I must be the successful jerk friend, because I find Linked-in is a great way to keep in contact with past colleagues who don't meet my facebook friend threshold. Even got a couple job offers from people who moved on to different companies.

If you want a new job, used LinkedIn.

Recruiters scour LinkedIn all day, every day.

The author makes a point. Most of the people that have contacted me have these long lists of long job titles. Titles which rarely tell you what they actually do. Maybe there is something more to be seen if you pay for a subscription, but LinkedIn offers so little that I can't bring myself to even look at what's for sale.

huh....I forgot LinkedIn was even a thing.

LinkedIn is the only social network site I even pretend to participate in. By pretend, I mean click on emailed updates without ever creating a profile of my own.

It's so dumb, I'm "linked in" with people who work 50 feet away from me. Lurr.

/i'll play their game
//but i won't like it

LinkedIn is the equivalent of a co-worker's kid's Girl Scout cookie order form posted in the break room.

/freaking deadbeats. Our casual acquaintance doesn't obligate me to help you with your sales quota.

hoihoi8: I must be the successful jerk friend, because I find Linked-in is a great way to keep in contact with past colleagues who don't meet my facebook friend threshold. Even got a couple job offers from people who moved on to different companies.

No, I agree. Their job postings have led to a higher % of me getting interviews than other job sites, and I've gotten some unsolicited job emails that I wouldn't get otherwise. And it's a nice way to keep in touch with old colleagues if you want references and shiat. You don't even have to actively participate on the site to get the benefits, just make a decent profile.

All I'm getting from this article is that this guy is an asshole who is unable to work with or for other people and doesn't grasp the concept of "networking".

/which linkedin is awesome for

Considering the recent number of job offers (direct from employers and from recruitment agencies) that have come in via Linkedin, I would regard that as an essential networking tool to use for job seekers as well as those who want to move into a better job.

As things stand, I am now aware I can get over 30K more than I get in my current role. Just need to finish the remainder of my studies in the next month and see if my work will increase my pay (only been getting pay adjusted for inflation) or if it is better to move on.

Don't Troll Me Bro!: baorao: LinkedIn is the equivalent of a co-worker's kid's Girl Scout cookie order form posted in the break room.

/freaking deadbeats. Our casual acquaintance doesn't obligate me to help you with your sales quota.

Hey. I'm grateful for those cookies being sold in the break room. I don't live in an area where kids run around or where parents typically bring them to sell cookies. Where else would I get my fix?

I just resort to the Keebler knockoffs. They might be every bit as expensive, but at least I don't have to wait 4 weeks to get them.

I find it useful. It helps identify specific contacts inside companies that I want to do business with. Or in some cases, it helps me identify companies in other countries that I should be doing business with. It will be interesting to see what happens when they eventually go subscription. I think people who actually make money on the information LinkedIn provides are a great minority of users.

TheSelphie: hoihoi8: I must be the successful jerk friend, because I find Linked-in is a great way to keep in contact with past colleagues who don't meet my facebook friend threshold. Even got a couple job offers from people who moved on to different companies.

No, I agree. Their job postings have led to a higher % of me getting interviews than other job sites, and I've gotten some unsolicited job emails that I wouldn't get otherwise. And it's a nice way to keep in touch with old colleagues if you want references and shiat. You don't even have to actively participate on the site to get the benefits, just make a decent profile.

LinkedIn is useful for its intended purpose - business networking, especially if, like me, you work a lot of vendor & agency gigs.

LinkedIn is FREE. Set up your profile with the correct jphrases; and change it occasionally, not necessarily to correct it, but so your name pops up on other people's feeds and weekly email updates as "John Doe updated his profile" or "Jane Doe is now available for employment opportunities". Do it correctly and YOU WILL GET JOB LEADS. (Having the required talent to get the job is up to you)

Who gives a damn about the social value of LinkedIn? It's a career networking tool.

Newsflash, kiddos: You'll work with people you don't like. Deal with it. You get the job done, you make money, they make money; if you think they're an utter twit with horrible taste in clothing, music, culture and sports but they get the job done you're damn right you'd recommend them for the next job so you both can make even more money and be annoyed by each other even more.

StopLurkListen: LinkedIn is FREE. Set up your profile with the correct jphrases; and change it occasionally, not necessarily to correct it, but so your name pops up on other people's feeds and weekly email updates as "John Doe updated his profile" or "Jane Doe is now available for employment opportunities". Do it correctly and YOU WILL GET JOB LEADS. (Having the required talent to get the job is up to you)

Who gives a damn about the social value of LinkedIn? It's a career networking tool.

Newsflash, kiddos: You'll work with people you don't like. Deal with it. You get the job done, you make money, they make money; if you think they're an utter twit with horrible taste in clothing, music, culture and sports but they get the job done you're damn right you'd recommend them for the next job so you both can make even more money and be annoyed by each other even more.

