How Important Is LinkedIn Nowadays?

coffeeinstance on 30/12/2019 - 02:38

Hey All

I recently have been in the market for a new employer after nearly 3 years with my current one. Historically I have ever only applied using Seek and eventually have got responses, interviews and a job within a reasonable period. That is to say, employers were responding to me and that was not for anything incredibly senior. Now, the only difference is my seniority level has changed slightly (gone up), with my title now including the word manager. I have never had a LinkedIn profile (call me old fashioned but I feel it has made everything about a person very public).

When I recently applied for my desired roles over the last 3 months (sent about 20 applications using Seek), I have not got a single call back from any HR team. This is the first time this has happened. In fact all I have is what seems to be automatic rejection emails, and in most cases, not even that. These are not customer service, hospitality or casual roles. This is a senior level role with my experience being almost 12 years.

For those in the job market, or hiring managers, or in HR, what has changed over the last 3 years? Has it reached the stage where a proper cover letter written in perfect English along with a traditional resume sent through Seek is no longer suitable? Are companies hiring 100% through LinkedIn now? Why are they bothering to send jobs to Seek then?

I'm very much surprised and demoralised after my recent experience. On speaking with a couple of associates, they reckon that there has been a major shift to only hire through LinkedIn and are not looking at applications sent via other means. Potentially also, hirers are not even looking at applicants without LinkedIn.

I'd be happy to hear your experiences and suggestions.

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Comments

    • darkchoc on 30/12/2019 - 22:07
      +1

      PS own your skin colour and culture. The right employer will respect you for it. The right manager in the long term will promote you and everything you are about.

      I work in an industry where majority of CEOs, board and management are stale, pale and male. I will never be that, so I just do my best and just be the best version of myself.

      • Blitzfx on 31/12/2019 - 03:07

        Why not just pay a recruitment agency to do the sifting for you?

        • darkchoc on 31/12/2019 - 08:45

          Many reasons to not use an agency:

          1. We know exactly what we want and run a good hiring process.
          2. The cost vs benefit of a recruitment agency/consultant in our niche field provides poor value for little time saving on our end.
          3. Seek provides excellent value and good breadth of candidates even with nonsense applications.
          4. Online tool from seek lets us spend 1 minute per application on seek to reject/shortlist candidates - we ask for visa status, salary expectation, a tailored cover letter in the form we request, a CV that shows the qualification we need. This removes so many applicants to have a manageable set of applicants.
          5. If we accidently reject someone, which had been known to happen, it's because their CV and cover letter were not well communicated. This is also an important factor for us, so we stand by those rejections - just to keep numbers manageable.
          6. We believe in the philosophy that the candidate will grow into the role and so we just need to select the person that we believe will get along with the team best. All candidates at interview stage will be technically competent.
          • SydBoy on 31/12/2019 - 09:04

            @darkchoc: Agree majority recruitment company are nothing but car sales man or real estate consultant.

            99% recruiter doesn't have qualification to evaluate candidate capability and qualifications. I have seen many backpacker from UK and Ireland doing recruitment job straight out of school.

            So for technical or senior management jobs it is better that company does their own recruitment.

          • Blitzfx on 01/01/2020 - 12:40

            @darkchoc: That's an interesting perspective.
            Also, do you reject if salary expectation is too low? ie. they're likely to start looking elsewhere after a year or two?

            • darkchoc on 02/01/2020 - 00:21

              @Blitzfx: Yes, we will reject if salary expectation is far too low. It shows a lack of market awareness.

              • AbsX on 02/01/2020 - 08:28
                -1

                @darkchoc: Lol i know right.

                Like people putting down 40k for a senior engineer. Not even lying. Lmao cant even legally pay that amount

                • AbsX on 02/01/2020 - 19:31

                  @AbsX: The people negging me are probably the ones providing unrealistic salary expectations hahahahaaha

  • Nebargains on 31/12/2019 - 05:36

    Personally I think LinkedIn is a waste of time, it probably won't hurt but I don't think not having a profile will hurt either.

