How does linkedin work?

[Tiny]

I don't have a linkedin account.   I have gotten "invitations" from people I know - I assume it's because when they signed up for LinkedIn it went thru their contact list and sent out emails.   I just ignore them - I don't want to sign up for a LinkedIn account.  Probably career suicide but I don't care I'm old.

I'm getting an "invitation" from some school teacher in Georgia.  It looks like a legitimate "invite" and not a spam/phishing thing.   I don't know this woman - I don't have a linkedin account - how would she be spamming me with her requests?  Did she specifically enter my email address?  Did she buy a list?  

How does the sending out of invitations work?

[alabamagal]

I like linked in.  It is a great way to keep up with former co-workers.  It is kind of like Facebook for business.  I only connect with people I know or recruiters.

I have been contacted by several recruiters through LinkedIn.  In fact I will be getting a job offer this week through a recruiter that contacted me through LinkedIn.  I basically have my resume/work history posted there.

I contacted several former bosses to be reference in my job hunt.  Contact was through LinkedIn.

LinkedIn does have a feature that will go through your email and send invitiations, but I did not do that.

I like the articles/posts that they have from business people.  Yes I do read the articles.

[Ryan]

Nov 10, 2014 10:27:01 GMT -5 Tiny said:

I don't have a linkedin account.   I have gotten "invitations" from people I know - I assume it's because when they signed up for LinkedIn it went thru their contact list and sent out emails.   I just ignore them - I don't want to sign up for a LinkedIn account.  Probably career suicide but I don't care I'm old.

I'm getting an "invitation" from some school teacher in Georgia.  It looks like a legitimate "invite" and not a spam/phishing thing.   I don't know this woman - I don't have a linkedin account - how would she be spamming me with her requests?  Did she specifically enter my email address?  Did she buy a list?  

How does the sending out of invitations work?

I get requests from people that I've emailed before, so they must have an option to invite all contacts.  And they might even have an option to request "friends of friends".

Linkedin is a pretty cool tool (I don't use it either) if you'd be interested in another job, but not quite to the point of actually applying.  It makes sense to build up the network of co-workers when you come across them in case you ever lose your job.

[Baby Fawkes]

I think the experience is definitely different depending on what your job is and where you are located. 

I work in the tech industry in Silicon Valley and I get about 5-6 recruitment contacts per week these days. At the moment I have zero desire to leave my current job, but LinkedIn is the reason why this is my current job and not the old one I had

[michelyn8]

I use it to keep contact with former/current employers and co-workers without having to let them see what I post on FB.  Some of my LinkedIn contacts are former classmates I'm friends with on FB too though.  That's mainly because they either requested I be a contact or I did in order to connect with them professionally and separately from FB. I have gotten one invite that I had to rack my brain on how I knew the person and it had to be from the site using their e-mail contacts because I only ever exchanged e-mails with her about yoga classes she offered.

I've been working on building up a network on there as part of my on again/off again job search but lately I mostly just go on there to look at the articles.  Some are pretty interesting and they do offer a wide range of topics and opinions to choose from.

[violagirl]

It is kind of like Facebook for business. You use it to build your network.  I got current job through linkedin. Never a bad idea to have a decent sized network, you never know when you want to move on from current employer. It it better to find a job through word of mouth than through job ads. 

[justme]

Just wanted to add that I'm going to a second interview this week for a job I was contacted for on LinkedIn.

I also use it as my address book to keep track of everyone I've met through work or the like.

[shanendoah]

I use LinkedIn. I used it as a job seeker, and I continue to use it now, in the groups section, to get out word about programs my department is doing or other local events I think might be of interest to the groups I'm part of. It is a very good networking tool.

However, it has one major flaw. Once you have given it permission to go through your associated email, it never forgets that link. I joined LinkedIn 5 or 6 years ago (I think, I really don't remember) and gave it permission at that time to go through my email looking for people I knew that were ALREADY on LinkedIn.
Now, if I decide to flip through the "people you may know" page, I have noticed that it no longer looks for people already on LinkedIn, or it tries to trick me into sending them invites. I know for a fact my mother, MIL, and a friend never had LinkedIn accounts, but I will see the option to "connect via LinkedIn" for my DECEASED MIL, my DECEASED friend (I refuse to delete the last email he ever sent us, so his address remains in my inbox) or for my mother, at her old state job, from which she retired a couple of years ago. These addresses obviously come from my linked email address book.
However, if those options hadn't been so egregiously obvious to me, I might never have noticed that it was pulling things from my email and not people who just newly opened LinkedIn accounts.
My new policy is that I won't send a request to connect to any "people you may know" unless a picture shows up in the profile. That's the one way I can be assured that they actually have a LinkedIn account.