Your life sounds kind of miserable.

Linked-what?

I always thought it was Linkedln ie. Linked Ln. It never made sense, Linked ...Lin?

Linked In...I get it!

If you want to avoid all those old assholes from school don't go to your next local republican party meeting.

bravian: All I'm getting from this article is that this guy is an asshole who is unable to work with or for other people and doesn't grasp the concept of "networking".

/which linkedin is awesome for

I'm getting the same from you in one sentence.

thenateman: If you want a new job, used LinkedIn.

Recruiters scour LinkedIn all day, every day.

This. I just got a great job through LInkedIn, and have headhunters using it to contact me everyday. It's great because it keeps them from calling your work phone and you can ignore them (like junk mail) if you want to.

thenateman: If you want a new job, used LinkedIn.

Recruiters scour LinkedIn all day, every day.

Definitely this. I had an executive headhunter call me just this week due to my LinkedIn profile. It is not Facebook.

AcneVulgaris: StopLurkListen: LinkedIn is FREE. Set up your profile with the correct jphrases; and change it occasionally, not necessarily to correct it, but so your name pops up on other people's feeds and weekly email updates as "John Doe updated his profile" or "Jane Doe is now available for employment opportunities". Do it correctly and YOU WILL GET JOB LEADS. (Having the required talent to get the job is up to you)

Who gives a damn about the social value of LinkedIn? It's a career networking tool.

Newsflash, kiddos: You'll work with people you don't like. Deal with it. You get the job done, you make money, they make money; if you think they're an utter twit with horrible taste in clothing, music, culture and sports but they get the job done you're damn right you'd recommend them for the next job so you both can make even more money and be annoyed by each other even more.

Your life sounds kind of miserable.

You sound kind of ignorant, and/or you work manual labor. You sure as hell have no experience in white-collar jobs, any kind of supervisory or management work, or running your own business.

If someone makes you money, you will absolutely overlook their personality. My new DBA is all kinds of teeth-grindingly-annoying, but he's so damn good that I'll recommend we hold on to him after his contract is up.

I have gotten job/contract offers from LinkedIn, as well as hired folks and given recommendations that led to folks being hired via LinkedIn. Feel free to ignore it, but plenty of folks are using it and doing fine by it.

Use indeed.com instead.

/salary has increased 38%+ thanks to that site.

//A proud 4%'er.

AngryDragon: thenateman: If you want a new job, used LinkedIn.

Recruiters scour LinkedIn all day, every day.

Definitely this. I had an executive headhunter call me just this week due to my LinkedIn profile. It is not Facebook.

Definitely worked for me.

Well worth the price.

/indeed spammed me with MLM schemes every day

Carousel Beast: AcneVulgaris: StopLurkListen: LinkedIn is FREE. Set up your profile with the correct jphrases; and change it occasionally, not necessarily to correct it, but so your name pops up on other people's feeds and weekly email updates as "John Doe updated his profile" or "Jane Doe is now available for employment opportunities". Do it correctly and YOU WILL GET JOB LEADS. (Having the required talent to get the job is up to you)

Who gives a damn about the social value of LinkedIn? It's a career networking tool.

Newsflash, kiddos: You'll work with people you don't like. Deal with it. You get the job done, you make money, they make money; if you think they're an utter twit with horrible taste in clothing, music, culture and sports but they get the job done you're damn right you'd recommend them for the next job so you both can make even more money and be annoyed by each other even more.

Your life sounds kind of miserable.

You sound kind of ignorant, and/or you work manual labor. You sure as hell have no experience in white-collar jobs, any kind of supervisory or management work, or running your own business.

If someone makes you money, you will absolutely overlook their personality. My new DBA is all kinds of teeth-grindingly-annoying, but he's so damn good that I'll recommend we hold on to him after his contract is up.

Sure, sure... you say that, but no matter your resolve or patience for dimwits - even if they excel at the one task you need them for - they will ultimately lay you low and you will want to be rid of them. You'll find yourself mildly irritated about the smallest things: their habit of whistling down the hall while you're concentrating or their penchant for interrupting a conversation. But these things eventually take their toll, and you find yourself being unforgiving of their other flaws like being significantly overweight, talking with their hands, or using the phrase "the thing is" to start every sentence. From there on out it's only a matter of time before you find some relief venting about them to your buddies at the bar for a their shiatty people skills and crappy ideas. You'll eventually dread hearing them enter the building, that knot of anger pulling tighter in your gut as you anticipate having them waddle into your office to chat; goddammit, you're busy with work, and even if you weren't, browsing Fark is your time, right? You'll commiserate with your other coworkers, perhaps trying to be the peacemaker and smoothing things over: "You know, it's not his fault he's so fat that he can't see if his zipper is down. He's a great asset!" But you're lying to yourself. In fact, you're doing it right now. "Of course we'll bring him back, he makes us lots of money!" But a part of you knows the grass must be greener elsewhere, that someone else out there has the skills AND the personality to keep you from losing your sanity. And this part of you will only grow louder and louder and louder until you can no longer stand it. We both know it's only a matter of time before this fat, obnoxious coworker arrives to work 15 minutes late and that gives you a pretext to cut him loose.

