Your argument rests entirely on the assumption that it's a good thing to have your personal life (and social network) tied intrinsically into your professional career.
This may be desirable for those heavily involved in social media professionally (e.g. bloggers, evangelists), but can be all-together disastrous for those whose livelihood is be largely dependent on their public persona and professional reputation. See case-in-points: Miss USA Tara Conner and Olympian Michael Phelps.
For all but a very minor population of social media rockstars, a separation between private and professional life is absolutely necessary.
Anyone adding their employer to their personal Facebook profile is asking for trouble (http://www.google.com/search?q=fired+facebook). So is anyone tweeting inane commentary on their bathroom reading (yes, I've seen it, in the middle of the workday no less).
LinkedIn fills the niche of social networking for professionals, who want to present themselves as professionals, and ONLY as professionals.
"Comparatively, LinkedIn isn’t about people or lives. It’s about qualifications and professional experience, which even as a hiring tool, seems hollow to me."
Well, what's "hollow" to you is the basis for hiring by almost every HR process I'm familiar with. Professional qualifications should have nothing to do your personal life, unless you specifically represent them as so on your CV -- posted on LinkedIn, say. What you did last weekend at the cottage is not only irrelevant, it's potentially damaging.
The first thing any competent hiring manager does is Google your name.
What liberal posting of your personal life online WILL do for your career is supply ample dirt on a standard background check to potentially cost you a job opportunity.
Don't be stupid.
Keep your personal opinions to yourself, and your name squeaky clean. If you MUST post online, use an alias, or keep it to a tightly moderated professional commentary.
Remember that whatever you write might one day show up on your next performance review.
joncrowley
· 2 months ago
If your point of view is that LinkedIn allows you to separate your personal life from your professional one, you are in trouble. Because you are correct, any hiring manager is going to google your name. If you're living in the present, your personal life is, to some extent, available, regardless of whether you feel like it is something that should be shared.
I completely agree that people should watch what they say online. Any opinion thrown online stays there.
But assuming personal qualities and personal lives have nothing to do with the office ignores the fact that you actually need to work with these people, which is a type of relationship that, in my experience goes beyond professional qualifications.
I agree that a separation between personal and private lives is separate. But private and online don't really connect. My argument was that online life as a whole is representative, and that a LinkedIn tries to create a separation that a Google search renders irrelevant.
Which, at core, seems to be an element of your point as well.
Your statement that LinkedIn is "for professionals, who want to present themselves as professionals, and ONLY as professionals" is great, if you are arguing that these people will not be anywhere else on the internet. Otherwise, your earlier statements re: Google, renders it irrelevant.
I suppose I should have said "The fact that very, very few people will only be searchable online through their LinkedIn profile in 5 years time threatens to render it irrelevant", but that seems a little less punchy to me, and I enjoy writing polemics.
Alex Ikonn
· 2 months ago
Hey Jon,
I am not a huge fan of LinkedIn myself and it isn't as sexy as other social networking tools but I definitely see the value of it. You may think of it as a very un-human network which isn't all that social, where people with no personality hang out to pursue their own career self-interests.
But only if we took the time to dig deeper in to see the value of LinkedIn, there lies a great social network where people are not only social but at the same time willing to answer questions and provide valuable feedback which can be valuable for your career or business. Just give Answers a try - http://www.linkedin.com/answers?trk=title_answers or you can be part of niche forums/alumni/groups where people are definitely social.
LinkedIn won't die in five years if they continue to listen and add new features but most importantly it won't die because of it's niche network value. It is a social networks dedicated to career and business development, where people of similar interests and similar challenges come together to make business life a little easier.
Give it try... you might just have a second opinion.
All the best,
Alex
joncrowley
· 2 months ago
I've looked into the LinkedIn community, and I agree there is value for some people there. I haven't found it for myself, but I know others who have.
I guess my question is why people would crave legitimate social interaction in a place that doesn't foster an expansion of identity beyond career.
And yes, I fully agree this is my own bias talking. I mean no offense, and I'm just calling them like I see them.
