[Closed] IT job with no LinkedIn

Find a good agency, search job boards etc.

Though linked in provides a huge jobs board these days, you don't need an active and expansive profile to view those and most just accept CV's in the normal way so maybe just a little suck it up and join princess is required 😉

No idea if the people we are interviewing or are applying at our place are on linked in though I will search people and see what that says vs their CV

Agencies aren't worth the pound of flesh they take, unless they've got a role available for they job you want don't bother with them and just jobserve the sh1t out of it 😂

I'm just wondering if it's common knowledge whether recruiters within IT disfavour applicants that don't have a LinkedIn account.

Hmmm such a leading question......

Can't say about wider IT but we have hired programmers and such this year and nobody on that side looked anyone up on Linked in, but most of our applicants came via recruiters as we are not big enough to run that ourselves - what they do to filter I don't know

You don’t need a linked in profile.

I take on candidates based on Agy referrals, who invariably come with all the checks done before they get through the barriers.

Linked in only really helps if you’ve already got connections, then they ought to be from the organisations you’ve been employed by. Anything else is just a bit naff and not worth the bother of reading.

Just get about 10 agents, meet them and sign up. Then hit the job boards..

Look at hired.com or talent.io. upload/create a CV and the businesses come to you. Usually through their internal people team or tech team direct if they're really small.

If you're looking for a c# or infrastructure/devops job, the answer is STW, pm me.

Whilst I don’t pay much attention to LinkedIn profiles when I’m recruiting, I have got my last two roles purely through my LinkedIn profile. One through an advert I applied to through LinkedIn, and the second a cold approach by an agency. If you’re in the market for a new job, why wouldn’t you?

IMO LinkedIn is not needed, it has limited (if of any) use to me. Find a decent agency - it pains me to say that, but at times they are a necessary evil.

But beware - lots of agencies advertise for roles that do not exist but just to get you on their books - and will endlessly push any old role.

Agencies aren’t worth the pound of flesh they take, unless they’ve got a role available for they job you want don’t bother with them and just jobserve the sh1t out of it

Unfortunately a lot of companies will only send vacancies to agencies, they don't want HR or management doing the initial filtering. That said I can't disagree that recruitment agencies are often pretty dire.

Unfortunately a lot of companies will only send vacancies to agencies, they don’t want HR or management doing the initial filtering. That said I can’t disagree that recruitment agencies are often pretty dire.

Or from my experience, advertise roles that they have not been engaged on in an attempt to attract a good enough candidate that they can try to steal the role from the original agency. Very frustrating as a candidate to not get a look in because you responded to the advert by the wrong agency.

I know a guy - rides a bike a fair bit, been known to write articles and things - who works in IT ata pretty senior level. his advice is "delete your linked in profile now"

where are you and what job are you looking for? W're looking for developers and testers in Hyde, east of Manchester

From contracting experience (so everything through agencies):

- polish your CV
- hit the jobs boards (I like Indeed, seems to pull in most others)
- apply to jobs with cv AND COVERING LETTER/EMAIL ("I'm a with x years experience in and would be very interested in hearing more about this role, blah blah)
- where possible, ring the agency to say you've submitted your cv and would like to discuss the role and what you're after

I've never actually registered with agencies outside of applying for roles through them. Once you're on the jobs boards, they pretty much come to you.

And why wouldn't you have a LinkedIn profile? Can't hurt, and mine is essentially an online cut-down CV. I don't use it very often, but it's useful for keeping 'professional' contacts to tap up for work in the future (that's how I got the contract I'm currently in; a LinkedIn message to an old colleagus asking if there was anything going)

his advice is “delete your linked in profile now”

Why?

I don't get why you would not want a Linked in account?

It is quick and easy to set up, you get lots of contacts and info through it, some useful some not.

I have recruited through Linkedin and been recruited through Linkedin.

It's a great platform.

[strong]IHN[/strong] wrote:

his advice is “delete your linked in profile now”

Why?

he's head of IT security for a blue-chip. I quote:

My only presence on LinkedIn is with a fake email address, photo and name. I use it for various hacking activities. Today linked in suggested I link to my son, my best man, a guy I work with and a guy I worked with 30 years ago.

Delete your LinkedIn account.

he’s head of IT security for a blue-chip.

CISOs (heads of ITSec) tend to have very thin linkedin profiles. As with all social media it makes sense to be cautious what you share and with whom so I personally find the nuclear option advocated by someone who is paid to be paranoid a little extreme and therefore probably not good advice for the wider populace**. The nature of your job should dictate how much you say about your skills and day to day activities but for people 'looking for jobs', are contractors or whom flip jobs every couple of years it will help. Certain areas of IT are very incestuous and therefore having a presence in the linkedin shop window, and connections with people in your area of specialism is a positive thing unless of course you shit on everyone you meet or you're totally incompetent.

** If he's half decent at his job he should understand that beyond the advertising social media is all about making associations between people on any number of observable attributes. To be truly disconnected from his real self he needs to be using better digital hygiene than a fake email address.

