[blackwasp]

Are there LinkedIn benefits? Sure. Do people make connections on there, convert them, close deals? Of course. This is the much-balleyhooed “social selling.” Does this happen as much as thought leaders want us to believe it happens? No. There are some people and companies who “get” all this stuff, of course. But by and large, a lot of companies are using 1991 funnel models, metric evaluations, and sales processes. Change is hard for people at the individual level. A company is often 1,000+ individuals. Try changing at that level. It terrifies most of us. We often bury our heads in the sand and ignore what’s happening, or listen to some consultant advice. You could probably gag a farm of horses with people claiming to be LinkedIn experts or extol all the LinkedIn benefits for you. Half those people probably lead their slide decks with “Have a professional-looking profile picture.” That passes as advice, somehow? People didn’t know that? OK, then!

This is the dirty little secret of LinkedIn. It has a huge user base, but only about 1 in 5 of those users check it monthly. Now, 1 in 5 of a huge number is still a huge number — I’ll give you that. But: here’s a situation I just had. About 8–10 months ago, I was messaging one person a day on LinkedIn, just as a networking play. This week — essentially a year later — I heard from two of those people. “Hey, what’s up?” It’s like, “Uh, I messaged you 10 months ago. Now you get back to me?” If that happened on email, people would literally light their entire body on fire and run through the cubicle rows screaming bloody murder.

This is all logical, of course. You would regularly go on LinkedIn if you were a recruiter, a “thought leader,” or looking for a job. If you don’t fit those three categories, you almost never would need to log in.

Source

LinkedIn is that unlikely contradiction: the social network that’s all business. No one’s up late at night checking out their connections’ connections, or who endorsed who and for what. You log in about once a month, you accept the “invitations to connect” from a handful of strangers, and you log out. And you’re sent, on average, 1.75 emails a day for the privilege.

But it seems I may have underestimated LinkedIn – at least by numbers. It has half a billion members, about 180m fewer than Twitter, with 319m monthly active users as of February. And think of all the words, energy and analysis given over to tweets. (One word: covfefe.)

The platform says each new connection extends the reach of your professional network by an average of 400 people, 100 companies and more than 500 jobs. It all sounds like a bit much to expect of my ex-boyfriend’s dad and my high school English teacher, both of whom invited me to connect three years ago – but who am I to close any potential doors?

To use Seinfeld terminology, LinkedIn feels a little like the Bizarro Facebook, where instead of births and engagements people publicise their “microactions” and “thought leadership”. One consultant with a large following described herself as “the Michael Bay of business”. Fleetingly, I wondered: would anyone buy that I was the Michael Bay of journalism?

LinkedIn is that kind of place – “a wasteland of endless management consultants congratulating each other”, to quote one correspondent.

Source

LinkedIn, with its 500 million members, is the quintessential professional network and one that’s not used as optimally as it could be. When I teach classes on social media, I ask “Who’s on LinkedIn?” and almost all the hands go up. But then I ask, “Who knows what they are doing on LinkedIn?” and most of the hands fall.

Most people just take it for granted and start using it in a panic when they have to change jobs. It’s often too late at that point. You are better off learning to use it when you don’t need it. LinkedIn works best when you use it as a career management tool and not just for job hunting.

Finding jobs is the most important part of LinkedIn for individuals, and you can use the network to track specific companies, people and job openings. Spend time getting to know, in detail, the search features that let you drill down into networks of people, companies and job postings.

Source

[GTO]

I have to admit, I find LinkedIn quite pointless. I go there once a week (whenever I get their email on waiting connections) to approve requests, then log off. Of late, I have been royally spammed with marketing messages in their PM system. In 5 years of using LinkedIn, I can think of just a single time it was useful = a good job applicant connecting with me.

[Turbohead]

And I thought I was the only one who couldn't leverage LinkedIn!

The only reason I go to LinkedIn these days is for Rahul Subramanian's satire. Everything else I feel is an eye wash!

[Samurai]

I am surprised no one has mentioned one very useful feature of LinkedIn. In fact, that is the only feature I regularly use.

I routinely have to participate in meetings with people I have never met. LinkedIn lets me check out the people and understand their background before I engage them. It does the same for them, they usually look me up before the meeting.

Beyond that I don't know how it can help. I am not in HR or Sales.

[haisaikat]

Its like the professional TruCaller network. LinkedIn works most for IT and Management folks in my opinion, for whom this is more of a social club for increasing contacts either directly or in-directly.

The ones found posting a lot of thought leadership quotes are in definite need of job changes. Its a recruiter's heaven for tapping into profiles for high end roles and also to gather feedbacks on people on your network before an important vendor meeting or a job interview.

And last comes the recommendations, although they are many a time requested for and helps for job changes abroad.

[Raghu M]

I have had an account for more than 5 years now. Apart from checking my notifications and accepting requests, I see nothing that LinkedIn offers. Not to mention the latest flood of spams that I am hit with every week. It works for people well outside India I am told, it's a good way to showcase your skills and education. I think it is just networking rather than anything else, I have not seen anyone getting a job due to LinkedIn. For me, apart from flashing my fancy designation and connections, it has hardly done any good.

[Thermodynamics]

If you have a private job, it is probably more useful to have a LinkedIn account. This is because, your network is your means for job-security. It is practically impossible otherwise to keep track of your network i.e., who has moved into what company/position.

I would agree, that only a small fraction of members are active, people don't waste time there. If anyone is using LinkedIn, either he is active seeking jobs or is a recruitment head hunter. But then, I also see some space for developing marketing connections, advertising, branding, technical discussions, opportunities to get into a conversation with super bosses of other companies. It is indeed a passive platform, but do we have a rival?

