It's pretty much a place where everyone pats themselves on the back.
Only issue with LinkedIn is the prospect of finding jobs. I got my last job through LinkedIn actually.
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024
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Privacy
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Same. I keep mine, but I don't actively use it unless I'm looking for a job.
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Microsoft owns LinkedIn
I'd love to do this, but I used LinkedIn to find my current job, & I'll probably need it to find the next one (when the time comes).
I keep it up to date, like a kind of running CV, but otherwise I don't interact with it.
This is how I use it. I’ve found a couple of jobs on LinkedIn. I’m currently happy at my job and not interested in dealing with passive searching so I check in maybe once a week to see visitors. Otherwise I don’t touch it at all.
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Went through a couple comments of both „still use it“ and „dont need it at all“.
We need a fedi linkedin clone
Its again totally obvious that we need a fediverse linkedin clone, especially geared towards work, with a full cv function, option to hide your personal data until you approve a future employer, ways like mastodon for companies to prove they are legit to even be able to see a persons personal data so they dont dox themselves to some rando.
I cant do it on my own but willing to help
I‘m unable to set this up so please take the idea and run with it. Probably just a mastodon fork tbh with specific features. If anyone feels like doing this and needs business knowledge from an entrepreneur/CEO perspective, lmk.
Thank you for reading and have a good one!
Shout less, please.
Also, no I won't develop your app. Could (maybe), won't.
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What difference does the federation make in this case? Either way the personal data is in someone else's computer.
Federated means democratic. We‘re on lemmy because free association. Its obvious that all other social media, including work related, should be federated, in fact it should be outlawed to have anything public-non-federated. We need to destroy all walled gardens.
On the other topic of personal data: the critical data like real name, home address, phone number, email address, former employers etc. should absolutely not be federated, thats a need to know basis.
The public profiles are the same as mastodon and don’t constitute personal data in my book: your skills, the industries and length of employment.
The important part is that you can put your personal data on an instance (which might or might not be your own) and encrypt it so nobody except you can read it and if you get an offer, the future employer gets an encypted view of your data which could also be on auto delete if the job falls through.
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option to hide your personal data until you approve a future employer
I think this is impossible in a fediverse context. Data is either shared publicly or only shared with your home instance's admins. There's no other sharing model as far as I know.
Thats no issue. You can make only public data federate and use p2p for sensitive data.
Public would be your skills, some text about yourself, your industries and amount of employed years in each industry without dates or companies.
Think of it like a puzzle. First part the employer gets to see. They can search „java dev 5 yrs exp“ and get 100 peeps, in state/country/remote, for xxx$ per year/month/hour.
Then they can send you a request but only if they have authenticated through their own public website like on mastodon. If you accept, they can ask you questions and talk. If you reach common ground, they can request your full cv which could be self deleting or something in case the job falls through.
Its not a perfect system but its a lot safer than sending a cv per unencrypted email imo. or answering to some rando on linkedin. Also, anyone who knows you can find you on linkedin with your clear name. Its totally crazy to decline the potential of such a project in light of the current situation.
Things could be encrypted. But yeah, that's my biggest issue with the fediverse, it's just not designed around privacy. It's also why I'm working on my own lemmy alternative, I want something a bit more privacy-friendly.
I don't think working on a LinkedIn alternative is worthwhile because it relies even more heavily on the network effect. The only point I see in LinkedIn is in finding jobs, and getting employers to look at something else is an uphill battle I don't want to fight.
My understanding is that Activitypub federation and that sort of privacy are somewhat incompatible. Because someone could always just create a new instance and then federate the stuff you don't want shared with them.
The point would be sharing data that's not useful without the key. So you could share your public key and public metadata, but to access private data you'd need to get approved first. An approval request would be encrypted with your public key and contain a response key, and your response would contain your response encrypted with their key.
You obviously wouldn't be able to control what they do with your data once decrypted, but all of that back and forth can happen in the clear without giving up private information. It's the same way GPG/PGP works over email, just on a fediverse instead of SMTP.
It really wouldn't be all that hard to implement, I just don't think it would get any meaningful traction because LinkedIn is so reliant on the network effect.
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Is there a specific problem with linkedin?
In the early days they would quietly take all your contact info on your phone and send emails in your name that made it seem like you were reaching out to those contacts. Something like “(your name) is trying to reach you on LinkedIn”.
Back then, Android didn’t have app permissions like it does now where you have to ask the user explicit permission for access to certain data. It would only show up on the very first app install and only if you’d be looking for that.
I cancelled my account back then and never looked back.