    Of all my friends and colleagues, only 1 person has found a job via LinkedIn (7-8 years ago) and that person had very specific skills that were in high demand world wide.

    At least one other person was contacted for a chat about a job but nothing ever eventuated.

    I maintain very little social media presence and do not have a LinkedIn profile and it has never been a concern when job hunting.

  • porsche26c on 31/12/2019 - 05:46
    +2

    Thankfully I don't work in the corporate world, but i believe it's very true what you have stated based on my wife's recent experience.
    She has more xp in her field than probably 10 employees put together and never got a call back (never really did anything with LinkedIn). Only got her new job through word of mouth referral (has a long contact list). She sent them her resume via the normal channels and would of never got a call back. The call meant hr was expecting her resume directly and boom job in 2 seconds.
    Also I truly believe HR is very lazy too, not actually ready resumes properly etc.

  • PurchaseAnxiety on 31/12/2019 - 11:32

    From my experience, I think LinkedIn is not a necessity but it can be a useful tool. I don't use the platform much, but I do like the idea of having connections to professionals that I've interacted with over the years. You never know when you will leave an impression on someone, and when they might need someone with your skill set (or vice versa). So having an easy way for them to look me up and contact me is something that I think will be beneficial in the long run.

    Anecdotally, I know 2 people that got job offers through the platform in the past couple of years, one of which got a $20k raise to do basically the same job, and he didn't even have to apply; the employer came to him. I've also received contact from former colleagues asking if I'd be interested in certain roles.

    So I guess it's useful for keeping your name in the hat, but not necessarily getting it in the hat to begin with.

  • Donaldhump on 31/12/2019 - 11:44
    +1

    99 percent of LinkedIn is ego stroking self glorifying bull shit, I find it painful to read. Some people make up job titles, and describe themselves as gurus in their field, when they are utter shite.

    Some twats even put their kids uni graduation in there and how proud they are. Wtf does this have to do with a job.

    I interview people regardless but test them with a test in a room for an hour, ive had some refuse, and some clearly have just lied for an hour prior.

    • Ragnarok1983 on 01/01/2020 - 18:48

      Everyone on linkedin is a 'leader' of some sort, all made up titles that does not correlate with their ability.

      One of the young 'engineer' i deal at work with constantly posts on linkedin on his status as 'chair of XYZ committee, young engineer australia VIC chapter etc'. But in terms of actual knowledge and grunt work, he has very little experience and rather boast than actually learning.

    • AbsX on 02/01/2020 - 08:31

      Thats because linked in is another form of social media. Its not just used for hiring people

  • JetLi on 31/12/2019 - 14:19

    Surely people only use LinkedIn to check out what the person/applicant looks like. As for their spiel and so called 'connections', would take it with a grain of salt.

  • neonlight on 31/12/2019 - 15:53

    Very important. These days you need an up to date profile. This is coming from a person who changed three jobs this year all via LinkedIn

    I did not score any jobs via Seek as most of them are not real jobs. It is for recruiters to farm CVs. I did get interviews but not all of them are from Seek. 90% of my applications on LinkedIn are real jobs. Seek not really

    • AbsX on 02/01/2020 - 08:33

      If you changed 3 jobs in a year… that's also a bit of a red flag.

      Unless its a string of temp or consulting roles

      • neonlight on 02/01/2020 - 08:38

        You have no idea about company restructure and redundancies then.

        All my roles are permanent

        • AbsX on 02/01/2020 - 08:42
          +1

          You know me pretty well then from 2 sentences I wrote :)

          I know a bit of both; being through a redundancy myself as well as being involved in company strategy.

          Good luck with your new role.

          • neonlight on 02/01/2020 - 12:58

            @AbsX: Thanks mate. Things are not controllable….its not like I want to change jobs 3 times a year…..unfortunately LinkedIn does help a lot in this regard

            • AbsX on 02/01/2020 - 19:29

              @neonlight: Yeah i just think you were very unlucky last year. But good news is you can quickly pick up a new job

    • cheng2008 on 02/01/2020 - 22:59

      Interesting, what is the point of farming CVs? Are they paid per resume they submit to the companies they work with and they want to squeeze more money out of them?

