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I'm a recent Masters in CompSci graduate, and I'm looking for a job. This would have probably been easier if COVID hadn't hit right as I graduated. Anyway, just yesterday, two friends recommended I should sign up for LinkedIn. I have some questions and/or concerns, though: • Is LinkedIn going to be useful in getting me a job? • If I do make a LinkedIn account, how do I use it once I have it? • How do I reconcile privacy with having a social network account in my real name?
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Sep 4, 2020 21:45
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Theres a LinkedIn thread here somewhere, though it may have gotten archived. If you want to increase your chance of success of finding a CS job: Yes it is absolutely worth it. I got my first job out of college (8ish years ago) via a recruiter reaching out on LinkedIn and have also ran job reqs for engineers on LinkedIn. I spent a shitload of time tailoring my resume, LinkedIn and public Facebook posts to present a certain image and it paid off with a prestigious, high-paying job. You should have a GitHub with project examples of code you wrote. Put readmes, make the code commented, etc. You should decide what "privacy" is worth to you and what it means to you. Is it worth increasing the the money you'd make by possibly getting a job sooner? I suggest hitting up the resume thread and posting a resume. I'm assuming you graduated in May. This sort of question and that you're a MS in CS who didnt get an offer before graduation implies you don't have a great mental framework for job hunting. Luckily there's multiple people in the reume/interviewing thread who hire CS grads and offer advice. CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Sep 5, 2020 |
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Sep 5, 2020 16:41
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CarForumPoster posted:I suggest hitting up the resume thread and posting a resume. I'm assuming you graduated in May. This sort of question and that you're a MS in CS who didnt get an offer before graduation implies you don't have a great mental framework for job hunting. Luckily there's multiple people in the reume/interviewing thread who hire CS grads and offer advice. It's more that I was busy finishing my thesis until the final day, which took all my time. And I'm in Canada, which complicates matters slightly.
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Sep 5, 2020 21:40
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linkedin becomes more and more bizarre to me as time goes on. i'll still log in and browse it every few months or so but i dont understand why so many people i know are posting articles that are clearly bogus, uninspired and cookie cutter with absolutely garbage levels of engagement on there completely nonstop. who is requesting these, who is supposed to be reading them, who has designed an entire industry around content creation that nobody wants nor actually reads or bothers with
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Sep 5, 2020 22:45
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tbp posted:linkedin becomes more and more bizarre to me as time goes on. i'll still log in and browse it every few months or so but i dont understand why so many people i know are posting articles that are clearly bogus, uninspired and cookie cutter with absolutely garbage levels of engagement on there completely nonstop. who is requesting these, who is supposed to be reading them, who has designed an entire industry around content creation that nobody wants nor actually reads or bothers with I think the mistake is using it for anything other than having an updated professional profile / resume, and checking jobs relevant to your work / talking to people you already know through work connections. The broad social aspect of it is hot garbage.
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Sep 6, 2020 05:31
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tbp posted:linkedin becomes more and more bizarre to me as time goes on. i'll still log in and browse it every few months or so but i dont understand why so many people i know are posting articles that are clearly bogus, uninspired and cookie cutter with absolutely garbage levels of engagement on there completely nonstop. who is requesting these, who is supposed to be reading them, who has designed an entire industry around content creation that nobody wants nor actually reads or bothers with If you're a hiring manager and you have a hundred applicants in front of you, and exactly one of those applicants has a linkedin profile with a "professional-looking" picture and some articles directly related to their area of presumed expertise, that one person is going to stand out in your mind. If those articles are at least passably readable, I'd guess most buisness people would put that candidate on their personal short list for hiring. It's about scoring those mental points with people who make hiring decisions, because those people often drink the kool-aid and aren't jaded cynics like we are. Because if you write articles, you're "passionate" (ugh). That's my read on the situation anyway.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:56
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Sundae posted:I think the mistake is using it for anything other than having an updated professional profile / resume, and checking jobs relevant to your work / talking to people you already know through work connections. The broad social aspect of it is hot garbage. Che Delilas posted:If you're a hiring manager and you have a hundred applicants in front of you, and exactly one of those applicants has a linkedin profile with a "professional-looking" picture and some articles directly related to their area of presumed expertise, that one person is going to stand out in your mind. If those articles are at least passably readable, I'd guess most buisness people would put that candidate on their personal short list for hiring. Oof. So if you don't already have connections, then signing up on LinkedIn just means you'll have a LI acct with no particular relevance, as opposed to expecting that recruiters actively trawl the place to find people. And this stuff about 'articles' sounds awfully dubious. I have a distinctly dim view of the concept of 'showing gumption' or similar...
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Sep 7, 2020 01:02
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Quackles posted:Oof. So if you don't already have connections, then signing up on LinkedIn just means you'll have a LI acct with no particular relevance, as opposed to expecting that recruiters actively trawl the place to find people. One of the things i did to make LinkedIn successful was add multiple recruiters at basically every company. I have something like 1100 LinkedIn connections and give exactly 0 fucks about LinkedIn other than for job hunting. You can add randoms, especially recruiters. Back in the day, and maybe still today, you’d rank much higher if you were a 2nd connection of someone and I’m probably a 2nd connection to a healthy % of hiring managers in my home state and the Bay Area.
