I have mentioned before here that I tend to eschew social media – particularly, I have never desired a Facebook account, nor a Twitter one. However, about a year ago, I was strongly advised to set up a LinkedIn account as this would help with my job hunting. So, how did that work out?
Useless, frankly. I did get a couple of approaches from folk who had clearly not read my profile and, like those employment agencies that call me from time to time, were asking me to take on work that was clearly outside my area of competence. So apart from collecting a group of names in my connections, it has served no useful purpose. Maybe I am simply not that good at networking – although, to be fair, I did give it a go.
The final straw came for me this morning. I tried to invite someone I’d not seen or spoken to for a number of yeas and was asked to enter his email address before being able to invite him. The little help button told me that this was either because of his privacy settings or because I had been flagged as having tried to connect to someone I didn’t know. I tried the same thing with another contact – someone who I am currently dealing with. I got the same thing. So, someone, somewhere has flagged me as a potential spammer. Given that I have been very selective with my invites, this is somewhat galling. I have never invited anyone that I do not personally know either socially or through having done business with them. It’s possible, of course, that they have forgotten. I received requests to link a couple of times and had to think hard about where I’d met this person.
What they have done, though, is click the “I don’t know this person” option. It is entirely possible they have done this without realising the implications – after all, I didn’t realise the implications until now. Once this happens, the person doing the inviting is blacklisted and every time they try to invite someone in future, they have to enter the recipient’s email address – ad infinitum with no appeal. This is fine if you know it, apart from the irksome knowledge that you have been flagged as a naughty boy or girl even if you weren’t. Many of my erstwhile contacts have moved onto new employers, so I don’t know their email address. This means that the tool is effectively useless for linking with people I’ve been out of touch with for a while.
This is an arbitrary blunt instrument designed to deal with spamming that also punishes people who have tried to genuinely link to someone who may have forgotten the encounter. Okay, their gaff, their rules you might say. And you would be right. However, I am equally free to vigorously criticise a system that blacklists someone erroneously without having in place a simple means to address the error and correct it. I am equally free to withdraw from it.
As I don’t know who decided that they didn’t know me, I can’t ask them to reverse the decision, even if they can. No, as far as LinkedIn is concerned, I have transgressed and will be punished for evermore. Is this an organisation with which I wish to be associated? I think not.
While doing a bit of digging around, I did discover that I could grovel to their customer services and get the thing overturned – possibly.
You can fix this, send an apology to LinkedIn’s customer service at [email protected] and they will let you off with your offence once and your IDK’s will be reset, after that you’ll remain a naughty boy/girl/alien.
Apologise? Apologise!?! Fuck you! I haven’t committed any offence, so I’ll be damned if I’m going to apologise because someone, somewhere has a failing memory and I certainly won’t tolerate being on a naughty list for something I haven’t done. Again, fuck you! I don’t do grovelling and I repeat, I have done nothing wrong. And, frankly, given that the tool has been of no use to me whatsoever, I am disinclined to do so. Instead, I have closed my account.
That, then, is my brief foray into the world of social media. I have no plans to repeat the experience.
Linkedin is a great tool for recruitment consultants to stalk their prey. Aside from that, it is a second-rate Facebook (which is saying something, given the low esteem in which I hold Facebook).
I had no idea that people would end up being blacklisted if you say you don’t know them. That does mean I’ve accidentally blacklisted quite a few people over the years. Ah well. They were mainly recruitment consultants.
I didn’t know either until now. They aren’t exactly open about it. That’s what I find so annoying – that and the arbitrary nature of it.
I too eschew the likes of facebook (I did, on my daughters’ insistence, open an account, but after a couple of forays onto it, I decided it was not only singularly uninteresting, but also over-exposing. I’m a private person, and have no wish to broadcast to the world the minutiae of my personal life). I’m also on Linkedin – I’m not sure how I came to be there, perhaps it was when I googled an old associates name and he came up on Linkedin, I dunno. Despite never having used it, I still get stuff in my email about people wanting to link to me. I ignore them.
The worst one, and one that IS actually getting people into trouble, and on a few occassions nearly, or even actually, sacked, is Facefucks system of automatically signing any one up to a “group” if one of that group invite them. I.E you have to “opt OUT”. Not “opt in”
One woman, for example, working for a catholic charity against abortion, was thrown out when her name was “found” on a FB group list who are militantly against the catholic church, and support abortion. Others I have heard of, who have been “caught” on groups that go against their employers interests.
This “automatically asigned” seems to be a real prolem on ALL such sites.
The people who designed these sites clearly didn’t give enough thought to the unintended consequences. Fortunately, I have steered well clear of Facebook. I only started using LinkedIn because I was strongly advised to use it for networking while looking for employment. As it has been a spectacular failure in that event, closing the account is no loss.
it is amusing – if you find that sort of thing amusing – that people writing about this problem advise you to contact LinkedIn and apologise. I do not apologise when I have done nothing wrong and I’ll be damned if I’ll go crawling to these patronising bastards. I don’t need their service and can manage perfectly well without it.
LR, Yup, pretty much my attitude and my experience as well. I get driven insane by the constant ‘trickle’ of emails requiring action by me as well. Never-ending pseudo spam.
Don’t forget though, as a user of these peurile ‘services’, you’re not the customer, you’re the product, so they can do pretty much exactly as they please.
Not any more 😈
Interesting to hear about their policy on people being blacklisted by others who claim not to know you when you try to link to them. This certainly seems a blunt instrument when you consider that it will inevitably be used to find past contacts, some of whom will be a bit tenuous.
That said, it certainly seems popular with a lot of people I know in business and I did manage to use it to find someone who I worked with a couple of companies ago and renew our relationship. I’ve also found it useful for career updates on people I’m only in contact with occasionally but do want to keep tabs on.
No one’s ever offered me a job via it though, so it seems that it isn’t much help there then based on Mr. L’s experience.
Overall then it’s been a positive experience for me, but my expectations were low…
I’m not sure what expectations I had. I was claiming JSA at the time and went on a day seminar funded through the job-centre and they strongly advised using it as a networking tool to help get back into work. From that perspective, it is completely useless even though, like you, I made contact with some people I’d not seen for a few years. However, apart from a brief “how are things with you?” that’s been it. So not really much use there, either.
As for their policy of blacklisting , there are two problems. One is that they do not make it clear from the outset that clicking “I don’t know this person” will have a detrimental effect on their account, which is pretty disgraceful. The second is that no matter how careful you are to approach only people you know, you cannot have control over their reactions – so you are vulnerable to a malicious or mistaken response and there is nothing you can do about it. The policy, therefore, is inherently unfair, even assuming you accept that the principle of blacklisting is vaguely ethical.
I think TNL’s right here – it’s been more of a nuisance than a help and one or two issues I’ve had have been through LI. I dislike all social media.
Just an anecdote on the job front. I saw someone on Linkedin from the UK looking for his first job after graduating. I interviewed him when visiting the UK, offered him a job and we are now awaiting a visa for him to bring him to Australia. So it does work for some people.