This coworker of yours has to go, if not for your sanity then to avoid being charged with murder.

/The above may also apply to marriage.

I Am The Egg Matt Drudge Smears Upon His Body: Use indeed.com instead.

/salary has increased 38%+ thanks to that site.

So much this.

/56% increase here.
//Probably still part of the 99% though.
///At least my bills get paid now.

thenateman: If you want a new job, used LinkedIn.

Recruiters scour LinkedIn all day, every day.

This is true, but not the recruiters you want.

I get probably 3 or 4 LinkedIn contacts a month from recruiters who find my info in LinkedIn. Unfortunately, the message is usually:

Hi, [My name],

I'm with the recruiting team at [Company XYZ], and I noticed your background and skills look like a good match for [Job ABC] here. Here's the job description:

[Description of pretty much exactly what I do now].

If you'd like to explore this great opportunity, please let me know!

Usually I don't even reply back, but I'd love to one day say:

Hi, [Recruiter's Name],

Why in the hell would I want to leave my company, move my family, find a new place to live, and pretty much disrupt my entire life just to go do [Job ABC], which is exactly what I'm already doing, for likely similar pay? From the description of [Job ABC], you've offered me no better salary, title, or job responsibilities than I have today. What is my motivation to even talk to you?

Some recruitment advice: If you see someone whose title is "Junior Software Developer," excite him a "Senior Software Developer" position. If you see someone whose is a "Lead Engineer," ask him if he wants to try Engineering Management. You'll probably get better responses. Most of us haven't gotten a raise or promotion for years, the economy is not great, so the only way we're going to rock the boat and hop to a new job is if it offers something more.

The permanent life insurance vultures I work absolutely love this shiat. They get a client, then go on his/her linkedin and attempt to contact every person on his/her list using him as a reference.

Carousel Beast: AcneVulgaris: StopLurkListen: LinkedIn is FREE. Set up your profile with the correct jphrases; and change it occasionally, not necessarily to correct it, but so your name pops up on other people's feeds and weekly email updates as "John Doe updated his profile" or "Jane Doe is now available for employment opportunities". Do it correctly and YOU WILL GET JOB LEADS. (Having the required talent to get the job is up to you)

Who gives a damn about the social value of LinkedIn? It's a career networking tool.

Newsflash, kiddos: You'll work with people you don't like. Deal with it. You get the job done, you make money, they make money; if you think they're an utter twit with horrible taste in clothing, music, culture and sports but they get the job done you're damn right you'd recommend them for the next job so you both can make even more money and be annoyed by each other even more.

Your life sounds kind of miserable.

You sound kind of ignorant, and/or you work manual labor. You sure as hell have no experience in white-collar jobs, any kind of supervisory or management work, or running your own business.

If someone makes you money, you will absolutely overlook their personality. My new DBA is all kinds of teeth-grindingly-annoying, but he's so damn good that I'll recommend we hold on to him after his contract is up.

Yes, because slaughtering happiness for the sake of profit is what really proves to be satisfying in life!

stiletto_the_wise: thenateman: If you want a new job, used LinkedIn.

Recruiters scour LinkedIn all day, every day.

This is true, but not the recruiters you want.

I get probably 3 or 4 LinkedIn contacts a month from recruiters who find my info in LinkedIn. Unfortunately, the message is usually:

Hi, [My name],

I'm with the recruiting team at [Company XYZ], and I noticed your background and skills look like a good match for [Job ABC] here. Here's the job description:

[Description of pretty much exactly what I do now].

If you'd like to explore this great opportunity, please let me know!

Usually I don't even reply back, but I'd love to one day say:

Hi, [Recruiter's Name],

Why in the hell would I want to leave my company, move my family, find a new place to live, and pretty much disrupt my entire life just to go do [Job ABC], which is exactly what I'm already doing, for likely similar pay? From the description of [Job ABC], you've offered me no better salary, title, or job responsibilities than I have today. What is my motivation to even talk to you?

Some recruitment advice: If you see someone whose title is "Junior Software Developer," excite him a "Senior Software Developer" position. If you see someone whose is a "Lead Engineer," ask him if he wants to try Engineering Management. You'll probably get better responses. Most of us haven't gotten a raise or promotion for years, the economy is not great, so the only way we're going to rock the boat and hop to a new job is if it offers something more.

