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back to article LinkedIn SHOCK: Social-for-Suits ISN'T a flash in the pan

LinkedIn has once again proved that a social network can make money, just as long as it's got more than one way for the cash to roll in. The network for professionals topped analysts' expectations for profit and revenue in the third quarter of 2012 as its advertising business continued to do very well and its job listings unit …

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  1. Gordon 10
    Thumb Up

    Must admit

    Im cautiously impressed with their jobs <spam>. Just by going by my profile they manage more relevant matches than Jobserve does after years of training and tweaking my searches.

    Sham the rest of their comms is spam.

    Add obligatory moan about jobserve being much better when it just had IT jobs on it......

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Must admit

      And IT being much better when there were no bloodsucking HRs in it. Just temp agencies that did your payroll properly and that was that. About 14 years ago IIRC?

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      1. Hieronymus Howerd
        Reply Icon

        Re: Must admit

        Are you confusing recruiters with HR? Very different thing, although their "not sucking at their job" ratios tend to be similarly disappointing, sadly.

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    3. JetSetJim
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Down

      Re: Must admit

      Semi thumbs down from me for their jobs bit. I'm in telecoms, only have telecoms companies being followed, or telecoms related groups. Yet all I get are blasted railway jobs at Invensys. I have a sneaky suspicion that I once did a search on my own name and found a railway engineer, too, so either it kept that history as an "interest", or is confusing us both.

      Annoyingly, they are not planning a feature for specifying companies to ignore/hide/block - I emailed their support to ask. I'd especially like to block the combined contact lists of the various recruiters in my network from the "people you might like to connect with" as I invariably won't know them due to the recruiters habits of spamming all and sundry in the hope of signing up another mark.

      Perhaps I should FOI them to see just what they have on me that means I get labelled as a train-spotter (NB - I've certainly never stuck that on a list of interests).

      And then on the relevant jobs I do see, when I click through I usually see the message "2536 people (and their pets) have applied for this position" - more a sign of the times, I suppose

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  2. DrXym

    A recruitment agency's wet dream

    My advice to anyone who uses this service is do NOT accept invites from anybody working in a recruitment agency. They can't help themselves from remorselessly spamming every one who makes the mistake of accepting an invite.

    Worse, these agencies have so many meaningless connections that you find the service recommending people you've never heard of just because they happen to share some connections to the same agencies as yourself.

    After I removed connections to these people I found the service a lot more pleasant. Still don't see much use for it though.

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    1. Derichleau
      Reply Icon

      Re: A recruitment agency's wet dream

      If an employment agency extracts your data from LinkedIn and uses it to contact you outside of LinkedIn - which they did in my case because I had blocked them contacting me, then it's likely that the employment agency is contravening section 55 of the DPA98: Unlawful obtaining etc. of personal data.

      When an employment agency uses LinkedIn it has agreed to do so in accordance with their terms and conditions. The agency should not be taking your data from LinkedIn, guessing your e-mail address and using it to contact you directly.

      The employment agency business is full of failed salesmen who think that they can make a better living by operating an employment agency. In doing so, they're prepared to try every trick in the book to make some money out of you.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A recruitment agency's wet dream

      If you think Zuckerberg is hard to shake off, try removing yourself from LinkedIn's clutches.

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    3. BillG
      Reply Icon
      Go

      Re: A recruitment agency's wet dream

      I've been on LinkedIn for four years. It works for me and it helps me make money. I manage a LinkedIn Group with over 21,000 members. Benefiting from LinkedIn is easy ONLY if you never, never, NEVER accept a connection from someone you don't know. LinkedIn is not Facebook. It's not social networking, it's PROFESSIONAL networking. Quality, not quantity, of contacts counts. I won't accept a connection from someone that I haven't had personal contact with, such as a phone call. Emails don't count as "personal contact".

      In four years I have connected with three recruiters. Since I have 150 connections and my profile states I only connect with people I know I get connection requests from recruiters weekly, practically begging me to connect with them. I refuse the connection, then click "I don't know this person". LinkedIn flags that profile.

