It’s a humble-bragging cesspit.

It really is!

There are monthly who’s hiring and who wants to be hired threads that seem to fill that niche.

Unfortunately my tech stack isn’t very popular with HN, SQL/C#. Maybe it’s time to reskill.

Naah. C# and .NET is solid. I am doubling down on it even for startups. Doing my next product in it.

I think his point is valid though. While I see C# listed all the time on normal job posting sites, on HN it's always the sexy meme languages like Rust and Python.

None of those are “meme” languages.

I appreciate Python started-off as a toy-like language - but its utility as a glue-language for serious number-crunching (see: how almost all ML projects involve Python somehow) and the admirable community surrounding it means its credibility is established. The worst thing anyone can say about Python is that it’s the new VBA.

Rust is the new C++ - Microsoft wouldn’t be investing tens (hundreds?) of millions of dollars in enabling Rust for Windows drivers if it wasn’t serious. (Whereas it’s Zig and Carbon where I have concerns about adoption and longevity: the post-C ecosystem isn’t large enough to sustain three languages that overlap each other so much)

I'm just messing around, I use Python and Rust all the time and I love them. But the larger point is that these are not representative of the average tech job. Most of them are C#, Java, C++, JavaScript, etc. You pretty much only see Rust postings for startups. Python is more common these days, but it was also a HN meme at one point:

http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html

> Microsoft wouldn’t be investing tens (hundreds?) of millions of dollars in enabling Rust for Windows drivers if it wasn’t serious.

I'm absolutely not arguing against your point about Rust, but I wouldn't take what Microsoft is investing in as a strong signal for anything.

> Python started-off as a toy-like language

It did not. It started as a language do system administration for the Amoeba operating system.

Here's part of the README for the first public release (0.9p1, available from python.org):

"This is Python, an extensible interpreted programming language that combines remarkable power with very clear syntax."

"Python can be used instead of shell, Awk or Perl scripts, to write prototypes of real applications, or as an extension language of large systems, you name it."

You are correct.

What I meant was that - in the time after it was created for sysadmin tasks - but before it found it’s new home in data-science - Python was often used as a beginners’ language as a more modern and expressive alternative to BASIC - which led to its “toy” reputation - an undeserved reputation that it has successfully shed.

It is hard for me to accept that historical interpretation as I started using Python back in the 1990s, when it was already making in-roads in steering high-performance computing codes. NumPy's roots date from that era.

In 2002 it seemed that half the attendees of the Python conference were there because of Zope.

I was programming full-time by 1999.

So for me Python was well-established in several areas far before its wide-spread use in computer programming education or its use in data science.

I never had any exposure to HPC, scientific or numerical computing, even through university and in my career - that world is still comparatively silo'd off from the wider dev ecosystem IME; I know you are correct in what you say, but I imagine Millennials like myself (who were still in middle-school when you were using Python professionally) only ever saw Python in less serious applications.

Calling Python a meme language has to be one of the more hilarious things I have read on HN!

Python is the original meme language!

> While I see C# listed all the time on normal job posting sites, on HN it's always the sexy meme languages like Rust and Python.

Now I'm starting to wonder if I'm caught in a job-search bubble.

Can you list a few job posting sites you consider normal?

Have you tried searching Google jobs, Indeed, or...LinkedIn? Your milage may vary, but these are typical results for large tech cities.

I love PHP and I'm unironically doubling down on it.

Me too. PHP has paid bills so far for me but I am getting more into .NET for the future for various reasons and to be honest, not disappointed so far.

There's lots of good "serious" php out there, the challenge is it has been so accessible there's even more garbage php that's crowded out the go stuff.

I have found frameworks such as Laravel to be so extensive and full of add-ons/tools, that I am really enjoying PHP development more than ever! I know PHP gets a lot of hate, but it still is such a powerful language with many great frameworks.

I supported a C#, .NET. SQL Server platform at my previous job. It was rock solid.

Yeah not popular - it ain't Lisp :).

I've found it's highly area dependent. Basically the entire midwest is very MS heavy, and C# is still king.

I tend to see the same stuff over and over again. For example one place has been hiring their third engineer for the last 3 years. But I suppose every job site is like this.

If they've been trying to fill a single position for three years, I imagine they've tried other mediums too and the problem isn't just where they're posting the ad.

They aren't actually trying to fill the position, it is just an add masquerading as a role.

For me, the biggest challenge is that the job listings on whos hiring are almost never hardware based, so it pretty much completely eliminates it. There are some hardware listings on the ycombinator job search portal, but its pretty minimal and the search tags are kinda meh. Just wish there were more hardware startups in general.

