MAY* be misleading to the public. so they frown on client testimonials (which, at least in NJ, is what a linkedin recommendation is likened to), or certain designations like "SuperLawyer" (which is from an outside non-bar affiliated company). it is very behind-the-times, i know, and it doesn't even make a lot of sense to a lot of lawyers (especially if, as may be the case of linkedin recommendations, the recommendation wasn't solicited by the lawyer).

Thinking of signing up.

Gotta say I just wanna keep in touch with a couple of people I have recently stopped working with, etc. seems like a way (as said above) to aggregate, but I'm wondering whether its useful in London?

I am doing this now, but I haven't really put much detail in my profile. Seems at least worth being on there and makes me feel better about leaving Facebook, which I secretly suspect might actually be better for this kind of networking, but has too much crap/weird family on it , and can be compelling in a bad way, whereas I'm never going to spend much of my day procrastinating on LinkedIn. I have ILX for that

Ugh maybe I should just go back on FB, I did actually get a few jobs thanks to some timely status updates

ILTMI?

your mom is the worstwebsiteontheinternet.com

― buzza, Monday, November 15, 2010 12:19 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

my shameful secret revealed

she didn't even bother to renew her domain name registration

is this your mom?

http://htmlgiant.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/expired-domain.png

Networking is great

Went to a goodbye lunch for a coworker last week who revealed he got head-hunted off LinkedIn. Later that afternoon, I got a dozen "join my network" requests from other people in the department.

R•••• B••••••• has an updated current title: Self taught Eco-Psychological Logo Therapist at Eco-Psycho

keeps recommending "connections" with several former colleagues who hate my guts LOL

has anyone actually gotten a job from this site?

I know loads of people who have.

They keep sending me an email with the subject INTERNET HEADLINES.

does it matter if your picture looks good

I had a supplemental insurance salesman call me this week out of the blue, wanting to know if we could get together and talk about Roth plans. I was polite and heard him out before asking where he got my number to cold-call. He said he knew two dudes I used to work with and handled their investments, so he wondered if he could manage mine too.

It didn't seem that much like a telemarketing call since he said he knew those guys, used the name I use in everyday life and not the government name from the phone book and called me at work instead of at home. But it wasn't until I got his linkedin invitation that I realized, goddammit, this guy was probably cold-calling every friend of a friend he had on there.

He went about it "the right way" and all. It's what linkedin is for anyway, right? I still felt like I was being stalked a bit. I wonder if I accepted his linkedin invitation, if my co-workers would suddenly be asking me, "Hey, who's this guy from Northwestern Insurance?"

Anyway. Keep your friends close, but your friends of friends closer.

I was thinking about closing my linkedin account

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnCbRMBfBW0

hahaaa hadn't seen that one

don't close it now I've just joined this! :-)

link w/ me and let us fly

It's what linkedin is for anyway, right?

Ugh, no, and if I end up getting cold-called from being on there, I'd report whoever contacted me and quit. The "right way" is to get introduced via a connection, not to call people at work just because you can see where they work and their title in their profile.

recruiters contact me constantly via linkedin, but usually only via emails. the worst though was one guy who started calling me at work; he had called the front desk to find out my extention. He called me four or five times, even after I told him to knock it off.

i just closed my account an hour ago. I got nothing from the site in the past 4 years except recruiter spam and threats of my CV being leaked to everyone.

Mostly though I look at it as a way to see where I don't want to work - if the underhanded hr person from the last place lands somewhere, if the batshit IT guy goes somewhere else, etc.

So OTM. And you can still look at most profiles of ex-batshit coworkers without an account, if their profile visibility isn't changed.

massive password leak is the word

This whole endorsement thing is lol. My aunt just endorsed me for "securities regulation." "Oh that hurting, even when he was a little boy, he had such a talent for securities regulation!"

Is this worth doing tho?

haha, first time I got one of these I was like, "oh, how nice of him!" then I logged in and saw that in your profile screen it shows you some of your contacts with buttons below of what you can endorse them with. it's on par with clicking "like" on someone's facebook post.

Seriously. What employer is going to look at someone's linkedin account and go "Oh my, look at all of his ENDORSEMENTS."

And wait, let me post this to save you some time:

What employer is going to look at someone's linkedin account and go "Oh my, look at all of his ENDORSEMENTS."

xp linkedin's sorta useful. i've gotten hit up by some fortune 500 recruiters through the site.