So, if this person every emailed you, even through some sort of list, or you emailed her through some sort of list, it's very possible that LinkedIn is mining her email and putting you out there as an option of "people you may know" and she has no idea that you don't actually have an account, and thinks that you might be someone worth connecting with.

As you have no interest in being on LinkedIn, I would ignore the request.

[midwestlily]

I too have found it useless so far, and almost never login, but I generally accept invitations from people I know.  In fact, I just accepted one an hour ago from one of our grad students.  As soon as I'd done that, it immediately showed my email address and wanted to "import your address book to suggest connections and help you manage your contacts."  Once again, I just exited the site, and after reading Shanendoah's comment, I'm glad I did. I'll make my own decisions about who I'd like to link to, thank you very much, I don't want some app spamming people for me.

Still, it's interesting to hear that people are finding jobs and getting recruited through LinkedIn.  I don't think that happens in my field, but it's possible that I just haven't put enough effort into it.  A while back I read a magazine article that explained how LinkedIn works, and finished with some comment like, "It should only take you half an hour a day to manage your LinkedIn profile and your contacts."  That scared the heck out of me -- who has time to spend half an hour a day on LinkedIn

[shanendoah]

midwestlily - LinkedIn doesn't spam them. I still have to click on the "connect via LinkedIn" box on the connection within "People You May Know", but it pulls some of those people from my email contacts (so yeah, I know them) and presents them the same way it does people with actual LinkedIn profiles. I still have to be the one to want to make the connection.

And no, it doesn't take half an hour a day to manage your account on LinkedIn. However, if you are using it specifically to actively network, you probably do want to spend half an hour a day (or more) on it, participating in group discussions, posting an update every few days, etc. Being active on the site is a way to move your profile up in the search rankings.

[chen35]

Maybe it depends on your industry. I'm in banking, and I'm on LinkedIn all of the time. Recruiters post relevant job postings there, and I use it to contact former colleagues about potential positions with my company. It's a great tool for keeping all of your business contacts in once place, and for people to see what you are up to, career-wise.

[midwestlily]

Glad to hear that it won't send links without my consent. 

My field (academic libraries) doesn't really involve recruiters, and there's another site where I can see all the job postings.  But I can imagine it would be essential in other fields.

[Artemis Windsong]

I saw linkedin as a way to brag about career successes. 

I am glad people are able to get better jobs from there.  I'm retired so don't need it.

[thyme4change]

A "People you might know" page comes up every time I open it, and I don't know how they do it, but there are bunches of people who pop up on that - sometimes I actually do know them, even if we have no common connections, but mostly - total random strangers.  I assume they are people that went to either my university or my MBA program.  Both are very large schools, so I probably knew about 1% of the people I was on campus with.  

But, I suspect she is looking for someone who has a similar name to yours.  If the person you are looking for doesn't have a profile, finding the correct Nancy Smith (or whatever) can be quite a tricky thing to do.  

[Bob Ross]

The way Linkedin works is that you create a profile that shows how awesome and successful you are.  Then tons of other people create profiles that show how awesome and successful they are.  Then something happens...not sure exactly what.  Then the founders of LinkedIn laugh all the way to the bank.

Actually, I think Linkedin is like Facebook but for work people, so they can't see pics of you singing along to Neil Diamond with your underwear on your head after downing 78 margaritas.

[Deleted]

I like LinkedIn.  I just uploaded an article this morning.  It's my 3rd.  When I told my parents I was posting articles on LinkedIn they laughed; my maternal grandfather was famous for his thoughtful Letters to the Editor of their small-town Ohio paper and sometimes they actually published them as columns.   I guess I take after him.  I'm not a consultant, I have nothing to sell- I just like expressing my opinion and I can be a bit more outspoken now that I'm retired.

I have over 500 connections.  I've reconnected with old boyfriends and former colleagues, and have always been interested in who's moving where.  I have had e-mails from recruiters with reasonable-sounding jobs and I got my last job after noticing a post that a former colleague had a new connection, realizing that he was local, and finding a job on the Web site.  It ended badly but till the politics got toxic the last few months it was a darn good job.  Some of my cousins, nieces and nephews are on LinkedIn, too.  I find out about their moves and promotions before my parents do!

BTW, I've never let them mine my e-mail addresses.