Hello Developers ๐๐
In this article, I'm discussing why I don't use LinkedIn much and why you should also stop using it. LinkedIn is used by millions of humans, as I am a developer I can only write about the perspective of a developer. Disclaimer everything in this article will be from the point of view of a developer.
Why you should have a LinkedIn account.
First and foremost, let's discuss why everybody tells you to have a LinkedIn account.
- You will gain exposure to Hiring Managers and Recruiters
- You will get offers from your LinkedIn profile.
- You will get to know about Job Postings.
- You can gain social proof of your skills and talents
- LinkedIn can help rank your name on Google
These points seem fair and promising, but this is not the reality of LinkedIn today.
The Reality Check ๐ !
It's all fake, fake, and fake. Yeah, you heard me right. It's all fake, what I see whenever I open my LinkedIn. MOTIVATION, Some random dude did some small thing and shared it by over-exaggeration, someone likes or comments on something, random job posting, which I would never apply to.
What I hate about LinkedIn
MOTIVATION, the number of motivational quotes that are there in my feed just makes me irritating. There are more people wanting to motivate than the number of people who want to get motivated.
Job alerts, I wonder who is posting tens of jobs on a daily basis. And the information about the job is useless. They want you to have the knowledge of all the programming languages from the time they are made ๐๐๐. And the cherry on the cake it the pay range is not disclosed by the company. If the employers of LinkedIn read my blog (It will not reach them probably) please make the requirement limited and make the pay range mandatory.
Some likes or comments on something. For the sake of humanity I don't want to know what my connections are linking and commenting on, please just remove this feature or make it an optional feature so that people who want it can enable it (Hopefully no one wants to).
It's all fake. There is no measure to check if something is fake or not. For instance, I have added in my experience that I am working at Google as a Frontend Architecture from Jan 2020 and It is showing on my profile. Check it here.
I could go on like this for hours, but I think you get my point.
Alternatives of LinkedIn.
- Github. Github is a great website to show your coding experience and your consistency through daily commits. However, it is only limited to developers.
- Dev Community. Dev.to is a great blogging site, and I get plenty of offers from my Dev profile.
- Hashnode. It is also a blogging site. It offers a lot of features free of cost.
- Twitter. I don't promote Twitter as much as Github and Dev, but I would say it is better than LinkedIn.
Let me know what are your thoughts, agree, or disagree. Let me know in the comments.
Closing here
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Latest comments (47)
It is a tool like any other, specific for business related topics.
You need some fast overview how the market is searching for a Dev or salaries statistics without moving your fingers too much? Activate open for job search in your profile. People will start to inform you after one night.
You want to stand out with fun? Update your skills with some additional flavour: tech stack, soft and hard skills, words from different language that might be some real skill but you know are not. And don't forget the Pokemon. Hint: Take the more unkown.
You most likely get a optional quest event with that: headhunter fun games. Let them praise all your skills, and then ask how many of these Pokemon they themselves catched.
Of course, not all the time is for entertainment. Sometimes I get in contact then with people who know this game play. Then it gets interesting.
When it is time to ditch the tool, just remove yourself form it and use a new one.
I think it has some benefits, but that is like with every tool: you use it more when needed, else you use it less or don't. The choice is yours.
It's just facebook for companies, and you do what you want with it, I do my bit ;-)
I don't agree with your point over LinkedIn.
It's completely natural that some people scatter the platform with some useless memes or selfies. ( I faced it on LinkedIn , never saw any fake motivation though )
But that doesn't make the platform less worthy than other platforms that we use in our day-to-day life.๐๐ปโโ๏ธ
I have seen many people using LinkedIn in the right way to land themselves on their dream jobs. Your profile on LinkedIn is your portfolio where recruiters or other professional people can assess you. ๐ค
It's important that you understand the use of the platform, try to make-
โก๏ธ good connections or networks
โก๏ธ try to enhance your profile in a professional way ( it matters )
โก๏ธ try to learn from others mistake , they are not fake motivation till they are sharing their failures and mistakes from which you can learn from.
โก๏ธ try to keep yourself updated with the current need of market and upskill
โก๏ธ sharing your achievements is ok ! You have earned something fruitful.
That's what my take would be over this...open to know others views as well !
I agree with some points about the difference between the expected output and the actual output. There is a chaos and random posts there, and there are some great posts and blogs from experts in the industry too. In addition to that, LinkedIn learning platform is offering some good learning resources.
I think we need to be balanced in this point, as a developer; (GitHub + Twitter + Blog site [Dev.to/Hashnode/Medium...etc.] + LinkedIn) is a good combination.
LinkedIn is overrated, especially by the HR guys.
I sort of agree but I also believe that it depends on your network. I used to hate my LinkedIn but now it feels much closer to tech Twitter because I have so many developer connections. It was much worse when it was like 95% recruiters because I could not relate with all of the content they were putting out ๐
If you are one of the people who don't want to get motivated, then unfollow the influencer.
However, you said that the number of people wanting to motivate is greater than people who want to get motivated. You also said LinkedIn don't assess the authenticity of your work experience, even if you put a fake one it will still be included in your profile. But, aren't you doing the same? You stated a conclusion that compares the no. of people on this and that, without conducting surveys, or other supporting methods. Is it just a tantrum then?
LinkedIn lets you add work experience, and they will accept it right away. However, you can take some skill assessments directly in the app to at least support your posted work experience. Recruiters might skip your profile if you don't have these supporting assessment, or they will contact you to take their own assessment.
LinkedIn showcases your profile to recruiters, and let's you be updated with your connections. It does not serve as a measure of your real capability or if you are fit t o a certain position. That is the job of recruiters.
I'm not sure if this is intentional (hey, it got me to click) but I feel like the title of this article is worded a bit confusingly. Do you mean to say "Why I don't use LinkedIn and Why you Shouldn't Either"?
Just a heads up. Feel free to let me know and I'll delete my comment if it's not helpful :0)
Yeah! You have a point. I think it is a mistake made because of my poor grammar ๐.
Thanks for pointing it out
Not a big deal. People understood it anyway ยฏ_(ใ)_/ยฏ
Spot on until you got to the part about Twitter. Twitter is an utter abomination that is killing humanity. Few people I know are capable of serious, in-depth thought or discussion anymore. It's just people tweeting at each other but not really caring what the other person tweets except as a launching pad for their own. In short, each shouting his or her own views without let up.
LinkedIn is awful. It used to be about putting up your CV so you could stop rewriting it over and over again, and maybe someone might see it. Now it's just more Facegoop. Dozens of posts every day about nonsense I have zero interest in, and virtually all the "connections" I get are people trying to sell me something or recruiters who didn't even bother to read my profile, not that they would know what any of it meant anyway.
I've almost given up on it entirely. But I'm too lazy to put up my own site, so...
Omg, you read my mind!! People tell me Iโm nuts because I truly hate LinkedIn. Letโs face it, itโs Facebook with a theme. Both are useless and do nothing but waste my time.
Totally agree with you!
Check out: showwcase.com/
It's emerging as a community driven platform.