LinkedIn: just another resume site
Leaks of databases with passwords and personal information of users have already become a kind of background to the life of the Internet. And the background is extremely unpleasant. Naturally, any company tries to hide the facts of its security perimeter violation and data theft. In the extreme case, if information has leaked out - and this is most often the case - the injured party tries to diminish the scale of the incident in an attempt to reduce at least reputational damage.
But, as they say, all secret someday becomes apparent. It turned out that representatives of the LinkedIn social network, which helps people to expand their business connections, were somewhat deceitful when in 2012 they reported about the theft of 6.5 million passwords of their users - 117 million were stolen . That is, 27% of the entire current LinkedIn database. Now stolen data has surfaced on the black market . Given that this network is not just for communication, but for finding and establishing business contacts, then the users' expectations regarding the quality of service services are still higher. In light of this, the question arises: how attractive is LinkedIn in terms of establishing business connections today?
The general phrase “establishing business contacts” means “active search for potentially useful people” - employees, partners and employers. That is, users must regularly visit the resource. However, most view their profile on LinkedIn only as another version of the summary: they register, fill in the profile, and then rarely remember about the service . This is partly a result of the fact that despite LinkedIn’s positioning as a social network for establishing business contacts, in fact it is perceived as another recruiting resource. And users behave accordingly.
Due to the fact that the service is trying to please several categories of users - employers, job seekers and recruiters - the interface is rather inconvenient and confusing. An eloquent fact: 78 out of 87 in the Global Brand Simplicity Index 2015 , based on a survey of 12,000 people from 8 countries. On the network, you can often find users complaining about the difficulty of working with the LinkedIn interface. In fairness it should be said that the developers are aware of this and are working to simplify their service.
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Many successful foreign services - social networks, music and video aggregators, file storages, etc. - there are Russian analogues of different degrees of success and success. But LinkedIn did not affect the involuntary import substitution, and this is one of the main advantages of the service in runet. However, in absolute terms, the Russian-speaking audience of LinkedIn is not great: in June 2015 there were about 3 million people .
It’s hard to find something related to the network that is more annoying than spam. Alas, very many companies have resorted to this method of promotion / sale / advertising. LinkedIn does not disdain this either : probably, many of you received letters in which someone from the users invited you to join this service . In other words, the company uses not very clean methods of increasing the audience. By the way, some HR companies also send spam using the LinkedIn mailing service.
A couple of years after the epochal leakage of accounts in 2012, information was announced that, due to the weaknesses in the implementation of SSL encryption, user data could be intercepted using the man-in-the-middle attack. Curiously, the problem was discovered in 2013, as LinkedIn reported on several occasions , with the most often this information being ignored by the service.
In the same 2014, LinkedIn tried to judicially prevent the spread of third-party plug-in for Chrome, which allowed anyone to collect email addresses of LinkedIn users . Another example of negligence is the collection and transmission of data about users in an unencrypted form by an iOS client . In general, it is difficult to say what other serious security holes could be used by attackers and were quietly closed by LinkedIn developers. Or not closed until now.
By default, a LinkedIn account is free. But if you want to actively look for work / employees / partners, then you will have to fork out for one of the four types of paid accounts. Depending on the cost, you get access to a different set of tools , some of which are useless, and some can help you search for the right people much more efficiently, including by expanding the potential number of contacts.
If you are looking for a job, then you will be offered a Job Seeker account. For $ 29.99 per month, you will get access to this functionality:
For a subscription fee of $ 47.99 ("Business Plus"), you will be able to:
Next comes the account for $ 64.99 (Sales Navigator Professional):
Finally, an account for those looking for employees ($ 99.95, Recruiter Lite):
With a free account, your possibilities will be quite severely limited, which also contributes to the fact that LinkedIn is perceived by many not as a specialized social network, but as an HR resource for placing a resume and a “classic” recruitment. By the way, if you search for work through LinkedIn, then there may be situations where you will be forced to switch to a paid account in order to overcome bureaucratic barriers during interviews. Because without paid unlock some features you simply will not have the opportunity to communicate with the right employees of any company.
