So I jumped on the LinkedIn boat with everyone else when it first appeared, seemed like a great way of networking between other like minded people and companies.
But earlier this year, I bailed.
I used it for contacting old workmates, CV for employment and generally more professional information seeking that what Facebook offered.
However LinkedIn started becoming worse than Facebook in certain areas.
Primarily, the amount of spam and random users trying to add me as a contact (inc some from India that claimed they worked for the NZ company I was at!!!) got frustrating and advertising was not far behind it all.
The one thing that finalized it for me, was the following.
A user requested to “link” with me – as usual, I checked out who else I knew that was connected to them, and where they were located and what they did etc. Just the usual checks.
They appeared to be connected to a few well known fellow geeks around NZ, and were the manager/owner of the company they were connected to, so I figured I’d accept, and Linked with them.
What a mistake.
Within a week they had messaged me, trying to push their product onto the company I work at, and asking me to organize a meeting to discuss things.
I ignored it.
A week later, I get an email to my private email account from someone at the company in question with an appointment time and location for a meeting!
I replied to them advising this was a private email address, not a company one, and where did they get off telling me when I was meeting with them.
I also messaged the user on LinkedIn back and let him have both barrels as well.
A few days later I shut down my account.
Turns out, the company that had contacted me, was based literally 2mins down the road from where I’m based for work. I was tempted to go in and see the manager in person and see why he thought spamming and demanding meetings was a great way to get business.
So I no longer have a nice looking CV and references on LinkedIn, I’ll be doing things manually via Word and when I want to reach out to companies, I’ll do it the old fashioned way.
