I think you’re all reading way too much into people’s LinkedIn habits.

LinkedIn is a tool. Everyone uses it differently. You can’t draw deep conclusions about a person by trying to interpret nuances of their LinkedIn usage behaviors.

People like to draw specific conclusions about LinkedIn behavior that they think is a proxy for a good candidate, but 90% of the time it boils down to people selecting for others who use LinkedIn the same way they do. We all like to assume our way of using tools is the “right” way, and we all subconsciously like to hire people who validate our feelings and behave like ourselves.

Use LinkedIn as an online resume. An additional source of information. Don’t try to draw narrowly specific conclusions about things like their number of connections.

> I've worked with had horrible social profiles because they were concerned about making things and learning rather than social credits.

Having an up-to-date LinkedIn profile isn’t mutually exclusive with “making things and learning”. The amount of time it takes to write a few lines on your LinkedIn profile once or twice per year is trivial. I know it’s popular to be anti-LinkedIn right now, but it really is trivially easy to write a short profile in 10 minutes (30 if you’re a perfectionist) and be done with it. Recruiters and business contacts really do use it as an online resume.

Relatively speaking, the time someone would need to spend keeping their LinkedIn profile reflective of their career vs. learning/coding/solving is negligible. I've spent 10 minutes in the last year, for example, entering a promotion.

LinkedIn's value, and arguably it is aging, but that's also the point, is retaining opportunities for future endeavors. This is for me a much larger value than advertising my CV. To wit: LinkedIn literally saved my company during the housing crisis. It was during the act of connecting with former colleagues that I got a lead for a major project that wound up being 50% of our revenue in 2009.

Moreover, as time goes on, the folks connected with gain promotions and grow their careers as well and you can wind up with a rather impressive Rolodex[0] of contacts.

It's worthwhile to keep your profile up to date, and does not take a material amount of time.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolodex

There's room for a middle ground there somewhere. Some of the most skillful engineers I've known in my career were stuck in a local maxima and not particularly happy. I've also known some very successful engineers that mostly got there through 'career hacking'. Something in the middle is reasonable.

>> To me this shows people who are more concerned about networking than learning.

I've always thought of a conference as something to plant the seeds of ideas in your head. There isn't a lot of detail and you might be one of 100 other people in the room so you can't really ask about details.

Following up with the speaker or other attendees after the fact is where the benefits are.

I don't mind a developer that says "I'm not sure how to do that, but _____ said they did something similar, let's give them a call."

Lurking the ten minute post-talk scrum at the front of the room is the best part of conferences for me. 'Ah damn, they are running into the exact same issue we are'...trade some ideas and contact info.

I agree that priorities are important. But these things aren’t mutually exclusive, right? I was equal parts networker and learner in my early career and it definitely paid off.

I remember being accused of being “too social” at times. And I’m sure I overdid it now and then (as we do in our youth).

But my personal network has been very valuable over time, especially in the tough times. And I’ve come through for them too. I’m not saying “it’s not what you know, but who.” I am saying it’s what you know AND who.

That's the distinction between being good for you and being good for your co-workers/company. When I'm hiring someone I care about them being good for co-workers and the company.

I guess we can agree to disagree, because in my opinion people who are connected to a group, and participate in the "give and take" that goes with it, bring additional value to the job. I don't see how that wouldn't be good for co-workers and the company.

Maybe I should clarify that these aren't things I would do on the job. I engaged with co-workers through volunteer work, at those goofy socials at the Chamber (which I refuse to do now), going out for lunch or drinks with folks I met in the halls, etc.

Either way, to me work isn't just going in, punching a clock, and cranking out canooter valves and cagibilt rings. As a program manager, I've always had an appreciation for the relationships and motivations of others. I do the canooter valve thing too, but I always enjoyed the brainstorming sessions and mind maps, and solving problems and making deals happen. I dunno, networking is part of the job if you ask me.

I'd say it depends on the types of social networking, the author of the article talked about very shallow networking (people you met at a meetup, stack overflow, etc.). That's different than building deeper relationships with co-workers. I've found that the two are not necessarily correlated and people who go for numbers will often sacrifice depth. I've seen this on LinkedIn with juniors who I'd never met that randomly connect with me (often bootcampers) and I can see that they've done the same with hundreds of others in the field (they never message me if I accept).

Good point, those are definitely different types of relationships. I agree completely that the shallow networking is a waste of time for everyone involved.

Indeed. I wish folks would stop pushing linked-in on the rest of us. They've proven themselves a bad actor, over and over, and should be left to wither.

I presently don't use LinkedIn at all, but am thinking of joining it just to create an anti-necktie group and see what sort of people I can collect together. Profile picture with necktie = no membership. 85% for fun, 15% serious.