The thesis about the incompatibility of LinkedIn positioning with the current model of its use - and perception - is confirmed by some facts. By the end of 2013, the audience numbered 225 million people , by that time the network existed for 10 years. Three years later, the audience almost doubled, to 433 million. Less than a year ago, the Russian-speaking audience was estimated at about 3 million, now more than 5 million. At the same time, the number of unique visitors is estimated at 106 million people a month .
Such a rapid growth of the audience of the service, perceived as a platform for job search , says that today a very large part of users are those who are in connection with the economic crisis or have lost their jobs, or are at risk of becoming unemployed soon, or are looking for something more reliable. Three years ago, LinkedIn enjoyed an unprecedented increase in popularity as a job search site . By the way, if Google searches on LinkedIn using the key phrase “ present time ” (when a person has stated in the summary that he is working “to the present” somewhere), then we will get 390,000 results (out of 5 million). Of course, this is not accurate data, and you can try to use other keywords.
In this regard, the attractiveness of LinkedIn as a platform for establishing business relationships falls even more. The overwhelming majority of users are applicants, which only attracts the attention of various HR agencies that actively send spam through the internal messaging system.
It is clear that the number of employers and those who are looking for business partners on LinkedIn is negligible compared to the mass of ordinary applicants, not all of whom can be described as “professionals”. Since LinkedIn is not too satisfied with the concept of “social network”, then let's accept the obvious and evaluate it as another job site. However, from this point of view, the attractiveness of the resource is not too large: the majority of employers are retailer companies that recruit sellers and merchandisers, and the banking sector, which is notorious for high staff turnover . Naturally, the target audience of all these organizations for the most part is not highly qualified specialists.
As many recruiters point out , LinkedIn has a lot of profiles, information in which is irrelevant or unreliable . There are several reasons for this. First, many users cannot resist the temptation to embellish their track record and professional experience. Maybe a ride, the main thing is to interest the employers, and I'll break through at the interview. Secondly, many users simply do not bother to update their accounts. The man is lazy and forgetful what to do. Thirdly, LinkedIn’s image of a serious network for professionals attracts many intruders who create fake accounts to carry out attacks and fraud. Therefore, in the case of an active search for specialists on LinkedIn, get ready for the fact that the data from the profiles will need to be rechecked. Or maybe you just do not pay attention to the profile of a really skilled person who was just too lazy to describe himself more fully.
If you think that spam is LinkedIn’s only untidiness in choosing business methods, then how can you request a password from an email during a new user’s registration?
At the same time, they politely explain to you that we will take contacts of people with whom you correspond with andsend them spam on your behalf and upload them to your profile. Just exceptional concern for the convenience of users. Fortunately, this dubious offer can be ignored. But many users do not realize this and honestly pass the service passwords from their mailboxes, throwing coal into the firebox of spam mailings.
The topic of cooperation between large corporations and law enforcement agencies of the United States has long been transferred from the category of conspiracy theories to a confirmed fact. Although the general public usually learns about cases where companies are trying to resist the demands of security officials to provide information about users. And cooperation is silenced by all parties. However, the sewed bag is not concealed: since 2014, LinkedIn is suspected of transmitting user data to the FBI. On the one hand, Russians are not worried about it and should not. On the other hand, there is every reason to believe that LinkedIn can cooperate with the special services of other countries.
In connection with all the above, the picture emerges sad. Today, LinkedIn is not a “social network of professionals”, but a platform for placing a resume. At the same time, a considerable share of users is of no interest from the point of view of establishing business relations that are different from the “employer - employee” scheme.
The situation is aggravated by a significant amount of inaccurate / irrelevant information in user profiles, problems with data security, far from the most convenient interface, regular spam mailings and limited functionality of a free account. LinkedIn’s main advantage in the Russian market is the absence of a domestic competitor, a “real” social network for professionals. Although the same can be said of many other countries. And although the service doesn’t match the strongly created image, repositioning is hardly possible: many tens of millions of people in the depths of their hearts are flattered by belonging to the “community of professionals”. So it can be assumed that users will gradually become more and more disappointed, not getting the expected result from using LinkedIn.