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Sep 7, 2020 01:39
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Quackles posted:Oof. So if you don't already have connections, then signing up on LinkedIn just means you'll have a LI acct with no particular relevance, as opposed to expecting that recruiters actively trawl the place to find people. Recruiters do trawl the place, depending on your field. But, they don't look for you in the social part of the site; they're just using their recruiter tools hunting for people whose profiles / resumes match terms they're looking for. Pretty much anything other than turning your profile page into a fancypants resume and connecting with other people you already know so that you can keep in touch professionally is a waste of time.
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Sep 7, 2020 02:13
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Sundae posted:Recruiters do trawl the place, depending on your field. But, they don't look for you in the social part of the site; they're just using their recruiter tools hunting for people whose profiles / resumes match terms they're looking for. Pretty much anything other than turning your profile page into a fancypants resume and connecting with other people you already know so that you can keep in touch professionally is a waste of time. Yeah what I've heard is that updating your linkedin profile triggers alerts or shuffles you up the list of people recruiters see. The only mileage I've ever gotten out of linkedin is that someone who worked at the company I was at before I did contacted me through to refer me to my current job. He probably could have found me in other ways but if this made it easier for him it was worth all the other bullshit. Aside from that it's been the deepest of the bottom feeder recruiters pushing job postings at me, the same way they do when you post your resume on indeed or one of the other aggregators. Easy enough to ignore the nonsense, and having tenuous connections is still better than none at all. Standard disclaimers apply, anecdote != data. If you seriously engage with the platform it may actually do a lot for you; clearly some people believe that's the case.
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Sep 7, 2020 02:29
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Yeah, anecdotes and what not. My anecdotal evidence is that I do get probably ~5 recruiters per month reaching out to me, plus the job mailers from LinkedIn seem reasonably targeted and are actually usually more relevant than the recruiters.  That could just be pharma, though, or a product of connections. No clue.
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Sep 7, 2020 03:10
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how do you get a masters and have no connections what on earth
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Sep 10, 2020 17:05
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:how do you get a masters and have no connections what on earth I'm not entirely sure what you mean, so I'll try a few different answers. • If you're saying "why didn't I have a LinkedIn account before now": I like my privacy. I also don't hold Google, Facebook or Twitter accounts under my own name for this reason. • If you're saying "why don't I have industry connections": The thesis was a theory-and-implementation thesis of a previously unimplemented algorithm. It isn't really associated with anyone in industry. Also, I'm in Canada and not in Vancouver or Toronto, so there's tech stuff, but less of it. • If you're saying "why don't I have academic connections": I do have a few. I probably could have made more. I found out that grad students tend to meet up and talk about their projects through a chance remark AFTER my Masters was over. Comparatively, I spent most of my time in my bedroom (not on campus), implementing and testing my algorithm on my computer. Bonus: • I was actually planning on attending the Career Fair the university would normally host about now. Then, COVID. Quackles fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Sep 10, 2020 |
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Sep 10, 2020 22:39
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:how do you get a masters and have no connections what on earth It’s very easy in engineering. Especially if school is about the learning/challenge instead of a task on the critical path to six figgies and a decent job.
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Sep 11, 2020 00:32
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Quackles posted:• Is LinkedIn going to be useful in getting me a job? I found my last two jobs directly or indirectly through linkedin. In one case I found out about a company I never would have heard of otherwise because a former classmate was working there. My current job I got after a recruiter reached out to me on linkedin. It took about a year before having the account was useful. I just copied my resume into my profile and started adding coworkers and former classmates. I think in general it becomes more useful over a longer period of time, as your network spreads out and changes jobs. As other posters have covered, there has never been a good or insightful post made on linkedin, that part of the site is worse than useless. Privacy was a big reason I put off making an account for so long. There's no getting around that there's a social media account linking my real name, resume, and photo, but in my case the benefits have greatly exceeded the downsides
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Sep 11, 2020 02:45
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Asleep Style posted:Privacy was a big reason I put off making an account for so long. There's no getting around that there's a social media account linking my real name, resume, and photo, but in my case the benefits have greatly exceeded the downsides Can I get away without a photo, do you think? Or with some sort of abstract image.
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Sep 11, 2020 07:32
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Quackles posted:Can I get away without a photo, do you think? Or with some sort of abstract image. Do a quality business photo, I.e. you in a suit with a plain background, or do no photo. If you’re super going looking just do no photo. Bias is real, even if it shouldn’t be in the hiring process by appearance. Don’t do an abstract image. Having photos of my projects and me presenting at a conference I believed helped mine. Remember that to get a job with one opening you need to be the best candidate they interviewed. For a junior dev req I have on indeed right now for 2 weeks I’ve had ~100 applicants, have done ~15 phone interviews, ~8 take home projects and will do final interviews with maybe 5 or 6. I say this to make this point: you need to think about anything that gets you a leg up to get phone interviewed so that you can start selling. To get that opportunity and have a BATNA come offer time your qualifications, resume, LinkedIn, github, etc. should all be in the top 10% CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 12:27 on Sep 11, 2020 |
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Sep 11, 2020 12:21
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Is the 'skill endorsements' thing worth it? (I tried out the CSS one for my own amusement. Whoever writes those quizzes goes into some fairly esoteric knowledge at times...)