Yep. Check out /r/linkedinlunatics

Any overlap with /r/ImTheMainCharacter ?

turning into? I left it years ago because it already became that

My LinkedIn network is my biggest audience. I use it to post random thoughts and whatnot, because it's more fun when you know there's an audience. I rarely get any views or likes though.

Is it actually an audience if nobody's viewing it?

I need to get it out anyway. If there's a better option I'd use it.

Get a dog and every day take it on a long walk-and-talk where you tell your dog all your hot takes and random thoughts. Your dog will look forward to this, will look for you on days when you forget or think you are too busy for the walk-and-talk, and as a side benefit, you will get a little exercise, some sunshine, and fresh air.

It can also help clarify your thinking. If you can't convince your dog that technical debt is widely misunderstood, then how will you convince your colleagues?

You could just make your own blog if you don't care about readership. Would probably be better for the longevity.

If it’s not causing you any issues then I’m sure it’s fine, but this seems like an abuse of the word ‘need’.

Yeah mine news feed has turned into a condescending stream of thoughts buried under the empathy offering agendas.

Or this:

https://d2u3dcdbebyaiu.cloudfront.net/uploads/atch_img/442/f...

That is what you get when you combine the peak of a hype cycle with the existence of shockingly stupid people.

Is there a name for the specific kind of moderate-level of mental anguish I felt when reading that?

In german and spanish there is an expression for shaming for others. Fremdschāmen / Verguenza ajena. In english cringe, maybe?

"Consultant"

The sad thing is if that guy was doing a presentation, there'd be middle managers and C-Level people nodding while being inspired...

Cringe

Vicarious embarrassment

Surely this is just shitposting.

You'd hope as much, but it reads very similar to other serious corporate-speak. Take the explanation for why Keysight Technologies is called Keysight Technologies:

'The name Keysight is built from two English words: key, meaning indispensable or essential, a means of access; and insight, meaning the power of seeing, having vision and perception. The name connotes seeing what others cannot, having the critical or key insight to understand and unlock the changing technology landscape.

Keysight reflects what's in our DNA, what we strive to provide to our customers - the key measurement insights engineers need to accelerate innovation and ultimately achieve success - whether they see success as being first to market, increasing their differentiation, ramping up production, or achieving lower costs of test within a rapidly changing technology landscape.

According to Ron, the name Keysight "captures the spirit of our new company - innovative, insightful, and forward-looking, with the special kind of vision to sort through the rapid technological revolutions and anticipate customers' needs so they stay one step ahead."'[0]

So I'd say all bets are off.

[0] https://www.keysight.com/blogs/keys/2018/09/25/keysight-and-...

Eh, I don't see anything wrong with that. You have to rename the company. "Agilent" and and "Hewlett Packard" are taken. So you pick a name and make up some marketing fluff to justify it.

"Keysight" sounds like "key insight," which is what you get from decent test equipment. They could have done much worse.

I also don't see anything wrong or cringe with the explanation.

Poe's Law strikes again

That seems like a guy who would be interested in investing in a busco quadnary startup.

Jesus, I hope this guy is just posting a sarcasm. This reminds of a post from a guy (SDE2 in Amazon) I remember, leaving Amazon and posting how great he was as an engineer and a bar-raiser.

Worse than that. For me, in recent months, the volume of adverts and 'suggested''s feels like it's been throttled up so much that it's completely overwhelming the majority of my personal networks output ... which is the only reason I'm there.

Potential RIP in a matter of weeks/months ... frustrating.

People are now posting about politics there. That's the death knell imo.

People have been posting about politics there for a very long time; it's only just starting to bubble up into your timeline, I suppose.

Don't hesitate to mute accounts. For example, blocking Gary Vee almost single-handedly made my LinkedIn feed usable again. I never followed him or any of his pages to begin with, but enough of my connections embarrassingly engage with those kinds of posts that it cluttered everything up. Go to the source and pull out the root of the problem.

re: politics, there are one or two LinkedIn entities that post the most mildly progressive of content, and it's the knuckle-draggers in the comments that made me block these pages.

Tell me one area that has not gotten more political or partisan in recent years.

[delayed]

I'm not a fan of this development, though Msft invited it with their social-mediaization of Linked In ...

I actually tried to think of one and struggled…

I host a weekly open-mic at a local bar (mostly music but some standup and poetry) and more and more often I’ve had to figure out how to gracefully handle a performer using some of their 6-10 minutes to share their not-as-popular-as-they-might think political takes or commentary.

