Do You Use LinkedIn?

Question

Curious to know if people here use LinkedIn? I had it for the longest time as a sort of digital resume and a way to maintain connections but more recently found it to be as useful as X/Twitter, meaning not really, so deleting my account. If you don't have an account there, how are you maintaining professional connections and finding jobs?

joezydeco · Accepted Answer

I keep my account. I use it as a superset of my resume. Lots of pictures and links to projects I've worked on.
I only connect to people I have actually worked with for more than 6 months. Very few other acquaintances, roommates, family members, etc. My account is fully public. I don't pay for Premium, which is a scam. I don't connect to my own company's LinkedIn instance, for many reasons.
I do not participate in any of the social stuff. Political conversations and faux-nice-quit posts ("Hey Guys! I'm no longer with FooCorp but am sooooo excited about my next amazing adventure!") get instantly muted and unfollowed.
I one-click decline all recruiters, unless the job looks interesting. Those get a quick reply, a scan of the job description, and then a no-follow.
That alone has given me more opportunities than I know what to do with over the last decade, and zero headaches.

wizzerking · Answer

I deleted my Linkedin account 5-6 years ago because I was not getting anything useful from the groups I was participating in. I now use papers with code, arxiv, etc to find idea to work on. I keep my resume's on Careerbuilder, Indeed and Dice upto date, and tweak them every month to let recruiters know I am still interested or not. I no longer let recruiter archived my resume' I tell them to use my online resume's instead; keeping all those specific websites up to date is just an onerous task.

ryan-duve · Answer

I have an account. When I was on the job market it was helpful to see what companies my friends are working at so I can ask them things. I've also been able to field some questions and help some people who found me on LinkedIn, so that's been nice.For a while I tried using it as a blogging platform, but I didn't have much luck. I think is more of a function of my ability to write well than any characteristic of the platform.

yung-ampersand · Answer

No; I consider it first a waste of time and second a pointless violation of my privacy. You actually don't need to use social media to do work. (In most cases it's not work, ever.)

OhMeadhbh · Answer

I used to, but not anymore. It seemed to be A LOT of ads and people I didn't know who were somehow connected to me. I also deleted my account.