Why do people post so much crap on linkedin?

nitefox@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 459 points –

My feed is filled with dumb “advices”, so called “professionals” that post the most entry level stuff and all sorts of shit that if I were a recruiter I would stay away from these people

104

Can't wait for a c/LinkedInLunatics to be migrated from Reddit

So many people on LinkedIn are batshit insane

I agree. Of all the social media platforms I've used, Linkedin is the closest to an insane asylum I could get.

There is a c/linkedinlunatics@sh.itjust.works but its not very active… be the change you wish to see!

Damn I didn't know about it and now I want it!

I never really used it because even when I first heard about it when it was still newish, it was just Facebook but everyone wore a suit and talked about work related shit.

I initially tried it because I was told it was a great job seeking app like Monster. It wasn't tho. It was Facebook bullshit with a different name and overall mindset.

I think that depends on what profession you’re in. I get contacted on the regular by recruiters on that platform for jobs. It’s where I have found my last 2 positions in 7 years.

Likewise. It has generated several offers for me, but the vast majority of head hunters are playing spray-n-pray with keywords. For every good lead I get, I have to tell 400 people to fuck off.

Oh.. you're a SOX analyst? Want to work in a sock factory? Want to do the laundry for a minor league baseball team? Want to be in a fetish video?

Head hunters are so annoying I’ve stopped responding to them. They barely know anything about the position they try to fill.

Depends. I got my recent job from a headhunter: a Rust programming gig in a fully remote startup with good benefits and a great salary. When the offers are not great, I tell them. This was through LinkedIn.

Yep. I live in one of the "post salary or GTFO" states, and lead with that. Anyone who can't respond with a straight answer isn't worth dealing with and is told why.

I go through them every couple of days and have a text file with canned responses.

  • Thanks for reaching out. Before we proceed further, will you please provide a full job description, salary range, name of your client, and length of the contract?
  • Sorry - (DETAIL) falls outside/below my current expectations. Have a good day, and good luck!

Definitely. I said this in another reply as well, but I don’t respond unless they say something very specific about my background. I know AI can do that but that seems the best way to go for now.

I usually just got offers from people who wouldn't tell me what the job was or how much it paid until I agreed to an hour long sales pitch, I mean, interview.

For sure there are still those. I usually get one decent one for about 20 ransoms that don’t say a word. I usually don’t respond unless they say something specific about my background.

And what field is this? Or what professions do you think so well here?

Product development. Anything associated with building software products get a lot of traction on LinkedIn

Yeah, to me has been kind of useless too: I never found a job with it, while the classic job boards (indeed etc) have served me quite well.

I've found my last 3 jobs on there. It depends on your role and area, but I much prefer it to classic trash ad sites.

I just ignore the posts, its mostly bullshit corporate propaganda and public asslicking.

LinkedIn is great to find a new job if you build your profile correctly. Work experience, skills, etc Usually recruiters can find you based on that. I receive at least 1-2 offers monthly based on this alone.

Also the job section is great, you can set alarms for certain types of positions with tons of criterias, like location, type of work, specific skill required, etc

The rest is just pure trash and cringe.

Ironically, I never found a job through LinkedIn but traditional job boards work great for me (software development sector). I even set up my profile to be 1:1 to my resume, but it seems I never had any luck whatsoever

Sorry to hear that. Might vary from region to region or just bad luck. Im in rhe EU and most people I know uses LinkedIn primarily to look for a job.

Probably just bad luck. I can't complain though, never had troubles finding a job

The only thing LinkedIn gives me is spam from trashy recruiters. The ones trying to fill a quota and do not actually read your profile. They are given a job requirement "Java" and fire a bunch of bullshit messages at anyone who tagged the skill.

The first line of my "About Me" is a test, and 100% of recruiters who message me have failed to even read that very first line. And when I call them out on it, they always want to "schedule a call" to "sync up about future opportunities". I'd rather they all get replaced by AI that will actually know how to read what's on the damn website.

Reading the comments here it looks like more people had this experience. I also had a few unrelated job offers but most of them are within my field.

Most offers I've got I don't even know what the job is. Like they will just say my profile matches what they are looking for and ask if I'd like to talk, no other context except the company name. I could ask, but I find kinda odd they don't even say what the job is right away. Feels like spam, I guess.

I know a dude who spent high school doing blow, dropped out of college, assaulted his mom while coked up, fucked around until his dad gave him a successful company in his late twenties. I watched this dude cry at the kitchen table because his dad told him to treat the employees as equals and not dirt.

He now posts almost daily on LinkedIn about the keys to success.