And it should be handled gracefully, because I’m not in the business of banning political content from the contents of poetry or standup or lyrics or whatever. Both from all sides I wish there was a bit more of a shared cultural understanding or reservation towards divisive political topics.

the irony is that your comment is being "liked" in droves , lol

The business model of linkedIn is a bit messed up. It pretends to offer something to you, the individual. Yet you are not paying for the site, so you are part of the product not the customer. The real customers are companies (advertising) and recruiters (self-described raw meat to be had). However, linkedIn seems to have messed up with that business model as well. Because recruiters wants recruits - not just a mailing list of people who are not interested. This leaves only the advertisers, thus turning even more recruits from visiting the site, therefore making the site less interesting to recruiters. A downward spiral, really. Recent offerings of linkedin Learning seems to be attempts to mitigate this but at the core of the problem really is that the site offers very little value to recruits. Maybe there are some smart business model people around that could fix that, who knows. The space is ready for dis-ruption.

I made the mistake of answering to an antivax post (something like “yeah “we” survived the Spanish flu and other pandemics but always at a horrible cost.” And my feed turned awful, I report posts on a regular basis now.

Other than that, it’s still the way to contact anyone, I mean anyone I remotely know or knew.

>it’s still the way to contact anyone

Yeah. I usually try other means first but if I don't have or can't find what seems like a reliable email address, LinkedIn is a pretty good avenue--especially with so many people having largely migrated asway from Twitter and Facebook.

It's extremely frustrating, because in 2023 you're sort of expected to have a linkedin (some job applications even require it!), but people have started treating it like the next FaceBook. From 2020-2022 I saw a lot of COVID conspiracy theories and political memes being posted, and I wanted to respond to them, but since LinkedIn is basically a resume, I withheld responding, for the same reason that I don't put my voting history directly on my resume.

Though honestly the worst part is the "inspiration porn" that people post on there all the time, nearly all of which reduce to "the job market is tough, but don't give up because it gets easy!!!". When you point out that it, in fact, does not ever get "easy" to wake up to 30 rejection emails every morning, they either try and sell you on some meditation routine, tell you that you have a bad attitude, or just block you.

Honestly, it really is the absolute worst platform that I am stuck using. There are worse websites, obviously, but no one is forcing me to go to 4chan or The Daily Stormer every day.

Further to that, my feed have been filled with Certification posts. Folks would boast about their 3 hour Certification courses with long cringe posts! And LinkedIn would not stop it, because they need to sell LinkedIn Learning!

Honestly, if it were just people bragging about how they took a 3 hour class and got a useless certification, I don't think it would bother me. LinkedIn markets itself as a glorified resume, and it's pretty common for people to fluff up their meaningless certs.

I just feel like there should be somewhat of a boundary between personal and professional life. There are things I would say to my friends that I wouldn't tell anyone in charge of giving me money, at least not directly, and I feel like LinkedIn (purposefully or otherwise) is actively trying to erode that boundary. It's horrible.

There's not much I would post on Facebook that would cause me heartburn if a potential employer were to see it. (And most of my Facebook friends would be profoundly uninterested in most tech topics I would post on.)

But, yeah, I keep my LinkedIn--to the degree I use it at all--very anodyne except to the degree you have relatively extreme opinions on specific tech topics.

I don't have a facebook, but I don't think I post anything that's likely to get me fired to any social media. However, there's sort of a difference between "not being fired" and "being hired".

My political opinions are pretty normal (basically typical American lefty), and if my employer were to find a blog post I wrote about universal healthcare or something it's doubtful that they'd fire me. That's a little different than me plastering "BIDEN 2024!!!" all over my resume, and that's why I utterly hate LinkedIn.

anodyne, great word

It's a perfectly cromulent word

You have missed the point by a fantastically, awe-inspiring amount.

Hindsight is 20/20. Looking back we see... that none of them were true.

Holy crap did this topic take a nosedive. My point wasn't even to "dismiss" COVID conspiracies, just point out that I didn't really want them on my LinkedIn wall.

But fine.

> Then there was the vaccine effectiveness, which was claimed as 100% but actually was well below that. Same for their preventing transmission, which was nonsensical.

I think there's literally no one that claimed the vaccine was 100% effective; certainly no one with any kind of medical credential. I don't think there's ever been any vaccine in history that's been 100% effective, the numbers I heard when I got my vaccine was between 80-90% effective, and due to Bayes theorem hijinks that means the actual likelihood of being immune is well below that. This was never a cover-up, the scientists were pretty up-front about this.