It's a numbers game. Sure, maybe YOU are happy with your company and your location. But let's say one in five people don't like their job because the commute is too long, their boss is a jerk, they are bored with their industry, etc. The recruiter only needs to place a few people per month to earn a decent commission, and so that's why they're emailing you.

y'all are reminding me I need to update my title.

I suppose Linked-in is only as good as the effort you put into it. I'm very lazy about mine, and only got a profile on there because some industry people I associate with kept insisting I do so, and I didn't want to piss them off. But I never visit the site. The conversation threads it sends me are parallel to, but days behind, the same threads I visit daily already, in another forum. So it's much like getting ads for TV re-runs of shows I've already seen.

My take on it has been that it's too much like those monthly user-group get-togethers we used to have before the internet, or like local Chamber of Commerce functions: Everybody there is awkwardly trying to play it cool but simultaneously asking everybody else the same thing every month:

"You hiring?"

Mine hasn't led to any job offers or recruitments, but I did have several people I don't know from Adam ask me to link to them, out of the blue. WTF, man. If the purpose of the service is to get recommended by someone who knows your work, what kind of whore are you to ask for recs from total strangers? And what value would such a rec from me even be worth, and what does it do to MY own reputation? It could only hurt my own rep.

Now, if I was one of those go-getters that spent hours a day just shmoozing and building a brand awareness of myself on the site, I guess that might lead to more hits from recruiters. But I'm not interested in a change right now, so it's not worth the effort to me. Also, if I was interested in hiring someone, I'd be suspicious of a person who spent too much of their time shmoozing the site like it was facebook, instead of going thru traditional job-seeking behaviors.

thisone: y'all are reminding me I need to update my title.

Make sure to include the word "Professional" somewhere in there.

stiletto_the_wise:
This is true, but not the recruiters you want.

I get probably 3 or 4 LinkedIn contacts a month from recruiters who find my info in LinkedIn. Unfortunately, the message is usually:

Hi, [My name],

I'm with the recruiting team at [Company XYZ], and I noticed your background and skills look like a good match for [Job ABC] here. Here's the job description:

[Description of pretty much exactly what I do now].

If you'd like to explore this great opportunity, please let me know!

Usually I don't even reply back, but I'd love to one day say:

Hi, [Recruiter's Name],

Why in the hell would I want to leave my company, move my family, find a new place to live, and pretty much disrupt my entire life just to go do [Job ABC], which is exactly what I'm already doing, for likely similar pay? From the description of [Job ABC], you've offered me no better salary, title, or job responsibilities than I have today. What is my motivation to even talk to you?

Some recruitment advice: If you see someone whose title is "Junior Software Developer," excite him a "Senior Software Developer" position. If you see someone whose is a "Lead Engineer," ask him if he wants to try Engineering Management. You'll probably get better responses. Most of us haven't gotten a raise or promotion for years, the economy is not great, so the only way we're going to rock the boat and hop to a new job is if it offers something more.

You are missing out on a networking opportunity. Sure, you might not be interested, but in this economy you likely know (or should know) others to refer to them.

I answer recruiters along the following lines" " I appreciate your interest, however at this time I ma not planning to change jobs. However, I do have several contacts who may be interested..." and send them referrals of my contacts (on or off of LinkedIn) that I know are either looking for work,or for a position change.

I have been able to get folks jobs this way - sometimes not for the specific job the recruiter contacted me for, but after getting the info on the other person it happened to match another position they were looking for.

As a I bonus I don't burn any bridges with the recruiters. In this environment I do not take my job for granted, so it is good to have several recruiters who appreciate your contacts. You never know what the future may hold.

Well, I just broke down and added myself to it. New Years resolution to start looking. On the question of:

stiletto_the_wise: Why in the hell would I want to leave my company, move my family, find a new place to live, and pretty much disrupt my entire life just to go do [Job ABC], which is exactly what I'm already doing, for likely similar pay?

The LinkedIn profile doesn't necessarily tell the whole story. For myself, I was moved to half-time nine months back. I had some family stuff to deal with the first few months, so it was mutually good. Now, I'm getting called in to work 35-40 hour weeks, but I'm still getting paid part-time, so I'm doing Linux/databases/little-of-everything-IT for less than the janitor makes. I like my job. I like the people. I'll take 10th percentile pay for casual flexibility, but I'm getting real tired of 1st percentile. But, my boss is 70 and has been making six-figures for enough decades to not exactly understand that you really don't live on $20k (and the full-time programmer at $55k is about to start looking too).

Ninety-nine of the recruiters' stabs in the dark, sure, it's mildly insulting. But, if you throw out a thousand, you'll find someone for whom it's a good big lateral step.