"How recruiters are posing a threat to LinkedIn..."

[NickFitz]

"...even though they don’t mean to". Interesting examination of how and why recruiters dilute the network effects that should make LinkedIn useful.

[PinkPoshRat]

Every agent who attempts to link up with me (just because they've seen my cv online) gets treated the same. I report them as spam on linkedin. Hopefully if enough of us do the same, he or she (the agent) will have their account closed.. Mwuhaha!

[Fred Bloggs]

Every agent who attempts to link up with me (just because they've seen my cv online) gets treated the same. I report them as spam on linkedin. Hopefully if enough of us do the same, he or she (the agent) will have their account closed.. Mwuhaha!

+1.

[MarillionFan]

+1.

+2

I just won't connect to agents unless I have specifically spent time working with them. It dilutes the process.

[TykeMerc]

Every agent who attempts to link up with me (just because they've seen my cv online) gets treated the same. I report them as spam on linkedin. Hopefully if enough of us do the same, he or she (the agent) will have their account closed.. Mwuhaha!

I'd never thought of reporting them as spam, good idea, I'll do that in future. I currently just refuse their requests.

I agree with the initial point and article Nick, it's the driving reason I don't use LinkedIn much.

[DodgyAgent]

Every agent who attempts to link up with me (just because they've seen my cv online) gets treated the same. I report them as spam on linkedin. Hopefully if enough of us do the same, he or she (the agent) will have their account closed.. Mwuhaha!

So why do you post details of yourself if you don't want people to read them and contact you?

[pmeswani]

So why do you post details of yourself if you don't want people to read them and contact you?

For the majority of us, we use Linkedin to keep in touch with people we use to work with. It's a shame that agents feel that it is ok to willy nilly add people as contacts without any prior engagement.

[realityhack]

I got this gig because of my LI profile, and know many others who have found work through it... but always directly from the recruiter, never through an agent. If I was on the market though, I wouldn't mind if an agent found me through it - why not? Just make sure your connections are hidden.

[NickFitz]

So why do you post details of yourself if you don't want people to read them and contact you?

For the majority of us, we use Linkedin to keep in touch with people we use to work with. It's a shame that agents feel that it is ok to willy nilly add people as contacts without any prior engagement.

Exactly. If a recruiter wants to contact me through LinkedIn they may do so, but to then attempt to add me as a contact for no other reason than that they sent me an unsolicited message about a position that wasn't suitable is to abuse the system.

[NickFitz]

I got this gig because of my LI profile, and know many others who have found work through it... but always directly from the recruiter, never through an agent. If I was on the market though, I wouldn't mind if an agent found me through it - why not? Just make sure your connections are hidden.

Nobody's suggesting that agents shouldn't be able to contact people through LinkedIn, just that they shouldn't go on to abuse it in a way that dilutes the value of the network.