Leaving LinkedIn

Year ago I left Facebook and this year I decided to leave LinkedIn too. Reasons for leave overlaps only partially.

Original idea

When I signed in ten years ago main reason for that was to build professional network. That should, in theory, allow me to do interesting things. Employer could find common person with applicant and acquire some extra details about them. Applicant could try to contact common person with future boss to get recommendation. You would stay in touch with former colleagues so you could offer them job in your team later.

It sounds great. But my personal experience is that it does not work that way. I was never able to use LinkedIn for such purposes. For example, try to call common person you share with applicant and ask for recommendation. He won’t say neither he is capable (what if he’s not!) nor he is incapable (what if he finds out you said that!).

Spam

In early years of LinkedIn spamming was act of personal bravery. It was easilly possible to report such spammer and make their activity harder.

It is obvious that social network have to gain some money. LinkedIn resisted temptation for long time but at certain moment they break. There is no sense in reporting spammers because they pay to LinkedIn.

By spamming I mean quality and count of job offers. They often does not contain personalised header so it is obvious you are one of houndreds receivers. I do not remember I have ever got meaningful offer.

Every time I was looking for job, personal recommendation worked best. Job offer portals work too.

Content

Content is kind of “our marketing department asked me to post this article”. Rarely there is useful article.

Bragging

On Instagram and Facebook people are bragging about their life. All the selfies, food pictures, morning jogging pictures, children pictures, … So is it on LinkedIn. It is similar to the high school reunion after 20 years. Everyone talking about their carrer and success. Rarely are people talking their defeats.

LinkedIn profiles lies in the same way pictures lies on other social networs. Is that person really happy on that position? Maybe they are doing that job just for money - and then they are drinking hard. Does colleagues and customers likes them? It is hard to tell.

Try to remember worst person you have ever worked with. Now check their profile. Would you find out what kind of person they are? Probably not.

I would like to leave it, but …

I have heard many times complains about LinkedIn unusability. Typically from startup scene. But those people still have account. It is industry standard, you know? Well, then someone should be first and leave.

I don’t get any value back

For this reasons I have decided to delete my account. If I do not get any value in exchange for my data…then it is really bad bussiness. Right?

In the end it was easier than Facebook. It was deleted instantly. I have only received mail saying that I could be indexed by search engines for some time.

Still I can allow people that should meet me to get information about me in advance. So I have created simple page with my CV. I publish there same amount of information as on LinkedIn. The difference is that they cannot be sold. It is available for everyone without poput dialogs saying that they should create LinkedIn account in order to see them. Also, CV is presented together with my blog posts. So reader get much better impression who I am. Certainly not good web designer 😉

I believe this is the future. Be absolutely open about your data or keep them absolutely confidental.

The last social network I use is Twitter. I still feel it has value for me. But let’s see next year 😉