Android not having proper permissions back from KitKat era caused a lot of contact lists being leaked like rainwater. I'm still jaded at Google for that one.
Its been turning into Facebook for a while now. I used to have a relevant work feed, but more and more I have these feel good posts and even memes popping up.
Oh, and its pretty toxic in content too. Had this post the other day where some woman director of some company posted how tough it was to lose her husband to some disease, how tough it is to take care of the kids alone, finishing with how it helps her to be engrossed in her work.
Like half of that was about her work actually. A very very weird read.
Another post on woman's day celebrating the working women who open their laptop again (for work) when the kids are in bed.
Such things, just ugh. And those gets lots of likes too.
I used to see such things only in the linkedinlunatic subreddit , but now I see it my feed.
Assuming that directors post was real, I am sure she wanted to properly grieve for her husband and have enough time to heal and provide for her children, to tie loose ends and close that chapter of her life in privacy.
But all she had was a sanitized corporate billboard where all she knew was to unconsciously make her post into a self congratulatory advertisement, of a heroic single mother sacrificing her mental health for her work.
It's all tragic.
But they're adding games!
Yeah there's something that feels so wrong about the site. One of my (fake) favourites by @[email protected] when LinkedIn was down a couple weeks ago:
LinkedIn was down. A lot of people were panicking.
But rather than panic, I saw an #opportunity. Using all of my strength I ran to the nearest LinkedIn datacenter. I was able to gain access because I made a #personal #connection with the security guard. I actually invested in their ceramics business while I was talking to them.
Once I’d gained access to the servers I was able to deploy a fix I’d written using ChatGPT #AI #genAI.
I fixed LinkedIn, and walked out of the datacenter where everyone was applauding.
I say this not to brag or show off, but to share a story of how you have to show #leadership in the moment, and step up when you can. The CEO of LinkedIn called me that night to thank me. #influencer #hustle #horseownership
Apart from the absurd types of text being shared around there, most features of LinkedIn seemed redundant to me:
- list of "connections": contacts app (portable data format, too)
- job applications: many other job sites, or direct on company website
- messaging: email
- finding who works/worked where: I don't care
So I am definitely not trying to defend LinkedIn but a lot of arguments you make are basically: other sites or services can do that too. Which isn't a great argument to make since monopoly on these will not lead to more usefulness.
The last one I can give a counterargument. You should care because if you are looking for a new job you can try and find people to talk to, which can help figure out if a job you didn't consider so far might be interesting. Maybe the area you work in is not helped with that. I work in R&D and had students reach out to me via LinkedIn just to ask about what kind of work I do at this company and what does the day to day look like. Now not everyone will be happy to talk and not everyone will give you useful answers but then you just go and message the next person.
Downside of this is that LinkedIn makes it artificially difficult to just message people, either promoting their paid subscription or not allowing you to contact people because they are 3rd rate connections or worse. So that's crap again but if you get enough relevant connections this might be better. You can also get sneaky about it and just email a person on their work account by sending a message to [email protected]. This you can also only do if you know who works where.
I get sick from the sleazeball slimey replies like ''I'm so happy to have been part of project a''. People chiming in to shamelesly self promote on other people's posts.
To be fair, company culture is a lot of self promotion. But there are OK ways to do that and terrible ways, what you describe is more of a terrible one.
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IMO LinkedIn is a garbage for mental health, too. Where everyone wants to show off their achievements to others.
Worst of both worlds, the one-upping bootlicking culture, the fear of missing out on job prospects fueled by economic anxiety, with corporate enshittification liberally sprinkled in, all combined into one giant pile of turd.
And I say this as I'm also guilty of having an account on it. I also want to get rid of it, but can't afford to risk my chances while looking for better jobs. Fuck all this.
Sure, if you actually use it to post. I never do, I just use it to submit applications and respond to recruiters' messages.
LinkedIn is probably the social media platform where I get a migraine going the quickest. I only quickly glance over everything over every month or so
I still keep an account there though. It's pretty much required in the tech industry
Sadly that's true for all social media.
Sadly that's true for all social media.
Some are worse than others. Every now and then I log on to Instagram because I can sometimes see fun dirtbike clips. I can comment on YouTube videos of conference talks.
I know people go to supposedly "adventurous" places on motorbikes just for clout, and I know that people at conferences often do talks that could just as easily be recorded themselves at home or even just as a text article. But at least I know, deep down, they want to share stuff with people who have a shared passion.
The stuff that gets shared around via LinkedIn feels so, so hollow in comparison. Not a lot, if anything, beneath the surface.