> Let's start with Wuhan being a likely origin point. This one gets bonus points, because it wasn't just a "conspiracy theory" but also "racist". All based on a Lancet paper that any smart reader could tell was bunk, and which turned out to be totally soaked with conflicts of interest.

I don't recall anyone saying it was racist for saying Wuhan was an origin point. What people called problematic was people trying to label it as "kung flu" or "Wuhan Flu".

> Then there was the "conspiracy theory" that natural immunity is superior to vaccine immunity; again, turned out to be true.

I cannot speak for anyone else, but I don't think this was ever disputed. "Natural" immunity may indeed give you stronger immunity to COVID, but it has one major disadvantage: you have to catch COVID to get it, which is potentially lethal, and even if it wasn't "lethal", can have long-term side effects that we're still unsure about, not to mention that while you have COVID you're substantially more infectious than when you're not. Any reduction on infectiousness is a potential win.

Your memory has some holes in it friend.

> literally no one that claimed the vaccine was 100% effective

Well, apart from the President of the US [0], and Pfizer themselves [1], and many others.

> I don't recall anyone saying it was racist for saying Wuhan was an origin point

Many, many people claimed this; including a NYT reporter [2] and WaPo [3].

> I cannot speak for anyone else, but I don't think this was ever disputed.

Yes, this was heavily, heavily disputed. Even Nature claimed mRNA was superior [4].

I hope you reflect on the fact that it took me only about 5 minutes to dig up these links, and that what you called a "nosedive" can now be seen as an educational experience.

[0] - https://news.yahoo.com/ap-fact-check-biden-inflates-01184362...

[1] - https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...

[2] - https://www.thewrap.com/new-york-times-covid-lab-leak-apoorv...

[3] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/the-media-cal...

[4] - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-06629-2

The "nosedive" was specifically because people like you cannot stick to a topic and instead make everything about COVID conspiracies, as I already stated.

That said, I'll give a look to your links, though I seriously suspect that they don't validate everything you're saying.

> people like you cannot stick to a topic and instead make everything about COVID conspiracies

I haven't talked about Covid here for a long, long time.

I responded to your claim with a long list of easily verifiable instances of "conspiracy theories" being proven correct - which was then immediately flagged despite containing no misinformation, rudeness, etc. The irony is lost on people, apparently.

I'm sure you can find something wrong with all those links, if you try real hard - but if you put as much effort into verifying them I bet you'll learn a lot more.

None?

> some job applications even require it!

I've never encountered this, but if I did, I'd be pretty thankful for the advance warning that I would not likely enjoy working there.

I can't remember where, but it was a fairly typical form where you put your name and information, upload your resume, required fields have a red asterisk, and the LinkedIn profile was required.

Now, I have no idea how much parsing they actually did; you might have been able to put "asdf" to make it validate.

There's very little correlation between a company that's deeply integrated with LinkedIn tools and what it's like to work there. If you're going to judge all companies based on their recruitment toolchain, good luck finding an acceptable position!

You can have a LinkedIn profile but not use the feed-- I don't see how that's necessarily frustrating. Make a profile, provide the link on job applications. Occasionally edit your profile so it's up to date. Then, don't use it. Simple enough.

Sure, but a lot of companies post job listings on LinkedIn as well. I could (and mostly do) ignore the homepage, but I still see it occasionally.

I wish there was a way to never accidentally click on or navigate to the feed at all on LinkedIn. Could be a good opportunity for a browser extension to just nuke that part of the DOM.

That exists already! I use this one, which works on a bunch of other sites as well: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...

If you use uBlock Origin you can do

     www.linkedin.com##:matches-path(feed).scaffold-layout__main
     www.linkedin.com##.global-nav__primary-link.global-nav__primary-link--active.app-aware-link

The former will block the main content of the page while on the /feed/ path, while the latter will block the "Home" button in the header nav.

wow I didn't know uBlock Origin was also capable of DOM cleanup. I really need to give that tool a second look.

Yeah, I basically use it for online resume storage.

For years LinkedIn languished as the site everyone was on, but nobody actually used for anything. But I have actually gotten a couple of leads from it now.

The feed is trash though, for sure. And you have to laugh at the endless parade of bimbo pictures attached to accounts that are supposedly "recruiters." Unprofessional and insulting.

Speaking of "bimbo" recruiters, some of them are low key phone-sex operators.

I had an experience where one of them reached out to me about a job over the phone. She had a hot-sounding voice and the job seemed intriguing, so I figured I would give it a shot. Her LinkedIn photo was stunning. Yes, I sheepishly admit that I was taken in by her and this influenced my decision to even consider a random job from a recruiter.