I'd also like to note that other than comparing them to my father (who is more or less my hero), I didn't insult LinkedIn users. I simply said the same thing you said, that they, and the platform, are focused (I argued entirely) on business and career development. This doesn't mean I dislike these people. I'm just arguing that the hard separation of work you and life you isn't going to endure, which complicates the divisions that are integral to LinkedIn as a service.
That said, I am on the service, and I will continue to look at it. If it occurs to me that I've missed the point entirely, I'd like to think I'm enough of an adult to admit it.
Don't Google me
· 2 months ago
Actually, I want to respond to some specific points of your argument:
"LinkedIn is ... a social networking for people who are convinced it’s possible, and beneficial, to create a hard separation between who a person is as a business entity, and who a person is as a social entity."
See my comments above.
You are assuming that presenting yourself as this free-sharing transparent "social entity" has no professional liabilities or repercussions. Don't kid yourself that it doesn't -- Especially LATER in your career, when the things you are so liberal about disseminating publicly NOW become professionally embarrassing.
This is especially true of anyone under 30.
"It’s arguably possible now, for people who aren’t truly connected, or people who are intensely careful."
As opposed to those who are socially reckless in their professional connections?
What is with this "truly connected" line of reasoning? -- LinkedIn is about your next job opportunity. That's IT.
It's not a place to post pictures of your puppies, or update your status about what you had for lunch. If you think these details are relevant to what LinkedIn exists to do, you're grossly missing the point of it.
"It won’t be true in 5 years. And, I think, those five years will make LinkedIn irrelevant."
Irrelevant to what?
Again, you are confusing the purpose of this very niche-orientated professional service. It's about representing your real-life professional achievements in a concise CV-like profile.
Case in point of your insistence to compare and confuse the difference between a personal social network, and a professional one:
"Facebook is about people and lives. The social graph they offer, even if it is become ever murkier, incorporates all aspects of a person. As a tool for getting to know people, or providing background information, this is useful. You can see who someone is in a wider arena then their resume - and let’s be honest, LinkedIn is a place where people, even in a social conversational context, attempt to animate their resume as a character."
Believe me, it is a potentially career-damning error to think Facebook and LinkedIn should be used the same way.
LinkedIn is not about bragging about where you ate last night. It's about what you've done professionally. You can't fake 5 years of experience at Corporation X -- Either you were there, or you weren't. That's what hiring managers and recruiters care about.
This so-called "wider arena" of "character" is not going to help you score interviews, or job offers. If anything, if not outright disqualified, too much information creates unpredictable first impressions you'll have to work hard to manage and correct later.
"Comparatively, LinkedIn isn’t about people or lives. It’s about qualifications and professional experience, which even as a hiring tool, seems hollow to me. I’m not sure what LinkedIn adds to the process that isn’t better achieved by interacting with the same person in a network that is actively social."
lol I can tell you haven't interviewed much. I'll leave it at that.
"I don’t see a future in a non-social social network. LinkedIn is a place where one can seem connected while hiding from the central reality of social media"
Again, you confuse professional priorities with "the central reality of social media" -- which is to you, apparently, letting it all hang out.
" - that your life, all of it, is something you will need to own and take responsibility for. A record will likely exist. A record that you do not control."
Well, I'm glad to see you recognize you aren't in control of this uncensored "social entity" you've let out of the box. But do you realize people are judging what you give them in ways you can't even imagine, forming impressions that you may or may not like -- or more to the point, may or may not help your next career move?
The only way to manage it is to moderate strictly what you make available to be known about yourself.
"As a professional tool, you’ll learn more from a resume and a few phone calls than you will from perusing the LinkedIn account of a potential hire or collaborator. However, looking at someone’s twitter account, facebook, and website, would be give information about the human being that, if you look at it with the correct perspective, helps you find out it this is a person you could work with."
Again, I can tell you haven't interviewed much, or have only worked for very small companies, because you are assuming the person perusing profiles is the ultimately the same person who will be directly working with you.
This is a great example of how unintentionally revealing your own shared thoughts are about who you are, and where you're at professionally. You're green. If you tried to apply to a large company with a bunch of BS experience on your resume, posts like this (under your real name, I assume) would quickly reveal the fraud.
Sorry to make it so personal, I just want to make the point that everything you put out there, you will be judged against.