  • [Deactivated] on 31/12/2019 - 16:11

    I think LinkedIn's important, basically because more people are willing to lie on a CV. However, most won't lie on their LinkedIn profile as there's too many ways to get caught out weather it's the year you finished your degree, to co-workers from previous companies.

    I got a mate with a diploma in project management(little experience) who scored a 120k through Seek, the company found him. 100% he's lying and BS on his CV! He doesn't have LinkedIn.

    Just my view, I would think it would help to confirm everything on your CV is true.

    • neonlight on 03/01/2020 - 19:57

      Yup I see many people lying their way to interviews. Once you asked them about stuff they got no idea

  • brawndo on 31/12/2019 - 16:30
    -6

    You're likely getting rejected because either your CV sucks, or your skills and experience just don't match the roles you're applying for.

    Further, are you an actual manager or is that just a corporate title?

    You shouldn't be mentioning the word manager on your CV unless you're applying for managerial roles and you're an actual manager.

    In conclusion, nothing to do with LinkedIn, you just don't know how to apply for jobs.

    • coffeeinstance on 31/12/2019 - 22:05

      Thanks mate for confirming I have no idea after nearly 15 years in the workforce across 5 reputable organisations.

      • brawndo on 31/12/2019 - 22:51
        -1

        If it was you that negged me then you can't handle negative feedback (or rejection) and have the completely wrong attitude. i.e you really don't know how to apply for jobs.

        To attribute your failure in finding a job to not having a LinkedIn profile is, quite frankly, laughable.

        • AbsX on 02/01/2020 - 08:36
          -1

          I think the negs are more because your reply feels condensending rather than genuine negative feedback (thats constructive)

          Im sure you would be a blast of a boss to work for

  • lunartemis on 31/12/2019 - 22:08

    Potential employers actually look you up. I have been approached by several employers to see if I was interested in applying for positions. My profile was also viewed after I applied for jobs.

  • bomb3rman on 01/01/2020 - 01:15

    LinkedIn has been helpful in my personal opinion. In this year alone, I've had more than 10 positions offered via direct message from different recruiters, which would not have happened in Seek. To me, LinkedIn is a networking tool that puts your name to the recruiters' network of potential candidates, while Seek is more specifically a job posting site.

    • Donaldhump on 01/01/2020 - 20:02
      +1

      Offered the position? Or the recruiter telling you a position is available?
      If the former, you must be Pretty good if a recruiter offers you a position on the companies behalf without the need for even an interview.

  • [Deactivated] on 01/01/2020 - 05:27

    It's important, but not miracle tool. You still need your actual connection and good references.

    If you ask then you will never know, if you know you only need ask.

    • Numlock on 09/01/2020 - 13:56

      Alright Helena Ravenclaw

  • DiscoJango on 01/01/2020 - 15:48
    +1

    I personally think linkedin will be replaced by something else in the next few years. it used to be good, but now is no different to instagram where people just post motivational quotes and videos of poor kids in africa.

  • Ragnarok1983 on 01/01/2020 - 18:44
    +3

    Linkedin is just corporate wankfest, full of motivational quotes and clickbait. Headhunters use to fish for potential leads.

    Think of it as just another avenue to promote yourself

  • Gauntlet on 01/01/2020 - 20:55

    What annoys me about a lot of people on LinkedIn is that they fail to see that it is a social media site.
    I'm sure opportunities are missed for people like me that do not participate in any form of social media (except for forums, clearly.)
    I imagine a breach on LinkedIn would be far worse than Facebook also.
    Personally I'd prefer to stay 100% anonymous on the internet, I wish there wasn't so much pressure to join these kind of sites.
    Made me laugh when my old man told me to join LinkedIn for professional reasons after his years of avoiding putting any personal info on the internet.

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