I mean, having a rich daddy hand you everything is historically proven to be the most reliable key to success. So…

If only that was what he talked about...

If he told all his secrets everyone would run out and get their own rich daddy. Gotta keep something close to the chest.

I mean, I could do a bunch of coke, cry over being a little bitch and assault my mom, I'd be more than halfway there.

LinkedIn is facebook for professionals. Its pure cancer.

I was gonna answer that professionals probably just use Yammer (since their companies probably already use Microsoft Office), but Microsoft apparently closed it in 2017.

Edit: My bad, I mixed up So.cl (which was killed im 2017) and Yammer (which is currently being "rolled into" Viva Engage, which itself launched in 2022). All three brands are owned by Microsoft.

My company requires? heavily pushes? us to have a linkedin account. I just get so much spam email now that I've changed my position to 'floor sweeper' - still get all the spam

And the funny thing is that it's complicated to even block all their spam in Gmail, because they send it from a bunch of different email adresses

LinkedIn, a social media network solely made to fellate corporate America.

Fuck LinkedIn, so many ads, so much fucking bootlicking. And congrats for whatever it is your bragging about now loser.

Because a lot of people are jobless and try to make themselves feel better by trolling on linkedin. Also, a lot of people seem to think being on linkedin a lot counts as professional experience.

It’s the people who make work their personality and them circlejerking each other. Don’t get me wrong, there are experts in my field who post valuable stuff on there, but it’s about topics in our field, not about working itself.

The more dumbed down the advice, the easier it is to encourage your audience to engage. Some of those who agree with them connect, and the sum of your connections on Linked In is absolutely something recruiters look at and weigh when looking at candidates. Keeping it basic and bland ensures the widest audience and potential connection pool with a minimal risk of negative feedback.

Not that I'm justifying stupid content. There's a reason I don't spend any more time than I have to on LinkedIn.

Idk, there should be a limit. Today I saw some random guy posting as a “””pro””” tip “ehi do you know JavaScript has a ternary operator?” And everyone went with “oh great advice so good” saying how their lives changed thanks to that

I once worked in a company where I was forbidden to use ternary operators because the CTO did not understand how to read them... So maybe to some people it's really life changing.

I can see why they would not want to have nested ternary, but finding hard to read a simple ternary? Wtf

Yep, simple ternary. Even after explaining them / sending a tutorial, the answer was "nah, too complicated"

how the hell did they end up as a CTO in the first place

Part of it has actual useful industry information, another has job openings and recruiter outreach, the rest is corporate circlejerk.

Exactly. LinkedIn jobs is incredibly useful. I have also found it useful for helping friends and colleagues find new jobs or make career switches because of the connections I have. I only maintain work connections through LinkedIn as I don't use Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Absolutely, ignore the post feed. It's just capitalist boot fucking. A bunch of fucking losers with made up bullshit in their titles trying to be leadership influencers.

I sincerely vouch for the jobs function, though.

Totally agree. Have found jobs through LinkedIn, but it’s timeline is 90% junk. Even the ads are so jargon filled that they are incomprehensible: “Improve your JEHSBN usage to ensure BENS compliance by purchasing XXYYZZ software!”

All social media lives and dies by engagement. It doesn't matter if you're Lemmy, MySpace, or an obscure forum dedicated to ant husbandry, what keeps you alive is engagement from users. This generates revenue from ad sales and sponsored posts.

In my opinion the issue with LinkedIn is the duality of its use. Most users like you and I just create a page, upload our CV, connect with our coworkers and then close the app. We don't spend time engaged with the site, we're not moving a lot of traffic and we're not purchasing services.

So LinkedIn encourages "content creators" to try and bring in views, and then they try to sell things to these viewers. Want to be successful like this person? Buy LinkedIn learning! Want to have recruiters fighting over you? Buy LinkedIn Premium!

Generic content just brings in content and they bill it as career development.

How dare you call our ant husbandry forum obscure?! There are dozens of us around the world! Dozens!!

Yeah watching people have no lives other than their job is absolutely brutal and grim

Because lazy hiring managers only care about people’s linked in profiles so anyone looking for work has to puff up their useless “professional” personas to even be considered for a job.

Unfortunately this is my experience as well. Good thing you can create a nice profile in a day or two and just ignore the rest. Still its stupid to hire someone based on their pretend persona.

“advices”

That's how I know someone's not a professional. I blame phishing training.

LinkedIn is barely keeping my viewership, what little that's worth. It's a lot of non-work shit, and I joined when LinkedIn was specifically and decidedly not facebook. I don't want to know about your new baby, or how you did in the 10k because we're not that kind of friends or I'd already have heard about it from Facebook. I want to hear about you joining that company or getting the training you we seeking (grats!). I want to use it to schlepp my resume to the vast minority who may want to throw money at me. You know, WORK and personal development shit.

