LinkedIn

After two working days on LinkedIn, I’ve had 7 profile views, one connection request from a recruiter, one phone call from another recruiter and one other recruiter contact me with a job spec (not really interested, the company is in London though the job is supposedly remote). So overall I’m feeling content about this. There seems to be enough around that something should pop up at some point without me needing to concentrate much effort into it.

LinkedIn is a weird place. It’s trying to get me to connect with people it thinks I know. The strangest one is someone who I very briefly met about 8 years ago. He was also hired when I started my previous job, but he only lasted about 6 weeks. He was a student in London at the time and working part time and remotely, so, unsurprisingly, he hasn’t listed it on his profile. But how did LinkedIn match us? Very odd. All I can think is that he used to have it on his profile and LinkedIn has maintained the link to our ex employer even after he removed it? I don’t know. LinkedIn is a bit sinister really.

I don’t really like that it’s trying to match me with people from my previous employer. I don’t want to feel ‘connected’ to that place in any way. I think LinkedIn is a mental health black hole if you’re not careful. I’ve set up some job alerts by email and I’ll try to limit my interaction with the website until it emails me with something relevant.

The recruiter I spoke to asked me what I was earning now and then said “did you take a pay cut at your current job?”. Which made me think. I didn’t, it was actually a decent jump, but when they offered it to me they had already asked how much I was earning, and I do think they took advantage of the fact I was massively underpaid to start with. I knew that at the time and overlooked it because it got me away from my previous job and it was still an upgrade, so I’m not resentful of it, but that doesn’t mean it’s a situation I should continue indefinitely.