I think LinkedIn doesn’t know either, so they just did … that

Absolutely. I imagine the product meeting being "What are we going to put on the homepage? It's would be weird for your home page to just be your own profile... I guess a feed? Those seem popular and take up plenty of space...".

I must not know how to use it.

My experience is an empty shell of people that only use it when they are looking for a job. The active ones post things that they think will make them look smart, cheap blog posts about “5 management tips”, “is your manager micromanaging you?”, “9 must have resume tools”, stuff like that.

The people that I’m actually interested in have a profile, but never actually use it. Or already got a job and don’t need to open it often, if at all.

The recruiters that reach out are always scammy or offer ridiculous things hoping that if I’m there, I’m desperate. 12/h do it all position, contract, for maybe 2 weeks, maybe 6 months, (doesn’t matter, I’m on the verge of homelessness anyway right?) for a “very important and growing company” that’s not even in the area I’m in.

It always gives me that fake useless vibe. I don’t really know how to turn it into something I actually want to be part of.

Just don't pay attention to the "content"... that's the worthless drivel you describe (though you forgot some of the business promotion angle).

I maybe go there once a month because someone I use to work with came in conversation or I had some random thought about someone. I'll also go there to learn about business partners and people I'm about to have to deal with professionally... background kinda stuff. Sometimes that doesn't pay off, but usually it's just enough to not go into a meeting or project blind.

I am not going there to read articles, posts, and other "business self-help" stuff and I'm not going there often.

Yep, "I loved working XYZ, I wonder what they're up to now" is like a million times more useful to me than anything Facebook or Twitter has ever made.

seconded. it's mostly useless, and for the things I do the profiles are meaningless. security doesn't put a lot of info, deliberately, so as to avoid malicious scans and intel gathering

Profiles are meaningless in the sense that people don't say who they have worked for?

Pretty much how LI works unfortunately.

The people you'd hope were active are out there busy doing useful things not writing "5 lifehacks to do useful things".

> Pretty much how LI works fortunately.

Fixed that for you! :)

Seriously, discoverable linkable profiles with tracking of connections and links to businesses and schools is incredibly useful, and we're fortunate it exists.

the trick is to not try to be a part of it, but only use it when looking for a job.

Sometimes the recruiters leads are worth it to me, but this must be very variable between users depending on profile, location,…

And do what in that scenario? Do you cold-chat (like cold call I guess) people?

Yes. It's professional, not personal, it is in no way weird or creepy to just say "hey interesting background, any interest in getting coffee with me?" just like you would with a new colleague at work. But it's pretty much everyone you can meet that way, not just people at your own company.

Have you come across a playbook for doing it the right way?

Here's a playbook:

- Find someone you're interested in connecting with. (Maybe you want to work where they work or where they used to work, maybe they live in your town and work on similar stuff, maybe they just seem to know a lot about something you're curious about.)

- Maybe get an intro from a person you both know. (This definitely increases the odds they'll respond to you.)

- Much lower friction than getting an intro and a nice feature of LinkedIn: You can both see people you both know. Reaching out to those "2nd" order connections increases the odds that they'll respond.

- Then I think the playbook for what to write is just "be yourself and sound like an actual person rather than a spam bot".

- Then don't be upset if you don't get a response, especially from people who probably get tons of messages.

There is also a step 0 that is an ongoing effort, which is to have a background and expertise yourself that is interesting to the person you're reaching out to. I love it when I get messages from people I might have messaged myself if I had come across them first.

> The people that I’m actually interested in have a profile, but never actually use it.

Does it have their work and education history on it? If so, that is "using" LinkedIn. You click on the companies in their profile. You follow the link to that company's website, see what they do. Or you find their connections from their profile page and see if any of those people are interesting or have interesting histories. Then you can (often) send people messages.

These are (in my view) by far the most useful capabilities for grown up working professionals that have been invented in the social media era. Everything else (including everything else on LinkedIn, posts and the feed, etc.) is almost entirely just noise with limited utility beyond entertainment.

IMO the best way to use it is for professional networking. Add the people you work with at your current job. If one of them (or you) leaves, you have a reasonable avenue to get in contact with them again, either for jobs or just catching up.

I just gather phone numbers and email addresses and add these people to my own records. There's no need to bring a third party into this.

Ok so I worked with you a decade ago, you have my phone number or email address, but you aren't on linkedin.

I remember you and I'm interested in what you've been up with for the last decade, so I go look for you on linkedin, but I can't find you. I shrug and forget about it.

Or maybe I also wrote down your phone number or email address along with your name. I remember you and get curious what you're up to. Can't find you on linkedin so I have no idea. But I have nothing to talk to you about, I just wondered what you were up to. So I don't email you. I shrug and move on.

Oh well. This is fine. But it's better if I can just go see what you've been up to like I can with everyone else I've worked with.

That's fair too!

Aside from the occasional lunatic post the feed's been pretty decent for me. A lot of it can be noise but I think the fact that it's kind of basic and doesn't manipulate you into constant engagement is what makes it better - I see a lot of stuff that I might not have come across otherwise rather than being fed content the algorithm thinks I enjoy, and the stuff I post gets decent visibility.

I suppose it's kind of old-skool in a way while also just being there to fill the space with... something. Meanwhile you couldn't pay me to sign up to FB, Twitter, Insta or TikTok.

Overall though - LinkedIn definitely grows in value as your career moves from 'what you know' to 'who you know'.

Yeah I agree. I find the feed useless but harmless.

So do I. Besides the fact that I got my current position directly through LinkedIn (cold contact from a recruiter), I use it to learn about people I'm going to meet.

I work with our Bizdev team a lot, discussing proposals for new business and it's great to be able to look up the management/development team of a company that we're going to have a meeting with to get a better picture of where they're coming from and what their company does.

The objections in this thread strike me as typical developer negativity: it's not directly tech-related so it must be useless.