"That said, there will always be money is creating a version of something gamechanging that doesn’t intimidate the older generation in the workforce."
Again, another statement from the naive arrogance of youth.
It's about "intimidation" is it? Or maybe this "older generation" just knows a little more about what being a professional is about.
"And yes, that is how I think of LinkedIn: the social network that won’t make my father uncomfortable."
We'll see how big your mouth still is when you've got your first mortgage to pay down, son.
joncrowley
· 2 months ago
Again, I'm fairly sure we're making the exact same point. I'm not advocating the majority of the behaviours you've attached to me. I'm just saying that I don't see the long-term value in LinkedIn.
Your repeated comments eviscerating me for being young, inexperienced, and not appropriately reverent of the older generation make a very clear point. You don't like the way young people often conduct themselves online, and there are different generational definitions of 'professional'. And that's okay, at least in my perspective.
I'd like to respond to one statement:
"What is with this "truly connected" line of reasoning? -- LinkedIn is about your next job opportunity. That's IT. "
This was exactly my point. If it's not going to be social, then why is it social? If it duplicates functionality of an existing process, and isn't (in your estimation) designed to do anything else, then why paint it like something it isn't?
Your point about lying on a resume has less than nothing to do with anything I've written. I at no point argue that there should not be an interview and resume process. I say that I don't see a single, specific tool as anything other than a duplication of that existing process.
I could respond to every single point that is focused entirely on me being 1) young, and 2) allegedly green, naive or stupid, but I don't feel I have to.
I made a mistake with the last comment re: Facebook. If I'd expanded further, and said something explaining how I think correct privacy settings, a greater ability to include CV info, etc would have been useful on facebook, I may have made my point better.
I don't think Facebook is a better concrete hiring tool than LinkedIn. I just think that LinkedIn doesn't add much to the resume / interview / standard hiring process, and that it doesn't do much as a social network either.
Has I expanded on my "As a professional tool, you’ll learn more from a resume and a few phone calls than you will from perusing the LinkedIn account of a potential hire or collaborator." statement, I probably would have offended you less.
I guess I assumed the point was obvious, a flaw that you will no doubt attribute to youth, inexperience, naiveté or idiocy.
Thanks for reading.
Don't Google me
· 2 months ago
My apologies for getting personal. I know my comments were a bit harsh. Glad to see you can take them in stride.
I do actually find your perspective interesting... I'm just not sure what your point is.
It seems to me you are making the argument that LinkedIn is -- at best -- redundant and incomplete as a "social network". Correct?
The crux of my counter-argument is that LinkedIn was never intended to uphold this high standard of personal revelation you seem to qualify "social networks" by..
LinkedIn serves a particular niche function. Nothing more, nothing less. Openly expecting it to serve in ways it wasn't designed for is strange to me -- for the same reasons no one posts their favourite recipes on Flickr. It's just a particular tool for a particular job.
Since when does social networking require everyone to be everything all the time?
Indeed, as others have pointed out, the power LinkedIn IS the specific niche focus. You can't hate on it (or its users) for knowing what it's there for.
Out of curiosity, how do you feel about BeautifulPeople.net?
"If it's not going to be social, then why is it social?"
See, this is what I don't get. How do you reach that conclusion? It's plenty social.
To use a personal example, I literally just reconnected with an important colleague via LinkedIn. Why? Because they were "snooping" profiles to see what their peers were up to these days, and decided to initiate contact.
Viola. What's more social than that?
"Social network" does not have to only mean sharing pictures of my cousin's hot bridesmaids, musings about why I might be constipated, or a funny video I found of kittens barfing.
"If it duplicates functionality of an existing process, and isn't (in your estimation) designed to do anything else, then why paint it like something it isn't?"
Because networking isn't a monopoly. There's a million ways to do it, LinkedIn being one of them -- one that happens to be pretty popular... or, dare I say, even the "industry standard". All these people using it must know what it's for, or they probably wouldn't stick around.
How many of the social networking sites listed on http://knowem.com/ duplicate each other? And how many of those will be dead and gone within a year? The fact that LinkedIn was one of the first, and has continued to survive and thrive, is testament to the fact that people find tremendous value in it.