I use linkedIn a lot to both find and screen candidates. Endorsements are valueless because of the way they are handled.

i got headhunted by a recruiter a month or so ago for a position that was actually in my weird niche area, didn't get the job but got two interviews for it and it would have paid a fair amount more than what i make, so it seems like it makes sense to at least have a profile and keep it up to date. i almost never actually log into it though.

I wish there was a way you can not post endorsements to your profile? Because I keep getting them and I think they make me look awful.

Ok good info thks

people keep endorsing me for shit i don't want to do

the great pigeonholing of 2013

I'm considering signing up for this since I have hopes it will help me a lot in getting a job, but I don't feel good about putting my CV stuff up online - like, I'm shy, vain, I've said so many negative things abt Linkedin etc etc

when I finally gave in to Tinder (where I had had similar reservations) turned out the app did nothing for me

is it true what they say abt linkedin, will it really really help me get a good job or is it not much different from an online resume?

LOL @ the comparison.

Depends on what industry you work in.

Some companies only recruit through LinkedIn so it makes sense to at least have an account. You don't necessarily have to have a full CV up, just your work history and qualifications. You can sign up to alerts from areas you are interested in.

I get lots of proactive enquiries from recruiters asking me to apply for their stuff.

What type of job are you looking for? How do you feel about your resume?

i get a lot of calls via linked in - i know people who've got some great jobs via linkedin - i'd say if you work in anything remotely related to tech then you should be on it.

Cool. I have a masters degree in literature and I'm still looking for my first "real" job. Did an internship as high school teacher, had part time work during studies at a music library, currently working full time in a webshop selling hifi equipment.

Very uncertain what the future holds for me, have been applying for teaching positions, jobs in "communication", administration, anything related to India among others.

Wish I knew what I wanted to do with my (work-)life so I could put in more of a focused effort.

So I don't feel great about my resume but not terrible either.

Is linking up with former colleagues/bosses/teachers for LinkedIn-props a big part of the site and is it all very gamified or am I way off in thinking this and should I sign up for one of those LinkedIn crash courses I keep rejecting?

i've never given anyone any endorsements ever - i find that side of it p irritating and creepy, plus people i worked with whom I don't endorse in the slightest seem to want some tit for tat endorsement thing.

perhaps I'm being too principled and diminishing my "reach" or something, as a result, others may have more advice.

dunno how good linkedin is for trying to find a job in a more exploratory way - but equally i don't know what people use for that instead - maybe more traditional job sites?

I avoided linkedin for a long time in my previous career, I hadnt progressed and id gotten stuck in a cul de sac. Linkedin just seemed to magnify that

I quit 18 months ago and have been working almost a year in my new career, I only have 2 or 3 endorsements for each skill, and my blurb is only a line or so long, but i dont despise it because now i love what i do.

Very uncertain what the future holds for me, have been applying for teaching positions, jobs in "communication", administration, anything related to India among others.

Wish I knew what I wanted to do with my (work-)life so I could put in more of a focused effort.

Its difficult if you dont really know what you want to do. None of those things sound like anything you have an interest in (with the exception of India?). I think maybe you could just browse Linkedin, bookmark say 5-10 profiles that make you think 'yeah that looks alright!', then think of the steps you would need to take

what about the other people that did the masters? do they have linkedins? any of them any good?

Don't know that any of my former co-students have linkedins, maybe I should try and organize some kind of meet-up where we can discuss what's happening with our "careers"

Probably yes my biggest issue is figuring out what I want to do - but I'm not sure how I'll figure it out apart from trying stuff out

Anyway, will probably sign up for one of those linkedin courses but keep expectations fairly low... thanks for the feedback!

ever look at linkedin on a saturday night?

it's thrilling. feels like you're sneaking into your office to have sex on your desk

A former coworker told me in a linkedin message that he was getting married. I asked him who the "lucky lady" was and he responded "D___, we met on Tinder." The autogenerated Linkedin response options were "I know" "I remember" or "I'm sorry." I really wanted to use "I'm sorry."

23-year-old me lying on my LinkedIn profile: pic.twitter.com/c7S3LclBBV

— love yo self. (@MichellCClark) November 13, 2020

Thinking about actually doing LinkedIn. Thoughts? Is there any benefit to it? Is there any good reason to do it beyond looking for a job and/or hoping someone will magically reach out to offer a job?

I use it to see where someone works. Also to see who all have worked at a certain business.

if you are hiring or looking to get hired it is good to be there.

Incredible piece.

I have been noticing a bit more of this kind of personal posting and commentary for a good while.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-linkedin-got-weird-work-life-blurred-lines-of-oversharing-2023-9

The shit posting is gold, and ofc a manager tried to speak to another manager and get someone fired about it.