She was friendly but kinda ditzy, seemed to barely know what she was talking about, and once the easy stuff was over, I was abruptly handed over to some dude. It's like... I thought you were my recruiter, so who's this other guy? He pretty much handled my recruitment process from that point on, but she was allowed to be the first one to talk to me on each call and get the credit for "recruiting" me, although she turned out to be more like live-bait than anything else.

IMO, the tactic of many of these recruitment firms is to hire attractive women to fool male programmers into considering otherwise unappealing jobs and direct most of the profit to the male recruiters.

Part of me is glad the industry is in such a state that no recruiters are contacting me anymore. 99% of third party recruiters are blood sucking parasites.

Hahah, wow, I haven't engaged with any of them, but that's a fun anecdote. Thanks for confirming.

Coincidentally, this drives everything that is so bad about the platform. All the normal people you know in real life wouldn’t be caught dead posting to LinkedIn, just using it as a resume and jobs platform. The only people willing to post anything are attention seekers and influencers.

It’s a similar complaint to how your Facebook and Instagram feeds barely contain the people you follow anymore, which encourages regular people to post less and attention seekers to post more.

The business model of ad-supported social media apparently doesn’t work under the paradigm of checking in on your friends for a reasonable amount of time (like 5 minutes a day) and calling it a day. Instead, it’s just optimized to be as much of an addiction as possible, and there’s no way your real respected work colleagues can provide that amount of content.

I recently pointed out to our corporate security that a data broker has detailed employee records for our entire company including job titles and start dates. Given the nature of our business, that data cache is a roadmap for security compromises. The most likely culprit was scraping from LinkedIn. It isn't always a good idea to put your data out there for others to aggregate.

Some companies supply that information voluntarily. Experian (iirc) even has a product offering that ‘helps employees qualify for loans and demonstrate stable earnings’ if the companies will just only send them payroll history. So it may not have been scraped necessarily, just “shared” in the ordinary course of business.

I aggressively clicked "not interested" on meme/fluff posts for a while and now when my LinkedIn page always starts with some sort of system design diagram. My next click is usually straight to the jobs page anyways.

The site will be done for once they start putting trending topics in the jobs page.

The best is 'unfollow'. I have a a bit less than a hundred connections, all real people I know, and I follow 0 accounts. So there is no feed. It's empty.

4chan is way better than HN, sorry.

It has got worse.

But there’s a right way to use LinkedIn.

Keep in mind that the majority of people only want to network when they need something. You can use LinkedIn to do the opposite and create meaningful connections.

1. Judgment-free support. That lady you barely remember from your previous job is starting a business. Encourage her. Some person is starting yet another podcast? Ask a couple of kind questions.

2. A low effort contact list. Next time you go out to an event and meet with new people ask to connect on LinkedIn. You have a better chance of maintaining that connection with LinkedIn reminders than if you exchange phone number or email.

Why do this? Life is short.

I've never had a Linkedin nor any other type of social media, not even a public Github page, and I've received many simply great job offers, especially in 2022-2023.

Putting this out there so people don't think they need to join some absolutely shit random corporate social networks to get a job.

What's your secret?

Either Indeed, or from email. The emails usually come from recruiters using databases, but I've also received emails directly from the companies using word of mouth, too.

I think I notice that every time I have to login. Isn't exactly new, is it?

I'm curious what "decent use" you used to get from it? That you used to be contacted by better fit jobs? Were you finding contract positions? Or hopping from a full time to another full time?

It has to be tough, as I imagine that most folks aren't actively looking for a job except for when they don't have one. I try and respond politely to any contacts I get, but there have been times I was overwhelmed.

The use was mostly getting decent hits from recruiters and the feed when I opened the page didn’t want to make me vomit.

I am frankly at a point where I realized internet became an extremely toxic place full of dark patterns. I miss days of nerds making sites to share informations and hobbies.

Makes sense, I think. I, sadly, never remember LinkedIn not doing that. I think I can find a tweet or other journal entry talking about how awkward the site is every time I ever find myself using it. Shame, as I do want to keep in touch with friends from old jobs. Doesn't feel like a good way to do it, though.

>Memes and videos are now being posted Was there a time when it was not like this? At least 12 years ago it was the same.

It really is this group of maybe max 10000 people all boasting to each other, interspersed with “I got laid off, available to hire!”. It’s a pretty depressing place.

I wonder what the strategic plan Microsoft had in mind originally was? Was it really as simple as “we are all about business, that is the business network”?

> I wonder what the strategic plan Microsoft had in mind originally was? Was it really as simple as “we are all about business, that is the business network”?

I thought that’s what they bought Yammer for - but then they also bought LinkedIn.

> Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform? Memes and videos are now being posted.

It's also gotten pretty political.

If I cared about your political hot takes - I'd be on Facebook.

Though this seems to be permeating everywhere, even to HN - even though the mods try their best to keep it out.

If this adds a humorous twist on it for you, I saw someone describe it as like a dating site except it’s women trying to contact men and men ghosting them.

It's actually even more funny than this: it's beautiful women trying to contact nerdy men and getting ghosted by them :)

lol, https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-hotz-b3866476/ - George Hotz of comma.ai uses LinkedIn for dating ;)

I thought this was a joke, but then he puts it right in his profile:

> PLEASE READ PROFILE. While some people use LinkedIn for "networking" and advertising their "personal brand," I use this site exclusively as a dating platform. If you are intelligent, attractive, female, in or visiting San Diego, and perhaps a bit out of the norm, I might be interested. Send me a message and invite me out for a drink! (and please make it clear you are asking me on a date) All non-dating related messages will be ignored.

But at the same time seems like it is a failed platform for him too:

> UPDATE. LinkedIn is too full of faux career climbers and not enough dating opportunity. Follow me on Instagram @georgehotz

haha, guess LinkedIn didn't help him with dating.

That explains why they were asking for Putman scores when hiring engineers around the time they started.

One of the fun things about LinkedIn is figuring ways to filter the auto recruiter messages and his is pretty great tbh.

I've been using »FirstName LastName« in my profile and when I get emails addressed to »FirstName I know they're from a machine

i put a period after my first name, same idea

Besides the joke, I think it can help you sympathize with women in that situation as well, and maybe improve your dating :)

Yeah ok, people are sending me jobs... do they even know what I do? This looks automated, they probably send a million? It's easy to see why lots of attention can still feel hollow.

For me, it’s messages like “How’s it going at City and County of San Francisco?”

I know a girl that uses LinkedIn for dating. She lives in Asia, so maybe they have a different LinkedIn culture.

Or a different dating culture.

Business-clasa dating.

> Can someone please develop hacker news type basic site but for jobs? No memes, no dark patterns, no likes.

Isn't that what sites like indeed are?

> Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform?

As someone who didn't bother to curate their LinkedIn account all I can say is: This is great news! Now my career opportunities are again the same as everybody else's.

Well most people see LinkedIn as a central place to store resumes.

Being everyone’s free storage unit does not generally make money.

So they have to turn the resume storage part into a loss leader and turn a profit some other way. Being a place to list job postings is the most obvious but they have competition already.

Throwing on ads will make money but LinkedIn isn’t a site most people stick around on. Turning LinkedIn into a social media site keeps people on the site so the ads work, but it’s a pretty ugly way to do it. The type of people who are actually going to use LinkedIn like Facebook is probably the worst kind of people you want sticking around too.

LinkedIn could have stayed a small site with a small team but they got started by getting money from investors. Now they have other people to answer too.

>Well most people see LinkedIn as a central place to store resumes.

Or as a self-updating Rolodex of which there were quite a few at one point. Obviously it can serve other purposes as well but that's all I've ever used it for.

> Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform?

This has been the case for years, IMO. I noticed a rampant increase in it through the 2016 election and everything that followed.

> Recruiters contacting me with “perfect fit” position in languages not on my profile.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but not everybody is bothered by that. Most languages popular nowadays (C#, Javascript/Typescript, Java, C++, etc.) are popular partly because most devs can jump between them pretty easily.

Definitely not defending Linkedin, though. A coworker of mine writes posts about his stance on abortion. I don't know what Linkedin's policy is about it, but it's super awkward, and I just stay far away.

LinkedIn after 2020: it's the new proctologist as a service that nobody wants.

I thought he actually meant that they contact him in foreign languages.

On multiple occasions I have responded to a "perfect fit" type message on a tech stack mismatch, only to have it lead to a phone screen where everyone is confused why we're talking.

Depends on the situation.

My current job is primarily using a new-to-me language (C#) on a platform I hadn't used in 10 years (Windows), and though I have some buyers remorse (Windows is still terrible), everybody was on the same page about my skills, I've picked up C# easily enough, and it's worked out fine so far.

> A coworker of mine writes posts about his stance on abortion.

Pro or against?

[That was a joke. Please don't answer.]

I think the real joke here that one would be socially acceptable for HNers so we already know what they posted.

From my experience when I respond to them that I don’t know a certain language and code in C# and know some Java I get instantly ghosted. It’s not even worth my time to respond.

I abandoned LinkedIn years ago because of the incessant bottom-feeder recruiter spam it got me. I've only grown happier with that decision over time.