Look, I'm not trying to deliberately give you a hard time.
It's just, as they say, the burden is on those who assert. If you're going to make sweeping generalizations about a point that something IS, you gotta be prepared for jackasses like me who are gonna take the time to let you know why it might NOT be.
But regardless of where we stand, it looks like your post has already spurned some great discussion, so maybe that's the real point, and all we can ever ask for.
Cheers for the thoughts.
Don't Google me
· 2 months ago
My apologies for getting personal. I know my comments were a bit harsh. Glad to see you can take them in stride.
I do actually find your perspective interesting... I'm just not sure what your point is.
It seems to me you are making the argument that LinkedIn is -- at best -- redundant and incomplete as a "social network". Correct?
The crux of my counter-argument is that LinkedIn was never intended to uphold this high standard of personal revelation you seem to qualify "social networks" by..
LinkedIn serves a particular niche function. Nothing more, nothing less. Openly expecting it to serve in ways it wasn't designed for is strange to me -- for the same reasons no one posts their favourite recipes on Flickr. It's just a particular tool for a particular job.
Since when does social networking require everyone to be everything all the time?
Indeed, as others have pointed out, the power LinkedIn IS the specific niche focus. You can't hate on it (or its users) for knowing what it's there for.
Out of curiosity, how do you feel about BeautifulPeople.net?
"If it's not going to be social, then why is it social?"
See, this is what I don't get. How do you reach that conclusion? It's plenty social.
To use a personal example, I literally just reconnected with an important colleague via LinkedIn. Why? Because they were "snooping" profiles to see what their peers were up to these days, and decided to initiate contact.
Viola. What's more social than that?
"Social network" does not have to only mean sharing pictures of my cousin's hot bridesmaids, musings about why I might be constipated, or a funny video I found of kittens barfing.
"If it duplicates functionality of an existing process, and isn't (in your estimation) designed to do anything else, then why paint it like something it isn't?"
Because networking isn't a monopoly. There's a million ways to do it, LinkedIn being one of them -- one that happens to be pretty popular... or, dare I say, even the "industry standard". All these people using it must know what it's for, or they probably wouldn't stick around.
How many of the social networking sites listed on http://knowem.com/ duplicate each other? And how many of those will be dead and gone within a year? The fact that LinkedIn was one of the first, and has continued to survive and thrive, is testament to the fact that people find tremendous value in it.
Look, I'm not trying to deliberately give you a hard time.
It's just, as they say, the burden is on those who assert. If you're going to make sweeping generalizations about a point that something IS, you gotta be prepared for jackasses like me who are gonna take the time to let you know why it might NOT be.
But regardless of where we stand, it looks like your post has already spurned some great discussion, so maybe that's the real point, and all we can ever ask for.
I appreciate the comments, you helped me realize where I veered far away from my point, and instead started rambling about my personal preferences.
I hope this is a little clearer.
Morphix
· 2 months ago
Your point I think can be summarized as 'the internet makes it impossible to completely separate personal and business lives', which is fine. The difference to me is the context implies a different intent. For a recruiting manager it's difficult to find someone with a particular skill set on Facebook, both because most people have their profiles limited to friends only, and because most people don't put their full CV into Facebook. LinkedIn expressly has that intent, so you're more likely to come up with better results.
Of course resumes are shallow and ineffective, and of course you want to do a deeper dive on someone, but you have to take the approach of filtering the pool to those who could potentially do the job before you proceed, rather than filtering the pool to those who don't spend every weekday doing keg stands. LinkedIn serves the purpose of allowing yourself to be found by people who are looking to hire someone like you. Facebook's community serves a completely different intent.
D_Hock
· 2 months ago
Except, LinkedIn tries to play the social card by having you connect with your contacts. What happens if you don't want to do that and just want your CV/resume out there? Nobody sees it, thanks to the lovely, connections-focused search engine. You could be the ideal candidate and not get seen. Is that really what the positioning of it is here in the comments?
We used to game the tool in recruitment all the time - add lots of people so I can search lots of people; because I'm connected to lots of people I subsequently look important. Huzzah, you've now created a network with a known flaw; what's worse, at least when you launched the network, you tried to limit friends to avoid that gaming.