But, as they say, all secret someday becomes apparent. It turned out that representatives of the LinkedIn social network, which helps people to expand their business connections, were somewhat deceitful when in 2012 they reported about the theft of 6.5 million passwords of their users - 117 million were stolen . That is, 27% of the entire current LinkedIn database. Now stolen data has surfaced on the black market . Given that this network is not just for communication, but for finding and establishing business contacts, then the users' expectations regarding the quality of service services are still higher. In light of this, the question arises: how attractive is LinkedIn in terms of establishing business connections today?
Attendance after registration
The general phrase “establishing business contacts” means “active search for potentially useful people” - employees, partners and employers. That is, users must regularly visit the resource. However, most view their profile on LinkedIn only as another version of the summary: they register, fill in the profile, and then rarely remember about the service . This is partly a result of the fact that despite LinkedIn’s positioning as a social network for establishing business contacts, in fact it is perceived as another recruiting resource. And users behave accordingly.
The inconvenience and confusion of the interface
Due to the fact that the service is trying to please several categories of users - employers, job seekers and recruiters - the interface is rather inconvenient and confusing. An eloquent fact: 78 out of 87 in the Global Brand Simplicity Index 2015 , based on a survey of 12,000 people from 8 countries. On the network, you can often find users complaining about the difficulty of working with the LinkedIn interface. In fairness it should be said that the developers are aware of this and are working to simplify their service.
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Lack of domestic counterparts
Many successful foreign services - social networks, music and video aggregators, file storages, etc. - there are Russian analogues of different degrees of success and success. But LinkedIn did not affect the involuntary import substitution, and this is one of the main advantages of the service in runet. However, in absolute terms, the Russian-speaking audience of LinkedIn is not great: in June 2015 there were about 3 million people .
LinkedIn spam service
It’s hard to find something related to the network that is more annoying than spam. Alas, very many companies have resorted to this method of promotion / sale / advertising. LinkedIn does not disdain this either : probably, many of you received letters in which someone from the users invited you to join this service . In other words, the company uses not very clean methods of increasing the audience. By the way, some HR companies also send spam using the LinkedIn mailing service.
Safety problems
A couple of years after the epochal leakage of accounts in 2012, information was announced that, due to the weaknesses in the implementation of SSL encryption, user data could be intercepted using the man-in-the-middle attack. Curiously, the problem was discovered in 2013, as LinkedIn reported on several occasions , with the most often this information being ignored by the service.
In the same 2014, LinkedIn tried to judicially prevent the spread of third-party plug-in for Chrome, which allowed anyone to collect email addresses of LinkedIn users . Another example of negligence is the collection and transmission of data about users in an unencrypted form by an iOS client . In general, it is difficult to say what other serious security holes could be used by attackers and were quietly closed by LinkedIn developers. Or not closed until now.
You have to pay for everything
By default, a LinkedIn account is free. But if you want to actively look for work / employees / partners, then you will have to fork out for one of the four types of paid accounts. Depending on the cost, you get access to a different set of tools , some of which are useless, and some can help you search for the right people much more efficiently, including by expanding the potential number of contacts.
If you are looking for a job, then you will be offered a Job Seeker account. For $ 29.99 per month, you will get access to this functionality:
For a subscription fee of $ 47.99 ("Business Plus"), you will be able to:
Next comes the account for $ 64.99 (Sales Navigator Professional):
Finally, an account for those looking for employees ($ 99.95, Recruiter Lite):
With a free account, your possibilities will be quite severely limited, which also contributes to the fact that LinkedIn is perceived by many not as a specialized social network, but as an HR resource for placing a resume and a “classic” recruitment. By the way, if you search for work through LinkedIn, then there may be situations where you will be forced to switch to a paid account in order to overcome bureaucratic barriers during interviews. Because without paid unlock some features you simply will not have the opportunity to communicate with the right employees of any company.