LinkedIn is almost exclusively for agents now to get leads. A few employers might take a look, but it's no big deal now.

In the software world, the kids in the game may benefit more from GitHub profiles with plenty of sexy code content to satisfy that "Rockstar Developer" job 😉

I've had jobs kind of through LinkedIn, but only in that someone I already know as friend or ex-colleague who has my email address / phone or could get it, has used LinkedIn to contact me as a convenience.

Only interviews I've had from people I don't know through it, have been from companies who haven't a clue what they want and thinking a single person can do the work of a large company for a few quid.

And yeah, LinkedIn has gone a bit too Facebook for my liking. Also, I'm still wondering how Microsoft are cashing in on it, although I've noticed if I put in my email address to various accounts (non-MS), they seem to pick up my LinkedIn profile picture!

digital hygiene

I`m stealing that.

digital hygiene

*john peel voice*

Two more from them before ten thirty, now one from the archive sessions...

*end john peel voice*

Lots of big companies now have 'talent acquisition' as an extension of HR as it's better and cheaper than using agencies. Tenner says they use linkedin.

Lots of big companies now have ‘talent acquisition’ as an extension of HR as it’s better and cheaper than using agencies. Tenner says they use linkedin.

Tenner says the 'talent acquisition' team is staff from an agency sitting at a desk in the company.

To get my new IT job (starting on Monday) I basically uploaded my CV to a single job site, and spent the next month trying to keep up with the calls and emails from recruiters. I didn't apply for a single job after Christmas, had 7 or 8 telephone interviews and 5 face to face interviews in the space of 6 weeks. I do have a Linkedin profile and had marked myself as looking for employment but barely anything came from that.

LinkedIn means nothing apart from the guy worked in the same organisation, and maybe not even that.

I've got a request pending from some senior engineer at Google that I have never met, he's linked to a colleague at the same company I am at, but he doesn't know who he is.

I've had a few connection requests from recent graduates that I've had nothing to do with, maybe they think that I'm in a fintech company with some blockchain stuff going on and want some association?

My sister validated some of my skillset, randomly as she doesn't know anything about my work.

Some people just try to make as many connections as they can.

Reminds me of a manager type that got caught out when she left her cv on the printer - she had just been in a meeting and heard some new tech buzzwords, and came out and put them on her cv and printed it out, but forgot to pick it up. ('She' is incidental as I've known male managers just as bad).

Found a number of jobs through LinkedIn. I also only use LinkedIn to search. Don't bother with any other 'Jobsite' or 'Reed' or anything

Interesting, thanks chaps. It's reassuring to know that the IT world doesn't revolve around LinkedIn. I'm quite keen on Indeed and CV-Library though.

As an occasional interviewer/sifter, if there’s a bunch of applicants for the same role, I will check CV against LinkedIn profile. It makes my job more difficult if there isn’t one and easier if there is and it doesn’t match the CV.
I’m not sure you wouldn’t have one.

Not having one might be viewed as "a bit weird" IMO

However you might get away with it as there's such high demand for developers.

You can, but I don't see why you wouldn't. I will check backstories on candidates just in case we have connections in common (I'm reasonably picky about who I connect with) or previous companies / technologies.

I understand the data privacy concerns but when you are putting yourself in the shop window, use everything that's at your disposal. Delete/hide after you've found somewhere if you're bothered or work in InfoSec... although I know a few people senior in InfoSec in various large organisations who are actually pretty active on it.

I get a lot of offers via LinkedIn - often speculative and ill judged but if I was looking for work I'd rather have my name out there widely and engage with the people putting even a modicum of effort in - they may think of you first when something applicable comes up.

just to add some context to the ciso/security person and LinkedIn profiles. I'm in the industry and know quite a few ciso's form retail, fintech, banking and technology. they all all rather rich profiles, as do I. Only people i know who run fake linkedin profiles are red teamers for active exploit exercises and security people who think it's edgy/cool or are trying to keep their career alive through fud.

Another thing, people without a LI profile may be seen as not being career-minded and perhaps less focused and professional.

This is probably accurate in some cases and less so in others, but the perception is there anyway.

"presence on LinkedIn is with a fake email address, photo and name. I use it for various hacking activities. Today linked in suggested I link to my son, my best man, a guy I work with and a guy I worked with 30 years ago."

So it's used the IP addresses, the usage patterns etc he works from to start retrofitting patterns hence why he's come up with a family member and a bloke in his office. and I bet it's guessed wrong a load of times too.

What purpleyeti said is right, there are lots of security professionals on there. LinkedIn is no better or worse than the rest of the web.

As for jobhunting, I'd use it, what have you got to lose?

You don't need a LinkedIn profile, but lots of agencies use it to find people. It's just an online CV, you don't have to expose personal information. What's your concern about using it?

Massive generalisation here, but in my experience IT people can tend to be a bit strident in their views and enjoy taking a contrary stance on products and services.