Plus - and let's open this can of worms here - what does what I do on the weekend matter to what I can do during the week?
Don't Google me
· 2 months ago
LinkedIn launched in early 2003, several months before MySpace even existed. Ya, it's an outmoded and possibly flawed concept of social networking, but that hasn't stopped it from dominating its niche for the better part of a decade.
How many other social networking me-too sites can claim that?
Also, what's wrong with gaming the system?
You have to be kidding me if you believe that in a competitive environment, it's "wrong" to do what it takes to climb the pile. If the game's so obvious, then play it like everyone else.
BTW, having a lot of connections is not that simple -- those connections are subject to approval, which means at the very least, you somehow need to be gaining some basic reciprocation to have a large network of connections. That alone says to me -- as a recruiter -- that you know how to play at least that well.
Remembering that hiring is about a lot more than the CV -- how you get yourself noticed is just as important (if not more so, since what good is a CV no one reads?)
All Comments
This may be desirable for those heavily involved in social media professionally (e.g. bloggers, evangelists), but can be all-together disastrous for those whose livelihood is be largely dependent on their public persona and professional reputation. See case-in-points: Miss USA Tara Conner and Olympian Michael Phelps.
For all but a very minor population of social media rockstars, a separation between private and professional life is absolutely necessary.
Anyone adding their employer to their personal Facebook profile is asking for trouble (http://www.google.com/search?q=fired+facebook). So is anyone tweeting inane commentary on their bathroom reading (yes, I've seen it, in the middle of the workday no less).
LinkedIn fills the niche of social networking for professionals, who want to present themselves as professionals, and ONLY as professionals.
"Comparatively, LinkedIn isn’t about people or lives. It’s about qualifications and professional experience, which even as a hiring tool, seems hollow to me."
Well, what's "hollow" to you is the basis for hiring by almost every HR process I'm familiar with. Professional qualifications should have nothing to do your personal life, unless you specifically represent them as so on your CV -- posted on LinkedIn, say. What you did last weekend at the cottage is not only irrelevant, it's potentially damaging.
The first thing any competent hiring manager does is Google your name.
What liberal posting of your personal life online WILL do for your career is supply ample dirt on a standard background check to potentially cost you a job opportunity.
Don't be stupid.
Keep your personal opinions to yourself, and your name squeaky clean. If you MUST post online, use an alias, or keep it to a tightly moderated professional commentary.
Remember that whatever you write might one day show up on your next performance review.
I completely agree that people should watch what they say online. Any opinion thrown online stays there.
But assuming personal qualities and personal lives have nothing to do with the office ignores the fact that you actually need to work with these people, which is a type of relationship that, in my experience goes beyond professional qualifications.
I agree that a separation between personal and private lives is separate. But private and online don't really connect. My argument was that online life as a whole is representative, and that a LinkedIn tries to create a separation that a Google search renders irrelevant.
Which, at core, seems to be an element of your point as well.
Your statement that LinkedIn is "for professionals, who want to present themselves as professionals, and ONLY as professionals" is great, if you are arguing that these people will not be anywhere else on the internet. Otherwise, your earlier statements re: Google, renders it irrelevant.
I suppose I should have said "The fact that very, very few people will only be searchable online through their LinkedIn profile in 5 years time threatens to render it irrelevant", but that seems a little less punchy to me, and I enjoy writing polemics.
I am not a huge fan of LinkedIn myself and it isn't as sexy as other social networking tools but I definitely see the value of it. You may think of it as a very un-human network which isn't all that social, where people with no personality hang out to pursue their own career self-interests.
But only if we took the time to dig deeper in to see the value of LinkedIn, there lies a great social network where people are not only social but at the same time willing to answer questions and provide valuable feedback which can be valuable for your career or business. Just give Answers a try - http://www.linkedin.com/answers?trk=title_answers or you can be part of niche forums/alumni/groups where people are definitely social.
LinkedIn won't die in five years if they continue to listen and add new features but most importantly it won't die because of it's niche network value. It is a social networks dedicated to career and business development, where people of similar interests and similar challenges come together to make business life a little easier.
