I tried asking this on LinkedIn, and I was just about to post it when I decided to check one point, and in trying to get to that information, I lost what I’d written.
So I’ll ask it here, to the best of my memory…
Have you ever gotten a direct message — or pretty much, any message — via LinkedIn that was relevant to you? I mean, one from someone you know, or need to know, about something that you have any sort of interest in?
Pretty much all I get is “cold-call” attempts to sell me some unsought service or other, sent to me by strangers. Usually the strangers are attractive young women, but they’re not like the random, unknown attractive young women who reach out to me via Twitter. These have their clothes on and everything — businesslike clothes — which commands a bit more respect.
And I’d like to help them. I have enormous sympathy for people forced to engage in such painful, thankless labor. Also, they’re often from troubled places in the word. I got a couple recently from a lovely young lady in Ukraine, and y’all know I’m all about helping Ukraine. But I just wasn’t in the market for whatever she was trying to sell. I forget what it was. That was the bit of information I was seeking when I lost my message earlier, so I’m not going to go hunting for it now. It was some kind of business thingamabob, I’m assuming.
And since she was a stranger, I had no way of knowing whether she was legit. She said she was in Kyiv, but how was I to know? She could have been with the Russians, too. (Her first name, or the one she was using, was “Svetlana.”)
Anyway, that’s essentially what I was trying to ask, and I particularly wanted to hear from actual LinkedIn users. Maybe some of y’all are among those.
I’ll ask an additional question beyond that one, and I think I’ve asked this one before: Do you ever find LinkedIn useful? I doubt you have, unless it’s helped you get a job, or helped you hire someone else for a job.
To me, its one useful function is to be a sort of online complement to your C.V. And it’s only useful for that if the user keeps the page updated, which too few do…
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I get messages from people I’m linked to when they change jobs, their or my work anniversary and such. Being retired, that’s about it for me, just keeping up with old friends and ex co-workers. I do follow a few people who work for companies where I own stock. Sorta of a catch all if I miss something elsewhere.
A few months ago, I was getting connection requests from Chinese ex-pat women. I also got a connection request from a lovely, blonde Ukrainian woman. I looked examined her current employer to examine those employees on LinkedIn. I found a male that had the same employment history and education. She stole that person’s profile. Shortly after that I read an article on LinkedIn about a “pig butchering” scam. They contact a person to invest in cryptocurreny, and get the mark suckered to get all their money.
I spend more time on LinkedIn. I find it more constructive than Facebook book. I deactivated my Twitter account when Elon Musk revoked the permanent ban on a pathological liar.
Well, I’m still hanging in there, day by day, on Twitter. But it’s getting harder every day to use it for the things I use it for.
I don’t know of any alternatives at the moment. The one potential alternative, to my knowledge, is Bluesky. But I have yet to receive an invitation to join the beta version. (Just wait’ll that Jack Dorsey needs a favor from me… harrumph!)
But even if I could get on it today, the question remains — will it ever be what Twitter was before Musk came in and started ruining it?
And even if it does become that successful, how long will that take? How long will it take to build that extraordinary audience?
I deleted twitter a few months ago. Don’t miss it.
I deleted my LinkedIn account 6 months ago. I had a lot of former and current work friends as connections but at this stage of my career I no longer found it helpful. I think it can be helpful for young people early in a career. It’s just not built for people 50+ or especially people 60+.
I’ve seen people that I know that retired and right after they retired, they created a LinkedIn profile which is useless and worthless. Creating a profile on a job search and career development website after you’ve retired is a goofy choice. I think they’re just bored and want to create a profile.
I am not looking for another job or a promotion. But, the main reason I deleted it was I was tired of folks making political posts on a business and career development site- a very unprofessional thing to do. That was something I was surprised to see from certain business professionals.
The other concern I developed was reading so much advice from supposed job experts that was in direct opposition to advice from another supposed job/career experts. I realized it was people guessing.
LinkedIn is useful for one thing and one only. It tells me at a glance such basic information as what a person does, which I sometimes need because I have a name of someone I need to call or meet with, and I’m unclear as to who that person is or what might be relevant to talk about.
If you don’t interview or meet with strangers on a regular basis, that’s not much use to you…