Job Searching on LinkedIn is a nightmare. Here’s 3 reasons why.
The absurd amount of recruiters on LinkedIn whom are unaware of anything beyond the mere names of a few technologies and are actively hunting for those technologies summarizes how bad LinkedIn really is for job searches. Anecdotal experiences don’t objectively matter, but the anecdotal experiences of many individuals do sum up as somewhat of an objective definition.
It’s a common trend among job posters on LinkedIn to not know what exactly a technology means and what its prerequisites are, and still be considered a top-notch recruiter. I know someone who’d suggest individuals to interview based on how much experience they’ve listed in React when they clearly also mention “More experienced in React than JavaScript.” If you know what that means, you know how absurd it really is.
LinkedIn has become Facebook except people hunt for jobs, and those who hunt for jobs are 100x more in number than those who are hiring and/or get hired. It’s a common trend to see thousands of applications on a job post when it was posted just a day ago; even Jeff Bezos’ or Elon Musk’s resume wouldn’t get noticed in there.
LinkedIn’s algorithm is one of, if not the, worst social media algorithms out there. Even YouTube doesn’t disown you if you don’t post a video for a while, but LinkedIn actually does. You can have thousands of followers, but if you just take a break, you’re doomed. It doesn’t start there; in order to gain followers, you need to post every single day.
But, there’s always a question you should ask before you drench yourself into this doomhole, “Why should I?” As you can guess, there’s no reason, mostly, just an animalistic urge to be famous, and that’s not wrong, but our decisions should be based on concrete mathematical proofs.
How does it affect job search on LinkedIn? Just how SEO-boosted crap affects Google. People who aren’t even qualified enough, to hire and to apply, for jobs get better rankings at job posts due to their oh-so-famous reputation and number of followers. Most recruiters literally fraud and spam with posts such as “Say Hi in the comments” just to gain followers. Of course, there are qualified people out there with a healthy reputation, but when you incentivize reputation, most of the reputable users are reputable only because they understood the algorithm and wasted a few hundred hours on the platform.
So, What’s the solution? Get better at your skills, make a good-looking and good-performing portfolio, build in public, tell others that you’re alive, and then use a referral/warm introduction OR use a platform that isn’t this much saturated. Even Premium won’t save you from the bizarre state of being ghosted.
LinkedIn is a great platform for networking, but it’s a terrible platform for job search. It’s a great platform for recruiters to find candidates, but it’s a terrible platform for candidates to find recruiters. Regardless, have you heard of Crust? It’s an awesome boilerplate for a JavaScript library, comes jam-packed with a lot of features, and is built with TypeScript. Check it out!
Always ask why before you decide to tread along a path. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and stay happy!
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