Give it try... you might just have a second opinion.
All the best,
Alex
I guess my question is why people would crave legitimate social interaction in a place that doesn't foster an expansion of identity beyond career.
And yes, I fully agree this is my own bias talking. I mean no offense, and I'm just calling them like I see them.
I'd also like to note that other than comparing them to my father (who is more or less my hero), I didn't insult LinkedIn users. I simply said the same thing you said, that they, and the platform, are focused (I argued entirely) on business and career development. This doesn't mean I dislike these people. I'm just arguing that the hard separation of work you and life you isn't going to endure, which complicates the divisions that are integral to LinkedIn as a service.
That said, I am on the service, and I will continue to look at it. If it occurs to me that I've missed the point entirely, I'd like to think I'm enough of an adult to admit it.
"LinkedIn is ... a social networking for people who are convinced it’s possible, and beneficial, to create a hard separation between who a person is as a business entity, and who a person is as a social entity."
See my comments above.
You are assuming that presenting yourself as this free-sharing transparent "social entity" has no professional liabilities or repercussions. Don't kid yourself that it doesn't -- Especially LATER in your career, when the things you are so liberal about disseminating publicly NOW become professionally embarrassing.
This is especially true of anyone under 30.
"It’s arguably possible now, for people who aren’t truly connected, or people who are intensely careful."
As opposed to those who are socially reckless in their professional connections?
What is with this "truly connected" line of reasoning? -- LinkedIn is about your next job opportunity. That's IT.
It's not a place to post pictures of your puppies, or update your status about what you had for lunch. If you think these details are relevant to what LinkedIn exists to do, you're grossly missing the point of it.
"It won’t be true in 5 years. And, I think, those five years will make LinkedIn irrelevant."
Irrelevant to what?
Again, you are confusing the purpose of this very niche-orientated professional service. It's about representing your real-life professional achievements in a concise CV-like profile.
Case in point of your insistence to compare and confuse the difference between a personal social network, and a professional one:
"Facebook is about people and lives. The social graph they offer, even if it is become ever murkier, incorporates all aspects of a person. As a tool for getting to know people, or providing background information, this is useful. You can see who someone is in a wider arena then their resume - and let’s be honest, LinkedIn is a place where people, even in a social conversational context, attempt to animate their resume as a character."
Believe me, it is a potentially career-damning error to think Facebook and LinkedIn should be used the same way.
LinkedIn is not about bragging about where you ate last night. It's about what you've done professionally. You can't fake 5 years of experience at Corporation X -- Either you were there, or you weren't. That's what hiring managers and recruiters care about.
This so-called "wider arena" of "character" is not going to help you score interviews, or job offers. If anything, if not outright disqualified, too much information creates unpredictable first impressions you'll have to work hard to manage and correct later.
"Comparatively, LinkedIn isn’t about people or lives. It’s about qualifications and professional experience, which even as a hiring tool, seems hollow to me. I’m not sure what LinkedIn adds to the process that isn’t better achieved by interacting with the same person in a network that is actively social."
lol I can tell you haven't interviewed much. I'll leave it at that.
"I don’t see a future in a non-social social network. LinkedIn is a place where one can seem connected while hiding from the central reality of social media"
Again, you confuse professional priorities with "the central reality of social media" -- which is to you, apparently, letting it all hang out.
" - that your life, all of it, is something you will need to own and take responsibility for. A record will likely exist. A record that you do not control."
Well, I'm glad to see you recognize you aren't in control of this uncensored "social entity" you've let out of the box. But do you realize people are judging what you give them in ways you can't even imagine, forming impressions that you may or may not like -- or more to the point, may or may not help your next career move?
The only way to manage it is to moderate strictly what you make available to be known about yourself.
"As a professional tool, you’ll learn more from a resume and a few phone calls than you will from perusing the LinkedIn account of a potential hire or collaborator. However, looking at someone’s twitter account, facebook, and website, would be give information about the human being that, if you look at it with the correct perspective, helps you find out it this is a person you could work with."
Again, I can tell you haven't interviewed much, or have only worked for very small companies, because you are assuming the person perusing profiles is the ultimately the same person who will be directly working with you.
