Linkedin - opinions please :)

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numtumfutunch

Original Poster:

4,969 posts

153 months

Monday 7th July
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Good evening

COI: father to 2 boys/men. One of whom has just started work after looking for 6 months post graduation and the other who is about to wrap up a 4y masters degree

I have generic pushy big brother who has kids a bit younger with quite frankly absurd profiles on Linkedin listing paper rounds, bar work and being in charge of pencil sharpeners at university. He slags me off for not pushing my lads to have pages of 'stuff' on Linkedin.

Its obvious one of us has it wrong..........

Thoughts welcome. Is a massive profile of garbage on Linkedin really something that potential employers seek or not?

For context my eldest who spent 6 months in limbo/stress has a skeletal online profile at best but the rest of his CV got him regular shortlisting and interviews before bagging a job he is very happy with

TL:DR whats the point of Linkedin?

Mortarboard

10,047 posts

70 months

Monday 7th July
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Networking. Anyone i have coming up for interview, I'll see if i know any of their connections (directly or ind8rectly) and get the "real" info

Its a very small world.

M.

Aunty Pasty

785 posts

53 months

Tuesday 8th July
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Point your brother at r/LinkedInLunatics and threaten to dump your nephews there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LinkedInLunatics/

cliffords

2,603 posts

38 months

Tuesday 8th July
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Both your boys are old enough to make their own decisions on this .
I appreciate you can't stop being a father , however it's their decision now . You can give informed opinion.

My informed opinion is that it's bragging and mistruth in most cases .
I believe the majority now consider it near to worthless. Any employer of worth will expect anything recorded there to be absolutely factual and any deviation from that considered a lie .

Very common now . I have been extensively involved in recruitment and it's been the downfall of many promising candidates.

bergclimber34

1,292 posts

8 months

Tuesday 8th July
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My opinion

It can be useful, and they will advertise jobs there not elsewhere at times, but it can ve more for higher level stuff and more office based, not always, but after using it for a year, I got far more from proper recruitment sites

Plus the spam and stvthry send you via email is crazy

Funk

26,830 posts

224 months

Tuesday 8th July
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What is 'COI'? Acronyms aren't helpful if they're not commonly-known or easily-Googled. So far all I've found is 'Certificate of Insurance'...

Edited by Funk on Tuesday 8th July 15:15

768

16,772 posts

111 months

Tuesday 8th July
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Conflict of Interest, I assume?

Tim Cognito

742 posts

22 months

Tuesday 8th July
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I've been a bit more active on there recently just to try and build some connections and "clout" to be more visible to recruiters for future career moves but tbh 95% of it is absolute bks.

It can't hurt but I'd not spend hours on it.

Big Pants

545 posts

156 months

Tuesday 8th July
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If you view LinkedIn as a social media site you'll be deeply disappointed, unless you're Patrick Bateman. Individual narcissism and companies advertising their latest AI tools bloat everybody's timeline to the point of irrelevance.

It is, however, the only business-focused networking site, and after 23 years I don't think we'll see any competition for a while yet.

It's the primary vehicle for advertising jobs in the UK, and the more one builds up a professional network, the more valuable that part of the site becomes. It can be truly helpful, a year or two down the line, to see that a Uni friend is now working at the place you're applying for a job, making it easy to get in touch and have a chat about what you should know. Or to see that Company X is making hundreds redundant, so you can make early inroads in offering positions to skilled staff without having to pay 15% to a recruiter.

Summary - it's pants. But it's necessary pants, and I'd recommend anyone starting a career in business to use it. Just use it wisely. It's not a dating site, and nobody needs to know what you had for breakfast. We have a thread for that here.

Andy665

3,954 posts

243 months

Tuesday 8th July
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I have been on Linkedin for many years, its changed a lot and not necessarily for the better.

Today, I spent 2 hours in a seminar where I learned a huge amount about it and for the first time in a very long time I now feel able to use it for what I want rather than for what Linkedin wants.

Huge number of options to search and to determine what gets fed to you that are pretty well buried but will be transformative.

I have always been very careful and thoughtful about what I post, what and how I comment and what I mark as a like - like all social media it will follow you around so I stay well away from a lot of posts and chats.

craigjm

19,272 posts

215 months

Tuesday 8th July
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numtumfutunch said:
TL:DR whats the point of Linkedin?
Lots of jobs advertised that are not elsewhere or would be hard to find having to seek out individual companies careers pages.

If someone is fairly new to the market and has a decent CV of what they have done so far that is getting interview success just replicate that on Linkedin.

Seek out the discussion groups for the kind of work they are interested in and get involved in the discussion forums. Its likely from that you will pick up a few useful connections. Be selective as to who you accept as a connection and focus how you use it and, industry dependent, it can be very useful. I have got my last four jobs, all senior level at large global companies, through connections without any formal interview process.

pacenotes

369 posts

159 months

Wednesday 16th July
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Loads of people in my industry post some pretty cool pics from events and what they are up to in the industry.

I like LinkedIn for one reason. It's you who posts, and it's your name on that post.

In other words you don't get the crap like twitter where it's mostly hate. Facebook is mostly ads and Instagram is mostly AI women bots these days promoting OnlyFans.

I'm seeing a massive uptick the past year. I'm not a cringy account just a normal bloke's account, But I had a post with 20K views last summer, My company would of had to spend £1000s to get that sort of number on a ad but I just did a post on an event I was at and it worked.

It's not the millions of views people get on tick tock, but how real are those numbers anyway and those 20k were mostly within my industry.