I have gotten lots of recruiter emails saying they saw my LinkedIn profile, which is kinda funny, since it doesn't exist.
Could just be the kinds of jobs I'm interested in.
I personally think that for software dev at least, making connections via Twitter or via friends is a better way to go for the first internship, but everyone has different paths to success :)
This could point at an earlier step in the pipeline - e.g. the recruiters at those companies may have been using LinkedIn as a primary search tool - but that's a signal of its own.
"Can't risk" is interesting, you could say that about anything you could put on your resume if there's a chance it helps, but something like LinkedIn seems just redundant with your resume's content.
> Plus every career counselor I've seen has suggested it.
They're probably right, if your goal is to get a job as a career counselor.
But yeah, it does not solve the problem of social pressure where you could be considered as less reliable or trustworthy if you don't have a public profile with many details.
I only ever got cold-calls for shitty jobs that I obviously wouldn't be interested in. Every interesting cold call I've gotten has come from elsewhere (e.g. my blog).
Not having a linkedin has, I think, never impeded my ability to get an interview or a job offer.
If your resume is otherwise very weak it might be somewhat useful, but honestly if someone is relying heavily on linkedin in their resume, I'd view that as a pretty bad sign.
If you are going to use it for a job hunt, then use it aggressively. Message/cold-call people that you want to work for, send them a cover letter and CV, ask to talk off LI and on the phone/over-coffee asap. Cold-emailing people from a company directory is kinda the same thing here. The 'rules' for Tinder aren't that far off for LI, sad as that is.
Outside of a job hunt that you're preforming, yeah, it's mostly recruiter spam. The feed is practically useless in my experience, but I am not a power user.
All that said, networking is that key to getting hired.
However, you can double your income by thinking differently about LI. If that doesn't speak to its value as a network, I might need to reassess what network value means.
How? I would love to double my income.
2. less LI, but become a thought leader
3. Network, write, promote. People are more likely do business with people they "know" so make sure they see your face on a regular basis.
4. Sales skills and business acumen, you will need this if you want to break out of the average
I did not have an expert write my profile and in fact I’ve hardly touched it in years.
So people definitely use it, even if it isn't on your resume.
Isn't it pretty easy to hide from Google? It's had settings like "don't let search engines index my profile" and "only show to people with an n-degree relationship" for a long time.
Those numbers are highly tied to an independent event (your first salary, you could be a better negotiator today) and have been changed by inflation
I could reverse that, though since they put a 45 day waiting period on deleting it. How would I use LI as a "primary platform" to promote my service or build a community around it?
2. This is not a LinkedIn skill. I speak at industry conferences regularly through relationships I've built entirely outside of LinkedIn.
3. Conference speaking does this for me.
4. This isn't even tangentially relayed to LinkedIn.
My first job out of college was from a bunch of cold applications. Since then, I've gotten all my roles by reaching out to people (outside of LinkedIn) to connect, and through my network. The skills you highlight as important are not exclusive to, or necessarily learnable on LinkedIn.
My most recent job search consisted entirely of friendly intros (most by colleagues at the hiring manager level) at a mix of startups and major tech companies. I have met these people through the normal course of business and life, and never through LinkedIn.
Maybe I'm special, because I've spent my career in tech consulting, so I got to network that way, but this is hardly a unique career path.
What happens when you have do code features that you won't want to do? No one puts their dogshit, get-it-done-before-the-weekend code on github.
And it's useless for telling me how well you'll do on a team, how you'll interact with other stakeholders, if you're sketchy and will run off with our IP (or just sell creds on the darknet), and if you'll be able to handle high powered office/project politics and their pressures. Linkedin may not be a perfect (or even good) signal for that, but it's a start. Long work histories but no contacts on Linkedin? Okay, not a dealbreaker, but may be worthy of an explanation.
The best way to use recruiters is to give them a few minutes regardless of the job, they have more, it's their business, and they will start pimping you out. Best job search hack ever!
I'm doing a few extra steps now
1. Tell them the company salaries are far too low, take a sample point back, hopefully a hack that raises everyone's salary
2. Getting intros to companies I want to do business with, not go work for. This has not been fruitful, but it is a recent strategy change