[libranof1987]

Used LinkedIn heavily while in the US during/after my MBA; it is leveraged significantly there to network, especially cold call someone. And people do respond.

In India, not so much.

That said, LinkedIn has become a slightly sophisticated version of Facebook and Instagram now with people liberally posting anything: self-praise, absolutely immature riddles, some story about how they rose from the ashes or helped someone do so, or HRs trashing interviewees.

Originally Posted by Samurai

I routinely have to participate in meetings with people I have never met. LinkedIn lets me check out the people and understand their background before I engage them.

Yep, that's the most I use it for as well; some profiles give a few topics to talk so you can break the ice.

[mayankk]

I am in sales, and the only reason I use linkedin is to map.
EIther to get in touch with someone, or to evaluate someone who has gotten in touch with me, to know whether they have the kind of control/authority that can help me.
So, in that regard, I can say that it is invaluable.

[Sahil]

I check my linkedin multiple times a week, if not daily. It is a GREAT networking tool. Not only is it, easy to search and connect with people but also a great platform to build your company's profile/image for free via a company page.
Since I am a business owner, my objectives are different. I am not looking for a job or putting out job openings that often. Which are often the main reasons why people use/used linkedin. However, its advantages are far beyond just finding the job market.

Let me give you an example of the power of linkedin: One of my largest buyers as on today messaged me on linkedin 3-4 years ago and that how it all began. Yes he did also send an email to us but linkedin was also a referral point for him to directly reach me rather than an official company email id.

[srishiva]

It helps me know about people I come across in the industry as well as people within my company. Lets you know the background, their experience, work areas etc.

Also helps to follow where your past colleagues are. Since my past colleagues are scattered around the world and are not on phone/whatsapp, this really helps in keeping in touch. I recently changed my job based on job postings on linked IN.

[NPV]

Originally Posted by Samurai

LinkedIn lets me check out the people and understand their background before I engage them.

True. If you're meeting someone for the first time for business or even an interview (you may be the interviewer or interviewee), then it helps get an idea about the person's professional background.

However, this assumes that people would keep their profiles updated (I'm also guilty of not updating my profile over the last few years!). Keeping the profile updated can also give one the professional "visibility" of one's background and then the profile link can be shared in the CV/Résumé.

[aghate]

I am a regular user of LinkedIn and it's true as quoted above it is used more in panic when doing a job search than what its original intention was to connect with like minded professionals with job search being an alternative.

I will say this out loud and it is an observation since I have been using Linked for many years now. Today LinkedIn feels more like FB with people sharing stuff that one would expect on other Social Media platforms. Whenever I visit the Home Page I see loads of posts that are not relevant to professional discussion or spam. Some of them asking about Mobile numbers to be contacted for a Job Post and there are 1000+ people commenting on it with their mobile phone numbers and Resumes. Gosh! it feels mental.

My usage is mainly with Job searches and trying to connect with HRs for that advertised post. If I message a 100 people I may get a response from 1-2 or Not. This is in stark contrast to say 5-6 years ago where I would get a response of 6-8 in those 100. The Job search has been so difficult with this onslaught of messages that the HR would receive and the push towards the usage of 'Premium' (which costs a lot) has seen the hit rate of success to drop significantly. Many recruiters will accept your Connection invite but will not respond to your messages unless we are using InMail from the Premium Version.


There are of course ways to tune the job search and there are numerous articles on that.

• Examples like this useful Twitter thread, Things I wish I knew about LinkedIn
• And this document that goes into additional details.

I have had some success with the inputs from aforementioned articles with at least getting 'Views' on my profile if not a response from the recruiters. There have been suggestions to use Premium version but I have refrained from doing it. The LinkedIn job search tool is refined for my usage. Have the stopped the Job alerts now as it pings me irrelevant jobs most of the time, I do a better job I believe when I am searching for jobs manually.

You can additionally search for relevant Groups for job postings. Get yourself added in that Group and then post there for relevant folks to see that you are for example, 'actively looking for a job'. I would suggest targeting a group with less number of people, meaning, don't join a group that already has a couple of thousand people where your post will get piled up under all the other posts.

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I am surprised no one has mentioned one very useful feature of LinkedIn. In fact, that is the only feature I regularly use.

I routinely have to participate in meetings with people I have never met. LinkedIn lets me check out the people and understand their background before I engage them. It does the same for them, they usually look me up before the meeting.

+1 on this. I'm part of a consulting firm that has acquired a lot of other firms - there's so many layers and hierarchy, even within the organization it's hard to figure out what's a particular person's capability.

Linkedin helps me a lot on that. Even if the individual has a very brief description or just work experience summary, it gives me an idea on his experience level and other inferences (capabilities, etc.).

Having your Linkedin profile updated is a very good/useful aspect. It's like the pseudo reference at times is good enough to fill in when someone is evaluating your candidature (for whatever purpose at their end).

As I read someplace once - your LinkedIn profile is not intended for you, but for the professional world to know about you.

[varun.ppl]

My two cents - LinkedIn has become an Instagram to show-case (show off) your achievements. No offence to anyone but off late the LinkedIn algorithm has gone for a toss or their content filtering process is managed by teenagers, cause every alternate week when I fire up the portal, the first 10 posts are typically spam...

I never found much value in their Networking proposition or either their Career opportunity section...less said about their courses/certifications. The entire ideology of creating groups/forums was an opportunity lost and I use Meetup in order to meet like minded people.

As someone pointed out, it's a TrueCaller prior to meetings/interviews. That's the best use case scenario in the current shape and form.