Pros and cons of LinkedIn

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What would you say are the pros and cons of LinkedIn?

I know of a few people who have been headhunted on it, and to be honest I'm hoping to be that lucky lol!

I am in the process of looking for another job, but yet to find the right one. There's only one of me in my current employer (public sector with 3000+ employees, and I know all public sector organisations need a 'me', so quite niche!

I was thinking of getting a LinkedIn, but I don't like the idea of people seeing my full employment history, inc an ex from many years ago who has conveniently turned up at my precious place of work years ago. I'm keen to avoid that. I'm generally a private person and my social media accounts and locked down etc.

So please tell me what the pros and cons are :)

Linkedin is a very handy tool to have - even if you’re not looking for a new job - it’s good to connect with people in your industry or company etc.
You can gain a lot of useful information from it and the more active you are on it, then there is more chance of you being noticed by a headhunter.
Downsides is that, as you say, profile is public and anyone (including those not on linkedin will be able to see your work history etc) - You can change the settings though so that only your first name and the first letter of your surname is on your account until you accept a connection request. The only other downside to it is that you often get sent spam or messages that have no relevance to you. I have known some guys to use it as an extension to Tinder……
LI is what you make it really. It’s a good tool to have.

I like it as you can post / read / interact with work related chat whilst keeping it totally separate from any social media.

The job search / alert function is excellent

I regularly receive messages from head hunters. Not had the perfect thing come up though so I always reply politely and thank them for being in touch, then refer them to other people who come to mind

Tools and tutorials on improving your CV, interview techniques, profile etc are excellent

I like being nosy and seeing what former colleagues are doing, many of whom I’d otherwise have lost touch with

You can block the ex. I use LinkedIn a lot. I'm contacted for jobs fairly regularly. It's a networking site. So network properly on it. If you're passive it's a bit pointless.

I also regularly apply for jobs that interest me. At a minimum good interview practice. Also did a lot of LinkedIn learning that started my retraining and new career.

You can block people on LinkedIn.

You don't need to provide full employment history either. It's not your CV - more of an introduction to you.

LI is a useful tool but not the only one in town so you will still need to keep scouring other websites and checking recruiters out, especially if you are fairly niche.

I too, am fairly niche, and haven't always got the whole algorithm thing sussed. Like today they claimed I was a perfect match for jobs in transport, finance, engineering and sports. None of which I am remotely experienced for.

You can set your privacy levels to be only visible to recruiters or connections. And my advice would be to do that. There are a lot of oddballs on there and one colleague had her CV lifted and used fraudulently to apply for the job she was vacating. Luckily HR clocked it and asked her about it, but like all things online personal safety is paramount.

Probably shooting myself in the foot, but I refuse to use LinkedIn because they are such terrible spammers. I get, or used to get, endless unsolicited emails from random people who wanted to "add me to their network". I'm sure they were actually generated automatically.

Everyone in my industry is on LinkedIn and it's completely normal to use it for job searching, as well as for networking and simply for looking people up before a meeting. You can control your privacy settings, block people, and choose exactly what info you share and what you don't. I find it really useful.

It is good for connecting / networking, but not really useful for job searches. Naturally the job search depends on your field, I'm in chemical / process engineering, and the jobs have always been out of date or old, or do not lead to anything further. But it is good for doing a bit of background on companies and their activities. I find a lot of people use it as a platform to project their ideas or agendas.

I’m a private person but use LinkedIn. As PP state, you can adjust your privacy settings, so your photo is only visible to connections, and only accept connections from those that are relevant to you. No need for your whole employment history, just describe your current role, responsibilities and skills. As well as subjects you are interested in professionally and would like to do more of - sustainability, social value, legal work, people management, etc. Use key words from job specs and you’ll be more likely to be picked up by recruiters.
Ignore / block spam and don’t connect with family & friends & neighbours unless you work in the same field!

I've been hired via LinkedIn before.

It depends on your line of work, but in mine, it would be a disadvantage to not have a LinkedIn account and actually use it effectively.

You can be selective with what you put on LinkedIn (it doesn't have to be a full CV) and you can restrict your settings so people who aren't connected to you can only see, for example, your first name and the initial of your surname.

I work in the public sector in a ‘market scarce’ profession (a technical role in digital). I get 2-3 emails from headhunters per week on average.

Through LinkedIn I mean

It’s a great concept ( and to be fair has been useful in the past ) but now full of twats telling highly improbable anecdotes to try to show their human side - I preferred their corporate wage slave persona in the majority of cases. Also “ so grateful to be invited to take part in this panel”. Er, no one else wanted to do it.

Is there an “idiots guide” to using LI? I’ve never used it and been at same employer for 20yrs, starting to look around for a new challenge but wary of how “public” it is.

Good points - useful for networking and connecting with colleagues old and new, also great for job searches

Bad points - you'll cringe yourself inside out with some of the self aggrandising and irrelevant rubbish some people post on there! There's actually a subreddit on Reddit called LinkedIn cringe which will give you an idea!

Hey. I tried hiding my employment history - so it's only visible to my connections. But, I noticed that that info is still public. Is it possible to hide my employment history? Thank you.

The only way I've found is to switch off my public profile visibility. This means people outside of LinkedIn cannot access my profile

That last comment made me lol! Also they often paid to speak on the panel, they weren't asked to be there.