[NA] LinkedIn Alternatives

ArrowFlyer86

ArrowFlyer86

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TLDR: LinkedIn has become an unprofessional joke. It's borderline embarrassing even using it. Any alternative sites out there?

Longer version:
LinkedIn used to be a good spot for staying in touch with colleagues. But over the last 5-7 or so years it accelerated its transformation into a raging dumpster fire.

Now about 98% of my "newsfeed" is fake personal stories designed to get clicks, ridiculously stupid videos dressed up as some kind of BS management lesson, or now, some kind of political or virtue signaling non-sense. When all three categories of garbage are taken together, it kind of forms a trifecta of reasons to not be on the platform anymore.

Especially because I can't remember the last real, professional update I saw on there from any of the people in my network. Now a days it's all junk and seems to corroborate this view of what we should expect out of all social media sites.

So... Are there any substitutes that people are using?
 
I never pay attention the news feed. In fact I rarely even click on it. Those I follow only show up as email links.Saves lots of time.
 
murphey said:
I never pay attention the news feed. In fact I rarely even click on it. Those I follow only show up as email links.Saves lots of time.
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But the news feed used to be how I would get updates about my network. It would contain updates for months so I could log in every 2 months or so then scroll back and see who went where (to which company), or got promoted, etc.

Now a days that seems to not exist. In order to see those updates you have to sift through 100x more crap.

Despite tinkering with my email preferences, the updates I get via email are overwhelmingly as well.
 
If you don't feel like you're fitting in, then post a picture of you holding a whiteboard sign with a saccharine handwritten message about appreciating your employees, or yourself, or something

Seems like most of what my LinkedIn feed is these days
 
Jim K said:
What's a linkedin?
Click to expand...
It's a fishing pond for trade and state secrets.
Tell suckers you're looking for a person qualified in "insert latest tech of interest to foreign country", and have them tell you what have they been doing in that field lately.
 
Jim K said:
What's a linkedin?
Click to expand...
I always described it as ‘Facebook for Grownups’, though I think it is devolving to become more like Facebook

I had accepted a lot of link requests from people I didn’t know but who seemed to be in the same field as me, but once I retired, I did some aggressive pruning of the link tree. That may have cleaned up my feed, and I rarely get junk emails-except the ones sent by LinkedIn.
 
I,

a) do have a linkedin profile, and

b) honestly don't get the point of it and pay no attention to posts much less make them
 
I maintained (for sufficiently lax definitions of "maintained") a LinkedIn profile for quite a few years. When I retired (some 4 years ago) I set my employment to "retired" at "retired". Now (and ever since I did that) I get emails about "Retired opportunities in your area". Everytime I see one I think (in Inego Montoya's voice) "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
 
I got off that almost 10 years ago lol. It’s all junk, time is valuable.
 
Xing.com is a Linkedin alternative but not very popular in North America. In Germany it’s the go-to professional social network though. They tried (maybe still are trying) to expand internationally with limited success.
 
Agree LinkedIn is now trash. At one point it was fairly useful, but it's dead now. Don't know of an alternative, but given I'm mostly retired IDGAF about looking.
 
Baked Potato said:
If you don't feel like you're fitting in, then post a picture of you holding a whiteboard sign with a saccharine handwritten message about appreciating your employees, or yourself, or something

Seems like most of what my LinkedIn feed is these days
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That's definitely a popular style.

Over the last 5 years the biggest growth has been the "contrived confession" posts (that's what I call them, at least). Someone overshares some tangential, silly story and then talk about how they ultimately learned a [super obvious] lesson, and then they explain how it's made them a better professional.

For instance, maybe 6 months ago I read one like (paraphrasing): "it was 2am and I was exhausted. My wife was pregnant with our first kid. I had a super important meeting the next morning that I'd been preparing for almost daily for nearly 2 months. She went into labor and it put me in a difficult position, I had to decide if I'd get more rest so I could close the deal during tomorrow's meeting or stay with her at the hospital. Here's what that experience taught me about prioritization and B2B sales..."

ever since then I've been thinking jesus, I really gotta get off of linkedin lol -- it's completed its life cycle of converting into total social media dog crap.
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
That's definitely a popular style.

Over the last 5 years the biggest growth has been the "contrived confession" posts (that's what I call them, at least). Someone overshares some tangential, silly story and then talk about how they ultimately learned a [super obvious] lesson, and then they explain how it's made them a better professional.

