Alternative to LinkedIn?

[PCTNN]

I've always liked LinkedIn because it was a straight up no-nonsense social media platform.

Until recently.

I'm noticing more and more useless and absurd/irrelevant surveys which are transforming LinkedIn in some sort of Facebook 2.0. This morning I've found a survey asking what the best Christmas party hangover cure is. Yesterday there was one about whether it was a good idea to put 'vaccinated' on your CV.

I know I shouldn't get angry because the vast majority of people in the world are morons so I should expect that, but still...

Are there any alternatives out there? Or can we put our minds together and create one?

[northernladuk]

I've always liked LinkedIn because it was a straight up no-nonsense social media platform.

Until recently.

How have you only found this out? It's been like this for years. I haven't bothered with linkedin bar to update my recent gigs for a long time now. People blowing their own trumpets, being proud of their kids, funny (??) pictures and tons and tons of benign posts. It got harder and harder to dig through the rubbish to find anything useful so gave up with it.

Like any social media before and every again it got taken over by certain types and ceased to be useful for others. I assume it's just the way it is.

[TheDude]

Have you tried the Freemasons?

[ladymuck]

I don't interact with LI very much. I keep my profile updated and I'll tweak my headline when I'm looking for work and that's about it. Even if you choose not to follow any companies or people you'll still end up with a feed full of tat.

AND! It annoys me that you can't set the sort order of said tat to chronological rather than "what we think you should see". It switches back when you close your browser and can't be done on the mobile app at all.

[DaveB]

I don't interact with LI very much. I keep my profile updated and I'll tweak my headline when I'm looking for work and that's about it. Even if you choose not to follow any companies or people you'll still end up with a feed full of tat.

AND! It annoys me that you can't set the sort order of said tat to chronological rather than "what we think you should see". It switches back when you close your browser and can't be done on the mobile app at all.

Very much this for me as well.

It's just there as another way for agents/clients to find my CV. I've had a couple of leads for gigs from it but it's pretty much worthless otherwise and not that different from Facebook these days.

I'd imaging it's (slightly) better for management types who use phrases like "though leadership", "disrupting markets", and "dynamic symbiotic engagements".

[PerfectStorm]

I've yet to see a single upside to Linkedin. Agents adding you and then nothing happening, people talking absolute cringe brown-nose stuff about their companies... what's the point?

[ladymuck]

I've yet to see a single upside to Linkedin. Agents adding you and then nothing happening, people talking absolute cringe brown-nose stuff about their companies... what's the point?

I have to say, it's quite effective for me. I had been given notice on my contract at the tail end of November (since reversed) and I updated my LI 'tag line' with my status to say when I'd be available and several members of my network got in touch to send me leads and introductions etc. I have no doubt that at least one of them would have resulted in something useful.

My process is to update my profile, update my tag line and then click like on a few posts or add a comment here and there and soon enough someone calls with a job

[kloos]

LI has been good for me. I get most opportunities from LI and strangely of late from CV Library. I update my CV each month on a handful of sites and it seems to promote the right level of interest. I mostly ignore the posts on LI unless I am very bored.

[northernladuk]

LI has been good for me. I get most opportunities from LI and strangely of late from CV Library. I update my CV each month on a handful of sites and it seems to promote the right level of interest. I mostly ignore the posts on LI unless I am very bored.

So what you are actually saying is that some elements of LI have been useful but LI itself as it was designed to work is useless because you ignore it. It was supposed to be a social platform for professionals, not a job board, and it's that element the OP is tired of.

[malvolio]

So what you are actually saying is that some elements of LI have been useful but LI itself as it was designed to work is useless because you ignore it. It was supposed to be a social platform for professionals, not a job board, and it's that element the OP is tired of.

It was supposed to be a platform for people to maintain and expand their professional networks. Posts about "privileged to have spent 20 glorious years" (before being dismissed out of hand...) and look at what my kids have achieved don't exactly help that aim. Nor do endless puff pieces on all sorts of companies' product and services.

And it's near impossible to bring order to the chaos anyway. Even if you turn off some company's posts, one of your network will comment on in and you get the whole thread all over again!

Like the Curate's Egg, it is good in parts...