This is a great example of how unintentionally revealing your own shared thoughts are about who you are, and where you're at professionally. You're green. If you tried to apply to a large company with a bunch of BS experience on your resume, posts like this (under your real name, I assume) would quickly reveal the fraud.
Sorry to make it so personal, I just want to make the point that everything you put out there, you will be judged against.
"That said, there will always be money is creating a version of something gamechanging that doesn’t intimidate the older generation in the workforce."
Again, another statement from the naive arrogance of youth.
It's about "intimidation" is it? Or maybe this "older generation" just knows a little more about what being a professional is about.
"And yes, that is how I think of LinkedIn: the social network that won’t make my father uncomfortable."
We'll see how big your mouth still is when you've got your first mortgage to pay down, son.
Your repeated comments eviscerating me for being young, inexperienced, and not appropriately reverent of the older generation make a very clear point. You don't like the way young people often conduct themselves online, and there are different generational definitions of 'professional'. And that's okay, at least in my perspective.
I'd like to respond to one statement:
"What is with this "truly connected" line of reasoning? -- LinkedIn is about your next job opportunity. That's IT. "
This was exactly my point. If it's not going to be social, then why is it social? If it duplicates functionality of an existing process, and isn't (in your estimation) designed to do anything else, then why paint it like something it isn't?
Your point about lying on a resume has less than nothing to do with anything I've written. I at no point argue that there should not be an interview and resume process. I say that I don't see a single, specific tool as anything other than a duplication of that existing process.
I could respond to every single point that is focused entirely on me being 1) young, and 2) allegedly green, naive or stupid, but I don't feel I have to.
I made a mistake with the last comment re: Facebook. If I'd expanded further, and said something explaining how I think correct privacy settings, a greater ability to include CV info, etc would have been useful on facebook, I may have made my point better.
I don't think Facebook is a better concrete hiring tool than LinkedIn. I just think that LinkedIn doesn't add much to the resume / interview / standard hiring process, and that it doesn't do much as a social network either.
Has I expanded on my "As a professional tool, you’ll learn more from a resume and a few phone calls than you will from perusing the LinkedIn account of a potential hire or collaborator." statement, I probably would have offended you less.
I guess I assumed the point was obvious, a flaw that you will no doubt attribute to youth, inexperience, naiveté or idiocy.
Thanks for reading.
I do actually find your perspective interesting... I'm just not sure what your point is.
It seems to me you are making the argument that LinkedIn is -- at best -- redundant and incomplete as a "social network". Correct?
The crux of my counter-argument is that LinkedIn was never intended to uphold this high standard of personal revelation you seem to qualify "social networks" by..
LinkedIn serves a particular niche function. Nothing more, nothing less. Openly expecting it to serve in ways it wasn't designed for is strange to me -- for the same reasons no one posts their favourite recipes on Flickr. It's just a particular tool for a particular job.
Since when does social networking require everyone to be everything all the time?
Indeed, as others have pointed out, the power LinkedIn IS the specific niche focus. You can't hate on it (or its users) for knowing what it's there for.
Out of curiosity, how do you feel about BeautifulPeople.net?
"If it's not going to be social, then why is it social?"
See, this is what I don't get. How do you reach that conclusion? It's plenty social.
To use a personal example, I literally just reconnected with an important colleague via LinkedIn. Why? Because they were "snooping" profiles to see what their peers were up to these days, and decided to initiate contact.
Viola. What's more social than that?
"Social network" does not have to only mean sharing pictures of my cousin's hot bridesmaids, musings about why I might be constipated, or a funny video I found of kittens barfing.
"If it duplicates functionality of an existing process, and isn't (in your estimation) designed to do anything else, then why paint it like something it isn't?"
Because networking isn't a monopoly. There's a million ways to do it, LinkedIn being one of them -- one that happens to be pretty popular... or, dare I say, even the "industry standard". All these people using it must know what it's for, or they probably wouldn't stick around.
How many of the social networking sites listed on http://knowem.com/ duplicate each other? And how many of those will be dead and gone within a year? The fact that LinkedIn was one of the first, and has continued to survive and thrive, is testament to the fact that people find tremendous value in it.