      Did you accept a connection from a stranger because you hope that stranger wants to make money FOR you? WRONG! That stranger is hoping to make money OFF you! Waiting for that magic PM from a stranger contact that says "Hey! I want to pay you money to _____ !" That is never going to happen.

      LIONs (LinkedIn Open Networkers) are the worst. Many of them are fake profiles and harvest your contact information.

      Join LinkedIn Groups that are relevant to your field AND are managed properly. Join in on discussions and be insightful, relevant, and DIFFERENT. Show insight into your business that nobody else sees. Opportunities will come

      If you see job posts in a Group's Discussions area, if you see non-relevant discussions, if you see "make money blogging" posts, if you see "How to find hidden jobs" spam, then that Group is managed badly and you cannot trust what's posted there, and you need to leave that Group immediately.

      Again - only accept connections from people you know. Only accept connections from recruiters you are actively working with. The LinkedIn benefits will come, yes they will.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's even sadder than you think.

    Wannabe suits. Get it right.

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  4. Derichleau
    WTF?

    They could make more money

    If LinkedIn clamped down on those employment agencies that regularly trawl their site to extract and process the data of those individuals that they're interested in - thus circumventing the fee paying channel, they could make even more money.

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  5. LordHighFixer
    Meh

    I use it exclusivly

    for hosting my resume and looking for the better offer should I want or need it. Granted my connection to recruiters make the "people you may know" screen show some interesting results, it has surprised me more than one by showing me someone I actually did know ;)

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Somewhat tangentially, her indoors has just started a job where the staff handbook insists any employee with a LinkedIn account sets the notification email address to be their work one. It justifies this with some pony about LinkedIn being a "professional" social media site. Not sure where this sits either with LinkedIn's T&Cs or with the UK Data Protection laws but it certainly sounds a bit dodgy.

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  7. Jackieboy
    Linux

    Useless when looking for a job

    As in the title (currently looking for a new job due to our "merger" with a US company == redundancy).

    Not a single connected recruiter landed me an interview via LinkedIn. All the interesting jobs seem to be on Jobserve or efinancialcareers. However I can see that some prospective employers look at my profile, so that justifies it for me.

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    1. Corinne
      Reply Icon

      Re: Useless when looking for a job

      I've found quite the opposite. I've had about as many interviews through LinkedIn members viewing my profile & contacting me than I've had from replying to Jobserve adverts, and got 2 of my last 3 contracts through LinkedIn approaches.

      Talking to one agency recently, they said their preferred methods of finding candidates are via their own databases & LinkedIn. They only advertised jobs if those nethods failed to get enough/good enough candidates, as adverts usually lead to 2-300 responses of which only 10-15% are anywhere near suitable.

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  8. Grubby

    Context

    It's a useful tool but like any tool it's only as useful as the user can make it. I work in continuous improvement, change management which relies heavily on networking and making sure you know the right people, and the right people know you so for me Linkedin is a really useful tool for keeping in touch with people, in a working context / environment.

    Facebook etc are communications tools for chatting to your friends socially etc, but it's like a phone, you don't give every one of your crazy friends your work number, work is work, play is play.

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  9. Ian Johnston Silver badge
    WTF?

    I've got a LinkedIn account

    but as far as I can see it's a dreadful 1995 style interface which allows me to do nothing of any use unless I give them thirty quid a month. Am I missing something?

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    1. David Beck
      Reply Icon

      Re: I've got a LinkedIn account

      Like most things, if you can't figure out anything useful to do with it, you probably don't need it.

      All the 30GBP does is allow you to be a bit more aggressive in finding others, it really does little to make you more visible. So unless you are a stalker or recruiter, then you will not be interested.

      As for the 1995 UI, I like it, it's a menu system designed to run with a mouse, an environment that is familiar to it's target market. Since Linkedin isn't encumbered with a need to present content to neophytes to earn money, it doesn't need to emulate the current fad of Fisher Price interfaces.

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