Why LinkedIn Sucks And Why We Need a Better Platform To Tackle Employment
It’s the quarantine vibes of productivity kicking in and honestly, the last thing i ever imagined doing is me penning a piece about how LinkedIn really SUCKS.
I was a 20 year old millennial who did what most of my peers who were about to graduate from college would do: Signed up for the notorious “Social Media for functioning adults?” as I like to call it ( I guess)( I’m joking I just need a filler something author thing) Linked-fucking-In. To my surprise I really did not expect I would give it a shot as I tend to hate using a new medium (subtle) to interact with employers. I prefer sending emails to the right people.
Welcome to the first step of Adulthood : Getting a Job!
To the folks who put in extra efforts on LinkedIn, I need to ask you a sincere question: Why? LinkedIn feels like a popularity contest where people attribute their success on the platform with the amount of connections they have. What does that translate to? Potential opportunities?
Getting a job seems harder than ever now especially since we’re the generation with the hand-me-downs of all the worlds past problems and are expected to fix them with absolutely no backing. Is LinkedIn the ultimate solution to provide all of us with the hope of getting a job?
Did LinkedIn help me ? No.
-Charbel and 3 of his friends
People apply left and right to random jobs on the platform hoping to get a message from an employer. Some even go to the extent of writing those LinkedIn articles (ironic) just to boost their profile (not posting this one on my LinkedIn) and think to themselves “yeah I’m Unique”. News flash, habibi: you and 2000 other people are doing it! Reading the “X steps to get recruiters to notice you” isn’t going to actually get you that job, nor are those so-called LinkedIn influencers who are try to boost one’s morale by saying that the next message you send is going to get you that job. No, it won’t, and for the love of everything stop pushing that down people’s throats.
“Be optimistic, you just need the right connection”
— LinkedIn douchebag
I might seem salty but that’s just the reality of the platform. It’s filled with irrelevant people and certificate go-getters who think that this would amount to something. Inspirational quotes left and right, hiring stories that seem too good to be true and mind you, they’re really not MOTIVATING. Whenever I see a hiring or success story I roll my eyes and scroll without reading it. Why? Because I’m tired of seeing the same context every-time. We get it stay motivated, you’ll get a job. NO. You get a job by putting yourself out there. You don’t need to impress your connections you need contacts, GENUINE CONTACTS, people’s email not their LinkedIn inbox.
I Get It
LinkedIn has its benefits, you only open it when you’ve exhausted all other means of entertainment. You get to see who’s hiring, check up on how your friends are doing in their professional lives, and that’s pretty much it. I know I’m using LinkedIn the wrong way and I admit it openly, but do you really expect me to sit there and keep doing what Forbes told me to do: “ Try and find the right connection and send them a message.” I found my first job by sending an email to the relevant recruiter using the recruiter’s company’s website and not LinkedIn. You have to put yourself out there and not let a platform do it for you. You have to research companies that you want to truly work for and send tailored cover letters and CVs. The Easy Apply seems easy enough but it’s not going to get you anywhere anytime soon. Moreover, LinkedIn is broken, like really broken. You got:
1- An irrelevant jobs algorithm that somewhat tries to work but always fail to push the right content.
2- People that assume LinkedIn is a dating site and procced to send unsolicited messages.
3- The certificates that LinkedIn generates and that people assume recruiter take into consideration.
4- Premium is the golden ticket for a CEO Position?
A new platform?
This post seems ironic and it should be because LinkedIn is also ironic for making us create accounts only to abandon them because we came to the realization that there is some form of BS going on. I’m not going to shove any other platform that is going to help find you a job because I really have never used other services. What I’m going to say is this: Finding your first, second , X job is going to be the shittiest thing you will ever encounter (unless you know: “Papi is connected”) but in the meantime, try and figure out something outside of these platforms. Try and reach your contacts directly, ask the people around you for any leads on certain listings or opportunities. Trust me this would probably have a greater potential of landing you a first interview than that shitty LinkedIn Inbox.
In my opinion, the new platform needs to include two key things:
1- One-on-one contact with the proper recruiter meaning it’s a recruiter platform only. No BS about article posting to show how much of an intellect you are. And no likes and posts don’t mistake it for Instagram. And if you need a news source, try top news sites maybe Reddit.
2- Tailored Algorithm for both recruiters and users, where users can customize their search field to get the right recruiters and vice versa.
Grand Finale
If LinkedIn worked for you then great. I hope you prosper and become a great human and help others out. Nonetheless, i’ll leave you with these two classic LinkedIn posts to beautifully summarizes why LinkedIn and its diehard “Power” users suck. Stay Safe!