Look, I'm not trying to deliberately give you a hard time.
It's just, as they say, the burden is on those who assert. If you're going to make sweeping generalizations about a point that something IS, you gotta be prepared for jackasses like me who are gonna take the time to let you know why it might NOT be.
But regardless of where we stand, it looks like your post has already spurned some great discussion, so maybe that's the real point, and all we can ever ask for.
Cheers for the thoughts.
I do actually find your perspective interesting... I'm just not sure what your point is.
It seems to me you are making the argument that LinkedIn is -- at best -- redundant and incomplete as a "social network". Correct?
The crux of my counter-argument is that LinkedIn was never intended to uphold this high standard of personal revelation you seem to qualify "social networks" by..
LinkedIn serves a particular niche function. Nothing more, nothing less. Openly expecting it to serve in ways it wasn't designed for is strange to me -- for the same reasons no one posts their favourite recipes on Flickr. It's just a particular tool for a particular job.
Since when does social networking require everyone to be everything all the time?
Indeed, as others have pointed out, the power LinkedIn IS the specific niche focus. You can't hate on it (or its users) for knowing what it's there for.
Out of curiosity, how do you feel about BeautifulPeople.net?
"If it's not going to be social, then why is it social?"
See, this is what I don't get. How do you reach that conclusion? It's plenty social.
To use a personal example, I literally just reconnected with an important colleague via LinkedIn. Why? Because they were "snooping" profiles to see what their peers were up to these days, and decided to initiate contact.
Viola. What's more social than that?
"Social network" does not have to only mean sharing pictures of my cousin's hot bridesmaids, musings about why I might be constipated, or a funny video I found of kittens barfing.
"If it duplicates functionality of an existing process, and isn't (in your estimation) designed to do anything else, then why paint it like something it isn't?"
Because networking isn't a monopoly. There's a million ways to do it, LinkedIn being one of them -- one that happens to be pretty popular... or, dare I say, even the "industry standard". All these people using it must know what it's for, or they probably wouldn't stick around.
How many of the social networking sites listed on http://knowem.com/ duplicate each other? And how many of those will be dead and gone within a year? The fact that LinkedIn was one of the first, and has continued to survive and thrive, is testament to the fact that people find tremendous value in it.
Look, I'm not trying to deliberately give you a hard time.
It's just, as they say, the burden is on those who assert. If you're going to make sweeping generalizations about a point that something IS, you gotta be prepared for jackasses like me who are gonna take the time to let you know why it might NOT be.
But regardless of where we stand, it looks like your post has already spurned some great discussion, so maybe that's the real point, and all we can ever ask for.
Cheers for the thoughts.
I appreciate the comments, you helped me realize where I veered far away from my point, and instead started rambling about my personal preferences.
I hope this is a little clearer.
Of course resumes are shallow and ineffective, and of course you want to do a deeper dive on someone, but you have to take the approach of filtering the pool to those who could potentially do the job before you proceed, rather than filtering the pool to those who don't spend every weekday doing keg stands. LinkedIn serves the purpose of allowing yourself to be found by people who are looking to hire someone like you. Facebook's community serves a completely different intent.
We used to game the tool in recruitment all the time - add lots of people so I can search lots of people; because I'm connected to lots of people I subsequently look important. Huzzah, you've now created a network with a known flaw; what's worse, at least when you launched the network, you tried to limit friends to avoid that gaming.
Plus - and let's open this can of worms here - what does what I do on the weekend matter to what I can do during the week?
How many other social networking me-too sites can claim that?
Also, what's wrong with gaming the system?
You have to be kidding me if you believe that in a competitive environment, it's "wrong" to do what it takes to climb the pile. If the game's so obvious, then play it like everyone else.
BTW, having a lot of connections is not that simple -- those connections are subject to approval, which means at the very least, you somehow need to be gaining some basic reciprocation to have a large network of connections. That alone says to me -- as a recruiter -- that you know how to play at least that well.
Remembering that hiring is about a lot more than the CV -- how you get yourself noticed is just as important (if not more so, since what good is a CV no one reads?)