For instance, maybe 6 months ago I read one like (paraphrasing): "it was 2am and I was exhausted. My wife was pregnant with our first kid. I had a super important meeting the next morning that I'd been preparing for almost daily for nearly 2 months. She went into labor and it put me in a difficult position, I had to decide if I'd get more rest so I could close the deal during tomorrow's meeting or stay with her at the hospital. Here's what that experience taught me about prioritization and B2B sales..."

ever since then I've been thinking jesus, I really gotta get off of linkedin lol -- it's completed its life cycle of converting into total social media dog crap.
Click to expand...
When I read crap like that I can't help but think of this..

 
jbarrass said:
Agree LinkedIn is now trash. At one point it was fairly useful, but it's dead now. Don't know of an alternative, but given I'm mostly retired IDGAF about looking.
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Agree.. I was never on LinkedIn when I was working.. some friends suggested it to keep track of previous co-workers. I never used it for that. I joined when SIL was job hunting to research some companies with him. Never used it.. retired 5yrs ago. I still get emails about "you showed up on this search" or that search... This company is looking for PMs... well, ok. So I should probably drop the account.
 
jbarrass said:
Agree LinkedIn is now trash. At one point it was fairly useful, but it's dead now. Don't know of an alternative, but given I'm mostly retired IDGAF about looking.
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You have to remember, it's origin came mostly from the 2008 market crash where tons of jobs were lost and people were flocking to a social media network made for searching openings and having a "network" of colleagues/former co-workers. Those contacts could provide references, recommendations, and possibly leads on job openings before they hit the public job postings as a chance to land a job that wasn't advertised yet in a time where there was mass unemployment. Even more-so, it was for older professionals (Gen X or older) who didn't have a Facebook/Instagram/etc social media presence to begin with, so the clientele was typically in their 50s or more. For LinkedIn, it has become less relevant as the market returned to low-unemployment and those that were left cultivating their online presence tried to keep posting updates. What we're left with is Instagram for white collar workers. Shallow, self-promoted posts that offer platitudes and "inspirational" quotes to pretend like they are the leader of their corporate sphere. In contradiction to what information was best posted to LinkedIn, it's now filled with political/religious posts which normally you'd be withholding from the public eye on a job posting site.
 
SoonerAviator said:
For LinkedIn, it has become less relevant as the market returned to low-unemployment and those that were left cultivating their online presence tried to keep posting updates. What we're left with is Instagram for white collar workers. Shallow, self-promoted posts that offer platitudes and "inspirational" quotes to pretend like they are the leader of their corporate sphere. In contradiction to what information was best posted to LinkedIn, it's now filled with political/religious posts which normally you'd be withholding from the public eye on a job posting site.
Click to expand...

I agree. I don't have very many Connections on LI, but one of them is, let's say a "good acquaintance" of mine who I've known for 30 years. This person has a very good, inspiring story to tell with life lessons and all of that. No joking, it's very inspirational. However, in the last few years it has turned into almost daily "inspirational" posts that just fill up my feed. I see no point to them any more, but maybe I just don't understand social media.
 
RussR said:
I agree. I don't have very many Connections on LI, but one of them is, let's say a "good acquaintance" of mine who I've known for 30 years. This person has a very good, inspiring story to tell with life lessons and all of that. No joking, it's very inspirational. However, in the last few years it has turned into almost daily "inspirational" posts that just fill up my feed. I see no point to them any more, but maybe I just don't understand social media.
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Well, I'm think all of the social media sites are reaching a sort of maturity in the timeline. People overall are less-engaged in the content and contributors are getting fewer and fewer. If FB Marketplace wasn't the primary venue for local/national for-sale items, I would abandon it completely. Often enough it seems the people with the least amount of knowledge on any subject seem to be the most vocal on most of the social sites. It's no longer worth the effort to sort the wheat from the chaff in the news feed.
 
RussR said:
... has turned into almost daily "inspirational" posts that just fill up my feed. I see no point to them any more, but maybe I just don't understand social media.
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Nope -- sounds like you understand social media just fine! That sort of junk used to be relegated to Facebook, but then irritatingly exploded onto the LinkedIn scene.

SoonerAviator said:
Often enough it seems the people with the least amount of knowledge on any subject seem to be the most vocal on most of the social sites. It's no longer worth the effort to sort the wheat from the chaff in the news feed.
Click to expand...
It's the social media version of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Authority is derived on how many likes and views you get, not on how accurate you are.
 
Does a dislike cancel the like?

(I did the dislike just for kicks and giggles - no offense intended)
 
Bob Noel said:
Does a dislike cancel the like?

(I did the dislike just for kicks and giggles - no offense intended)
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Here? No. It did at one time but that was corrected and now it neither increases nor decreases reaction score.

Nauga,
and his reaction control system
 
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