WARNINGS:
This is a NOT a professional advice. It based on my personal experience only and resources that I read on the internet.It will contain many grammar mistakes. Please drink double espresso and energy drink as an article is long and boring.
It is part of series “How looks process of finding a job as software developer”.
DO I NEED LINKEDIN?
It is an optional thing. LinkedIn sounds like great idea, but …
It is worth to have, because:
- Due lack of alternatives. LinkedIn is an only option for a social network for professional (although Google+ can be offer better user experience, it is not designed for the professional social network ).
- It is a good source to gain intelligence about company and people, who will interview you.
- It is a good extension of your CV.
- It is a useful replacement for your personal website and blog.
However.
In general.I have very bad and annoying experience.
- It has many phishing issues. For example: If you install the Android application, it will steal your contact and spam you with add these people to LinkedIn and etc.
- It is famous for most evil UX design in the industry because LinkedIn’s UX focuses on marketing first not the user. It uses many phishing and spamming tricks to buy a premium account. As result don’t be surprised to receive/send many empty invitation or messages from many people. This is due poor design by LinkedIn. You can found many blog entries complaining about this.
- It looks nice, but usability can be painful.
- No ability to block recruiters.
Remember:
- Do NOT add recruiters, headhunters and other spammers. They will pollute your account with lots of useless job offer that in 99% is irrelevant to you. They will call and send an email you and call you anyway. Add only those who were very helpful in the past. They will pollute your stream with job offer all the time which can be annoying because then LinkedIn will start to add ads related to recruitment on your stream too.
it happens to me few times that I got this message …
Hi Dominik,I hope all is well.I have a permanent London based role for a leading finance company. They are looking for a Java Developer to work on a range of greenfield projects. If you interested , let me know and I’ll send through further details. Regards
.. on my e-mail as text and as LinkedIn message.
Conclusion:
- It is not mandatory to have an account on LinkedIn.
- LinkedIn is a great alternative if you don’t want waste your time on personal website and blog.
- If your job requires constant contact with other people, then LinkedIn is very useful.
- Avoid adding recruiters, headhunters and other spammers. They will pollute your account with lots of useless job offer that in 99% is irrelevant to you. They will call and send an email to you anyway.
- LinkedIn is very valuable for company research (gathering information about the company that you want work for and for job hunting).
- Using LinkedIn can be a pain in the ass as you cannot block recruiters and annoying poor user experience design.
Dominik Symonowicz 
[…] Do I need Linkedin? […]
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