It’s been like this for many years now. I can’t really remember it otherwise. I’ve lost respect for some colleagues after seeing all the self congratulatory posting that exaggerates what happened and long-winded work stories on their profiles. I’m done with giving folks a pass at this stage on their Linkedin ladder climbing nonsense. Like most social media it’s a giant circlejerk just with a white collar lean.

I think it's even worse than that. I've seen a lot of crazy political discussions there where people, fully identifiable, are just losing their minds, saying racist stuff even.

I have no idea why people would be willing to risk their jobs like that but I see people from Fortune 50 companies doing it. Crazy

That is something. I stopped reading it entirely sometime last year but don’t recall the crazy uncle effect. What was mentioned sounded similar to what I experienced, including the memes—-but I didn’t realize it was sinking so low in becoming Reddit on a bad day without the anonymity.

Literally it was worse than almost anything I've seen on reddit.

Idk if they put a stop to it or not but it was madness

And reporting blatant garbage always results in 'we don't think there is a problem here' response from LI.

always has been :)

I'm working on https://hackerli.st to do exactly that, rolling out jobs this week.

Have you tried Levels.fyi? https://www.levels.fyi/jobs

Lmk if you have any feedback as well!

It’s still great for finding roles and that’s it. I never update my profile. Only use it when I’m on the hunt for a new role.

Hacker news is already the hacker news type site for jobs IMO.

> Can someone please develop hacker news type basic site but for jobs?

https://hnhiring.com

It's not very subtle. I watched a 2 minute clip of 5 men working together to save a dog from a river. And that was loosely connected to a generic post about how team work is effective. Sometime in the last 5 years LinkedIn just became a slightly more formal variant of FB/Instagram.

>Can someone please develop hacker news type basic site but for jobs

HN does have a job board: https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs

And monthly there is a "Who's hiring" and "Who wants to be hired" thread automatically posted.

Nothing for my domain there but I check it a few times a year.

> HN does have a job board:

That’s not a generic job board. It’s only for YC companies.

Yeah, the linked job board is only for YC. The monthly threads are generic, though. And decently active.

If that's the video of the construction-worker looking guys pulling the dog from a canal-looking waterway, that video was awesome.

You can just use it in the original way: simply look at profiles, make the occasional requested intro for someone you actually know to someone you actually know, and maintain your resume. I have ignored the drive to turn it into a social network and it pretty much works the same as it did when it started.

For example, when I have a meeting with someone I always look them up on LI first, to see if we have something in common.

I agree! I think it's actually easier to avoid the big, weak network because it started as a professional tool. I curate my connections and don't accept every recruiter or sales person who sees it as yet another marketing channel. It's been invaluable for reaching out to my former coworkers to try and recruit them

My perception was that… at least 5+ years ago. I’m on there only if I need a job, otherwise it is dead to me. There is no content I have any interest in on there.

I enjoy visiting shlinkedin.com from time to time!

My solution is aggressively unfollowing or disconnecting from people. There may still be a lot of low value interactions, but at least I don't have to see them.

LinkedIn has been showing algorithmic feed from 1st, 2nd, & 3rd degree connections for a while, but they recently started aggressively showing out of network content for engagement. So unfollowing might help to filter out speicific people, but it won't stop your feed from getting cluttered with unrelated posts from some random person.

The recruiter spam and self promoting content from people who talk like they got 3 mortgages and 4 ex-spouses or ... -the opposite- absolute silence and disdain of a crowd that never posts these thoughts under their real name (and rant on HN or twitter instead speaking their truth on LinkedIn) has always been deafening.

In the age of Musk's twitter it is somewhat peculiar that LinkedIn ended up as the last social media platform where interesting posts can be discovered provided you don't "blind-follow" and follow the right people. None of this will work for those who expect it to work as some kind of magic garden where recruiters will present only what is relevant to you. That LinkedIn though never existed in the first place.

I spent some time a while back to "unfollow" everyone on linkedin apart from a very few select individuals. I unfollow people by default everytime I have a new connection. My wall is uneventful, but at least I don't feel like I'm going to facebook everytime I connect (which is rare)

Kind of related:

One day I decided to rapid-fire dismiss all of the "suggested connections" that LinkedIn was putting in front of me. I probably dismissed 200 in a single setting.

The next day(?), I got a warning from LinkedIn that my account was being audited for misuse or some such thing.

Although I was manually dismissing those suggestions, I'm guessing it tripped some bot-detector or something.

I have to know/worked with the person or if they're a recruiter (to connect).

