On Thu, 07 Jun 2012 16:41:11 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>>> Thing is, people were saying 10 years ago that it was a great resource
>>> for getting hired, and today, 10 years later, that still doesn't seem
>>> to be the case.
>>
>> It's not a passive thing - you don't put your CV info up there and then
>> just sit back and wait.
>>
>> So, what active things have you done?
> 
> Linked-In seems to have the same problem that all the early social
> networking sites had: Once you've filled out all the fields in your
> profile, there's nothing left to /do/.

Yes, there is.  There are groups that host discussions.  There are job 
postings posted (and it even recommends "jobs you might be interested 
in".  I used that to find one position that I applied for and interviewed 
extensively for - even traveling out of state for an in-person interview.

> The site is just a giant database of /stuff/. You can type in your
> stuff. You can query what stuff other people have typed in. And that's
> it. The site doesn't /do/ anything else. So once you've keyed in your
> data, there's basically no reason to ever visit it again. (Other than to
> bump your entry back to the top of the search page.)

Actually, no, that's not the case.

>>> More like "if you don't access it at least twice per day, you
>>> disappear off the bottom of the search results".
>>
>> Not at all.  I access LinkedIn quite regularly, and am a member of a
>> number of groups related to the fields I'm interested in - and I
>> occasionally participate in discussions in those groups.
> 
> When I first created my profile, I used to get the occasional call from
> recruiters who claimed to have seen it. And after a month or so, it
> stopped. Presumably because profiles are listed in order of activity.
> (Which is an entirely reasonable way to list them, really...)

False assumption, unsupported by any amount of evidence.

It does help to keep your profile current.  Read some of the articles 
(you remember the discussion we had about using RSS to keep up on what's 
'hot' in tech?  Here's another source to use to filter the myriad of 
information out on the 'net and see what you should be aware of).  Join 
some groups, participate in some discussions.

Building a career isn't a passive activity.  It requires some effort.  If 
you don't update your profile with recent accomplishments and such, 
recruiters are going to look at it and say "yeah, this hasn't changed, so 
he's lost interest or isn't doing anything" and move on.

But listed in order of activity?  No, that's not really the case AFAICS.

Jim

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