The evolution of social networks has been studied, documented and researched ad nauseam over the years, but I have always felt LinkedIn occupied that rare space that joins frivolous social networks and useful business and career function.
LinkedIn over the last couple of years has become a bit more “social” though, encouraging updates and likes a la Facebook. Then there is the constant requests to update my account to Try Premium for free for a month (I can hardly begrudge them the desire to turn a profit). I could ignore the fact that they have been accused of using some fairly nefarious methods of pulling people into the network by targeting your email contacts and blasting them mercilessly in an effort to encourage more growth.
However, what ails LinkedIn goes beyond these mild annoyances.
LinkedIn has stopped being a place I can connect with past colleagues and has devolved into the place where I am forced to ignore read literally dozens of requests from Recruiters.
Let me be clear, recruiters have an essential place in the software industry and I sincerely believe that they hold resources every day developers have no time or energy to curate, however, it has started to feel like LinkedIn is a global conspiracy perpetrated by recruiters that need easy access to a client contact list.
I just spent the last 30 minutes really looking closely at my personal LinkedIn connections and have realized I have too many ill gotten connections that evaded basic scrutiny. I have elected to reduce my recruiter connections to only include 2-3 people, and they have to have either been recommended by people I trust, or have otherwise offered me some direct help in the past.
I cannot be the only one can I? Do you get inundated with blind requests?
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