There's one thing LinkedIn gets very right about job searches: remembering if I've indicated that I'm not interested in a particular job posting.

That massively improves the signal-to-noise ratio over e.g. Google, who's daily updates show me mostly the same jobs from one day to the next.

Oh right and then it suggests me the exact same job ad and slightly grays it out. What. The. Hell.

I could see the ability to re-visit such postings being useful on occasion.

No idea what LinkedIn's reasons are, but I think grayed-out is good enough. If nothing else, it's light-years beyond Google's approach.

Yes, but I also find it's one of the best remaining social media platforms for talking about craft. Unfortunately, it tends to suffer from toxic positivity that's almost the inverse of Twitter's ability to incite fights. There's almost an implicit "let's make each other look good" dynamic. Although, you do occasionally see controversial engagement bait too.

That's pretty much corporate culture? Have you worked anywhere that wasn't like that?

I have not touched LinkedIn since MS took over. And I'm not surprised by what it has become. Pretty much when a big corp takes over a social media this can be expected. Please get off LinkedIn. It is a cancer of digital society.

That’s not an option for many. Some jobs require LinkedIn just to apply!

>Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform?

Seeing as it's somehow the only social network to spam my email (I never even touched LinkedIn) endlessly? Yeah, it's been shit for many years. Even by social media standards.

Replying for better reach.

Probably very few people here are familiar with Xing, the German "business networking site". I was convinced LinkedIn would eat Xing's lunch when they launched in Germany, since the same happened pretty fast to Facebook and its local clone (StudiVZ). However, it hasn't happened then and only now some small tendency for people to prefer LinkedIn can be notices, but mostly because of international contacts and not because the site is all that great.

Anyway, in the last couple of years, Xing also mutated from a business contact network to a wanna-be Facebook social network, with memes, neurotic posting, outreach metrics etc. Instead of being a contact backbone, it's become an attention leech, basically the same experience as you describe for LinkedIn. At least in case of Xing, it's more or less known that they have been infested by product managers for a long time, whose only metric for success has ever been "innovation (tm)", so it's explainable, but still stupid. I suppose same could be happening at LinkedIn, even though they never have been good to begin with, palatable at most.

It's an annoying layer on top, but I think the core (highly searchable centralized network of job seekers and employers) is still very valuable.

I've hibernated my LinkedIn profile after I was stalked by an unstable bank employee who I had a bad interaction with:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37417397

Until their privacy and visibility policies are put on par with other social media platforms, I'm going to use it strictly for job-hunting when needed.

It has always been that way to me. Also over-run with recruiters.

This reminds me of the hay days of Bolt. For ever new hire, their managers and directors and VPs and what not would post something effusive and congratulatory. It's kinda comical and tiring.

I think everyone has noticed this. There's a popular subreddit called r/LinkedInLunatics which follows some of the insane things people post there.

Between that and the "I've been unemployed for 5 months and am about to lose my house" posts with 1000 replies telling them how to network better, it's very very depressing.

>Has anyone else noticed that LinkedIn is turning into a shitty social media platform?

It's always been a shitty social media platform. It's entirely performative; just people yeeting artificial pseudo blog posts out into the ether, all virtue-signalling past each other.

LinkedIn is one of the worst websites I can think of.

According to this it's inevitable: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

I’m not much on social media as it is (HN is about the only one left that I still visit regularly), but even when I was doing _some_ social media, it was Twitter and _rarely_ Facebook, but never LinkedIn. Not for years.

The last time I probably used LinkedIn for anything was networking some when I changed jobs (almost 10 years ago). Unless you hop jobs a lot, I just don’t see how it adds any value.

The site has always been the cancer that you described here. No idea how you ever got decent use out of it.

For me the last nail in the coffin was showing unfiltered images of human remains - from the latest middle eastern conflict. No trigger warning, no NSFW filter, nothing. That's unacceptable.

Yes and it was as predictable as sunrise after Microsoft acquired them. Formally, I was a paid subscriber and conducted a good bit of business via LinedIn. After Microsoft acquired them, I canceled and now visit LinkedIn infrequently, and usually then only in response to a direct message. Those on the previous thread cheering the prospects from Microsoft's acquisition of Activision/Blizzard are likely to be disappointed in the outcome as well.

> Can someone please develop hacker news type basic site but for jobs? No memes, no dark patterns, no likes.

I'm building flexible.dev that eventually will be _exactly_ this!

Right now there are no comments, want to add those soon. The job feed is curated (manually, eventually automatically) from Reddit and HN "Who's hiring" posts.

Nice! The name implies the jobs will be flexible? I need some more of those.