Learning about your cancer journey is sad, it's potentially enlightening to those around you (so brave), but IT'S NOT ABOUT WORK. Get thee to Facebook with that .

I've got my profile still, but only log in every couple months. Every time I do, there are multiple requests from people I've never met or even heard of their company. I guess I'm just not into the "professional connections" since I just ignore. (Most aren't even relevant to my industry)

I have an account there but I visit maybe twice a month or so. When we get new team members, I connect with them there but never post anything.

LinkedIn has that style because it’s so connected with personal careers. People are there to build connections. They post shallow shit masqueraded as professional guru advice to make themselves look smart. And if you look smart, people want to connect with you.

Because LinkedIn is 100% kayfabe. Not a single person believes it except the idiots in recruitment offices.

There are certain sites I just don't get, Linkedin and Twitter are the biggest two. Facebook as well for the most part.

90% of everything is crap. You're seeing more of it.

Maybe it's just that simple.

“Networking”

The realtor who helped me sell my last house posts on Facebook a lot. Pictures of interesting houses, gardens, local wildlife. NOT ads for her service or “check out this house I’m now selling” bullshit. Ostensibly, she’s just sharing cool content that’s related to her area of expertise, but it also keeps her visible to me and top of mind. If I need a realtor again I will remember her. I think much LI posting is the same shit. But there are many situations. Someone who needs to hire a lot may put out content that makes them look smart or nice to work for. Someone who is trying to get a job may post things they think will make them appear professional and engaged with their career. People with a service to sell will want to keep themselves visible at all times. A lot goes on on LI.

I never even understand what LinkedIn or xing are for. It seems to be only managers shitposting

I might be in the minority here, but I see it as it was meant to be. People presenting themselves as professionaly as possible, linking to their projects and their workplace's events. Maybe Linkdin is different in other regions or cultures.

I think I'm starting to hate "professional".

It literally means playing a corporate role, not being genuine, trying to get connections to make your career take off.

It's not genuine, or warm, or fun... It's just corporate shit. What a world.

Yep, but to me that's what linkdin is to me. A playground for making oneself as great as possible for recruiters. I get my warmth and fun from other places, while linkdin stays freezing cold.

I had to scroll through my front page just now to confirm that it's still that corporate and cold bulletin board. Yep, every single post was either a corporate post about acquiring projects or holding presentations or some non-genuine post of someone quoting how awesome their company is.

I kinda like that linkdin is just that, and I don't have to look through it for nice personal interactions, because they don't exist there.

Yeah I can see your point. And I smiled at "freezing cold". I mean, to me it's more like "people acting" but its always up for subjective interpretation. Also depends on who is in your list of contacts. I have mostly recruiters I don't know at all.

Government employees, politicians, useless progeny of wealthy families (I will appreciate if someone could enlighten me with a better adjective for this last category). They don't need to/can't produce anything, they always get their paycheck or don't need to, thus the useless blabber.

Nepotists? I was thinking something like nepotees but that doesn't seem to be a word.

No. I was referring to set for life people with bullshit jobs. Like life coaching.

Is it because Linkedin lets them?

Simple questions usually have simple answers.

Yeah. For me its an online resume and way of keeping in contact with people I have done bussiness with. Speaking of which, it annoyes me how many people request connections. I only add you if we have actually worked together or done significant business. Your a recruiter that sent me a job posting. Great but your not in my circle. Your a recruiter and I have worked a job I got through you. Okay now we can connect. You try to sell me stuff. No connect. I have purchased stuff from you for work. Ok then.

I liked it recently when some guy was posting articles on his LinkedIn about how his father was a serial killer and all sorts of bogus evidence that he had to supper that. It definitely seems like a platform for conspiracy theories, you bet.

It’s not what it started out as. Originally you linked to people you worked with that you recommend. Now people connect to get their numbers up. When I was job hunting several years ago, I was told it has an algorithm to boost profiles with 250 connections or more. So networking and getting your numbers up was a goal.

Can't wait for a Fediverse alternative to launch to be honest

I don’t think it would fix any of its faults tho

Yeah, I feel anything connected to real IDs is destined to end up turning into a self promotion, advertising, product placement, influencer platform.

It is, but at least you would be able to filter chronologically and not whatever LinkedIn uses these days

Self promotion in order to be hired so that they can eat food and survive.

Edit: y'all don't have jobs? I'm not saying it works, I am saying they do it to stay employed.