Funny story about how linkedin's oversharing ruined a potential date for me:

Recently I have been online dating, and while talking to a match, she dropped that she works a relatively high position in state government. So naturally I googled her name (only had her first name) and the position and clicked the first link. "Oh wow, she is, that's cool!"

A minute later she messages me "Checking out my linkedin?"

I was super confused at first, being that I never use linked in, only set it up for a job change about 4 years ago. I checked the website on my browser and I was not even logged in.

Then I pieced it together.

The first search result was her linkedin, which I clicked. Without me even noticing, it opened in the app on my phone (which I wasn't even aware I still had), which was logged in. Of course then it sent her a notification that I had looked at her page.

She stopped responding pretty much right after that. I am guessing because my totally outdated linkedin didn't at all match what I had briefly mentioned I did for work, and was much more junior.

So thanks linkedin.

The reality is that she wasn't going to be a good match if she wasn't able to communicate if she had a concern like your linkedin not matching, or even just give you the benefit of the doubt. Imagine what else she wouldn't communicate.

> The reality is that she wasn't going to be a good match if she wasn't able to communicate if she had a concern like your linkedin not matching, or even just give you the benefit of the doubt. Imagine what else she wouldn't communicate.

It's reasonable to have a default posture of not trusting people you just met online and if you give them a further reason not to trust you (online profile doesn't match what you said), even if unintentionally, it's also reasonable to cease communications before more time is wasted on someone who is potentially untrustworthy. It's a red flag. And there are hundreds of other people you can communicate with instantly online who don't have glaring red flags. I find the behavior reasonable unless they had already met/had a lot of time invested.

The “there’s hundreds of other people” mentality will continue into a relationship and marriage. One of the large issues with dating today is how people treat it disposably. Just ask a question like a normal human. It takes 5 seconds to type it out and the response is probably reassuring

There's what you want people to do and what they will actually do. Nobody who sees a big red flag and has many other options is going to do that.

Which is fine and fair, but it doesn't really refute my point that this behavior would personally make me disinterested in pursuing them as a romantic interest, and in my opinion suggests they would have compatibility issues for a long-term monogamous relationship.

Proof you need to keep your resume current. lol

> LinkedIn is one of the most invasive

surprised to read this, I don't find it invasive in the slightest. I've turned off notifications for most things but its the only "social" app I have on my device.

I will say it's gotten a lot more content focussed lately, with everyone and their mom sharing their thoughts on jobs and employment. Personally I just use it as a profile for recruiters to hit and a way for me to talk back to them

My observations are the same. It's good for some networking and industry news articles, but anyone in an HR or managerial role is posting a story meant to farm likes, so there is more noise than usual.

Use your network, not LinkedIn, to find jobs.

But set up a LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn is the lubricant of "hey, my friend X is looking - here's his linkedin" in a way that "hey ..., here's his personal website" or "here's some word doc or PDF in some random format that is annoying."

I've hired a lot of people and there is little more irritating than highly polished, curated resumes with a lot of noise and fluff on them. There may have been a time when that mattered, but honestly I just want to see your location, education, degrees, and the jobs you've had.

I don't think it's essential, but it's probably helpful. I also haven't looked for jobs in a long time, but interview a lot; it's unusual, through not unheard of, for a candidate not to have one (I don't think it counts against them with us, but I'm sure it does in some places).

Also, if I did find myself in need of a job, and didn't have anything particular in mind, I'd probably start replying to the recruiting messages I get on LinkedIn.

I think you can turn off the notifications; it notifies me for messages but nothing else. I assume I configured that at some point.

If you're at the point where you're sending out online applications to jobs where you don't have a connection, I would definitely get a linkedin.

I'd turn off notification entirely or for all but messages

It's a primary tool for a recruiter. If you are in a situation where you need recruiters to help you find work I think it would be worth the effort.

Having them centralized on one platform is an asset when you want to avoid the people who will sell off you contact info and resume to unscrupulous body shops. Cut out LI and apply directly whenever possible.

A linkedin profile isn’t essential, I last moved jobs less than a year ago and discovered I had an incredibly out of date profile when somebody mentioned they had searched for me and couldn’t find me on there.

I did however have talks and interviews on podcasts and other things they could find, and a history of things I’ve worked on which I can talk about, and a previous colleague had referred me so I already had an in.

It isn't if you have good contacts. It pays to build a lot of bridges at your jobs.

I have a very bare bones LinkedIn profile. It mostly serves as an address book.

A lot more seems to be through it, though other job sites do exist.

I don't really bother with notifications or the app for any social media site.

it's bad when you're not looking for a job, but It's great when you are imo.

why is it bad when you're not looking for a job?

You get lot of spam and some of the recruiters can be pretty unethical

ah, fair point

It just bothers me that people get notified whenever I'd do anything on it. As for myself, I simply make notifications go to my spam folder

I prefer to share my information when I want and with whom I want, but LinkedIn feels like a meat market. If FB was personal marketing 101 (only sharing what makes you attractive), linkedIn feels like an advanced course on being fake. It kind if disgusts me

What do you mean by "It just bothers me that people get notified whenever I'd do anything on it"?

You don't have to notify anyone when you update anything, it's just a setting. Most people don't.

The "fake" ones are the people trying to become linkedin-fluencers, I agree I'd never want to do that. But setting up your profile is basically a copy paste of your resume, and leads to an in-flow of recruiters you can always go back to when it's the right time.

I can't really believe I'm preaching for linkedin because I barely spend any time on it, but it's a tool, and when I've decided to move companies, it's made life far easier than it would've been manually applying to companies. That's without making public posts or sharing public updates to my role

Maybe it's because I never go on it, but every time a contact posts or visits my empty profile, I get notified. I can only imagine the notifications they would get if I started actually putting my info online. I might want to share it with a recruiter on a one-off basis, but I dislike having my cv available to everyone. I like to live a private life and not be publicly tracked, is that too much to expect nowadays? Just asking because I haven't job searched in a long time

Yep makes sense, I hate all that too, and they probably should do a better job providing sensible defaults for people like us. But it definitely can all be turned off.

Go in there and disable all that before changing anything. I’m bothered in a similar way about that stuff.

That being said, I don’t post or participate in the social media aspect. It’s a virtual resume and an index of recruiters and companies who are interested in you, and it’s good to know where your colleagues you want to work with again are at.

Don’t install the app for minimal invasiveness. And also consider that anyone who actively uses LinkedIn has probably disabled or filtered out all the notification noise themselves as well, so don’t get too caught up thinking about it.

If you're looking for work (at least in programming, in the US), respectfully you need to get over it. This mindset is well in the minority and will actively hurt you while job searching.

Not saying you won't find stuff without it, but why make it harder than it needs to be?

And proactively remove yourself from any of those people lookup databases that recruiters will use to find your direct email