Another playground
The thesis about the incompatibility of LinkedIn positioning with the current model of its use - and perception - is confirmed by some facts. By the end of 2013, the audience numbered 225 million people , by that time the network existed for 10 years. Three years later, the audience almost doubled, to 433 million. Less than a year ago, the Russian-speaking audience was estimated at about 3 million, now more than 5 million. At the same time, the number of unique visitors is estimated at 106 million people a month .
Such a rapid growth of the audience of the service, perceived as a platform for job search , says that today a very large part of users are those who are in connection with the economic crisis or have lost their jobs, or are at risk of becoming unemployed soon, or are looking for something more reliable. Three years ago, LinkedIn enjoyed an unprecedented increase in popularity as a job search site . By the way, if Google searches on LinkedIn using the key phrase “ present time ” (when a person has stated in the summary that he is working “to the present” somewhere), then we will get 390,000 results (out of 5 million). Of course, this is not accurate data, and you can try to use other keywords.
In this regard, the attractiveness of LinkedIn as a platform for establishing business relationships falls even more. The overwhelming majority of users are applicants, which only attracts the attention of various HR agencies that actively send spam through the internal messaging system.
It is clear that the number of employers and those who are looking for business partners on LinkedIn is negligible compared to the mass of ordinary applicants, not all of whom can be described as “professionals”. Since LinkedIn is not too satisfied with the concept of “social network”, then let's accept the obvious and evaluate it as another job site. However, from this point of view, the attractiveness of the resource is not too large: the majority of employers are retailer companies that recruit sellers and merchandisers, and the banking sector, which is notorious for high staff turnover . Naturally, the target audience of all these organizations for the most part is not highly qualified specialists.
Relevance and credibility
As many recruiters point out , LinkedIn has a lot of profiles, information in which is irrelevant or unreliable . There are several reasons for this. First, many users cannot resist the temptation to embellish their track record and professional experience. Maybe a ride, the main thing is to interest the employers, and I'll break through at the interview. Secondly, many users simply do not bother to update their accounts. The man is lazy and forgetful what to do. Thirdly, LinkedIn’s image of a serious network for professionals attracts many intruders who create fake accounts to carry out attacks and fraud. Therefore, in the case of an active search for specialists on LinkedIn, get ready for the fact that the data from the profiles will need to be rechecked. Or maybe you just do not pay attention to the profile of a really skilled person who was just too lazy to describe himself more fully.
And the keys to the house where the money is
If you think that spam is LinkedIn’s only untidiness in choosing business methods, then how can you request a password from an email during a new user’s registration?
At the same time, they politely explain to you that we will take contacts of people with whom you correspond with and
Big Brother can follow you
The topic of cooperation between large corporations and law enforcement agencies of the United States has long been transferred from the category of conspiracy theories to a confirmed fact. Although the general public usually learns about cases where companies are trying to resist the demands of security officials to provide information about users. And cooperation is silenced by all parties. However, the sewed bag is not concealed: since 2014, LinkedIn is suspected of transmitting user data to the FBI. On the one hand, Russians are not worried about it and should not. On the other hand, there is every reason to believe that LinkedIn can cooperate with the special services of other countries.
Conclusion
In connection with all the above, the picture emerges sad. Today, LinkedIn is not a “social network of professionals”, but a platform for placing a resume. At the same time, a considerable share of users is of no interest from the point of view of establishing business relations that are different from the “employer - employee” scheme.
The situation is aggravated by a significant amount of inaccurate / irrelevant information in user profiles, problems with data security, far from the most convenient interface, regular spam mailings and limited functionality of a free account. LinkedIn’s main advantage in the Russian market is the absence of a domestic competitor, a “real” social network for professionals. Although the same can be said of many other countries. And although the service doesn’t match the strongly created image, repositioning is hardly possible: many tens of millions of people in the depths of their hearts are flattered by belonging to the “community of professionals”. So it can be assumed that users will gradually become more and more disappointed, not getting the expected result from using LinkedIn.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/301312/
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