Thursday, May 19, 2011

ZH: "Why LinkedIn Sucks" (LNKD)

Hilarious:

The main reason the vast majority of us are on Linkedin, the main reason we voluntarily post our education/work history for the World (or at least our Networks) to see is because we're holding out hope that perhaps, maybe, just maybe, someone above us on the career ladder will happen upon our profile and think "Wow, this person looks great, let me hire him/her with a nice fat salary!" I've conducted an exhaustive scientific study, and can verify that (absent sales gigs) this has never happened.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a great article -- I didn't know ZH still had great articles!

Most of my friends are on Linkedin simply because everyone else is. I.e., they worry that it would look weird to prospective employers if they aren't on the site or have too few connections. It's a pretty flimsy reason to use Linkedin, and it will evaporate if there's ever a popular backlash toward the site.

CP said...

This is so strange, because I thought there was a consensus that linkdin was an irrelevant relic.

Would there be a stampede to buy a Myspace or Geocities IPO too?

anony mouse said...

I do have a good friend who landed a much better job in Private Banking from a firm finding her profile on LinkedIn. So it does happen, how often is anyone's guess. I would imagine that for a company actively looking for a position, it is more cost effective to search on LinkedIn versus paying a recruiter 20% of the first years salary.

One thing I *have* noticed on LinkedIn though, at least within my network, is that there is an inverse relationship between how active a person's linkedin profile is and how valuable of an employee there are. The two most active people I have as connections, both of whom were fired from this company (one by me personally) are the most active on linkedin, asking everyone for recommendations, posting statuses and interesting articles, etc. The guy I fired has about 10 recommendations from various people here, thought not ONE of them is someone on the team he worked and several are from people he never worked with at all and only went out for beers with a our annual trade show.

CP said...

"What would ya say ya do here?"

anony mouse said...

I deal with the god damn customers! I have people skills!

CP said...

http://www.llakomy.com/Projects/flashvideo/office-space/tom-smykowski-s-interview-with-bobs/view

anony mouse said...

Movie never gets old. Bonus that one of the Bob's is Dr. Cox from Scrubs.

Joe Nelson said...

CP,

I remember looking for that clip on YouTube for about an hour one day with no luck. Lo and behold you found it. It still makes me laugh. Hats off to you, sir!

CP said...

JN, What's new with you?