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Sep 11, 2020 19:28
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Quackles posted:Is the 'skill endorsements' thing worth it? As far as I can tell, their only benefit is that they add another buzzword that shows up in searches. Think about it from the other side, as if you were trying to hire someone to work for you: would you trust that stuff to tell you anything about the candidate's actual skills? Seriously, just view it as an online resume system / "profile resume" and a way to talk to your connections when you have job openings or when you're looking for something new. All the rest is filler.
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Sep 11, 2020 22:13
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CarForumPoster posted:It’s very easy in engineering. Especially if school is about the learning/challenge instead of a task on the critical path to six figgies and a decent job. i mean you gotta work with SOMEONE at some point right?
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Sep 12, 2020 00:56
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:i mean you gotta work with SOMEONE at some point right? You really don’t unless one of the people you did research with happens to end up with a decent job and you stay in touch.
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Sep 12, 2020 03:06
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:i mean you gotta work with SOMEONE at some point right? Aside from my supervisors, my project was a solo project. All the work, all the credit 
Quackles fucked around with this message at 11:00 on Sep 12, 2020 |
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Sep 12, 2020 03:09
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I have not used LinkedIn to find a job as a new grad, but it's really good at finding relevant jobs once you have your experience and skillset filled in. There's a lot of different job titles I could do, and it's really nice when I'm searching for jobs on LinkedIn, I don't have to search by job title, I'll just plug in a city or area and it will give me all the hobs in that area, but sorted by the ones most relevant to me, and it does a good job. In my opinion it's most useful for connecting with acquaintances, former colleagues, classmates, that kind of thing. Then sometimes you'll be interviewing at a company and find out you know someone there that can give you the inside scoop on what it's like, or find someone you know that can refer you for a job you're interested in. Regarding privacy I get your concerns. I don't have a profile picture, and it doesn't cause problems besides LinkedIn periodically pestering you to add one. I think there's also some privacy settings so that only connections can see your full profile details, although LinkedIn sometimes flips switches or makes privacy "uh-ohs" that undo your privacy, so if it's critical to you, then it may be best to avoid. I'd also recommend using a different e-mail address than you normally use, as LinkedIn sometimes treats knowing someone's e-mail address as confirmation that you know the person (plus makes it slightly harder for you to be associated with other things).
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Sep 14, 2020 02:43
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My experience with LinkedIn as a dev is recruiter spam of offers that aren't even worth the time it takes to read them, and one useful lead that I would've found anyway, in 5 years I have account there. I live in EE though.
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Sep 14, 2020 13:03
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I find that internal company recruiters that contact you through LinkedIn can be legitimately helpful. But yeah, the 3rd party ones are almost uniformly trash.
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Sep 15, 2020 07:04
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LinkedIn a nutshell:
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Oct 5, 2020 05:34
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As a hiring manager for software engineers, LinkedIn is basically the only tool we've been able to use to consistently source good quality candidates outside of networks. The vast, vast majority of incoming applications are unqualified; at one point of 600 inbound applications 15 passed the recruiter phone screen and 3 passed the technical screen to make it to an onsite. Thus, in my last 3 companies the recruiting team has paid only cursory attention to inbound applications in favor of trawling LinkedIn and doing outreach. As an engineer, if you aren't on LinkedIn you're going to be invisible to a substantial fraction of companies.
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Oct 8, 2020 03:01
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I'm an EE so it's a little different than a software developer but I gave up on linked in because I was receiving multiple contacts a day and all of them were worse than worthless. Half of them were insultingly low pay offers and the other half were Chinese companies trying to steal information. It was all very blatant and stupid but my current job has recently decided they want their engineers to have linked profiles to boost company visibility so I guess I'll be diving back into it.
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Oct 10, 2020 03:53
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The junk collector posted:I'm an EE so it's a little different than a software developer but I gave up on linked in because I was receiving multiple contacts a day and all of them were worse than worthless. Half of them were insultingly low pay offers and the other half were Chinese companies trying to steal information. It was all very blatant and stupid but my current job has recently decided they want their engineers to have linked profiles to boost company visibility so I guess I'll be diving back into it. You can do a quick filter by who the recruiter works for. If it's the hiring company, worth at least looking at. If it's a small recruiting shop (like, this is the first time you've ever heard from them) they're probably also worth looking at. If it's a big shop (e.g. Cybercoders) just throw it in the trash.
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Oct 10, 2020 17:42
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Make the LinkedIn account. Unless you have a strong professional network that you intentionally cultivated in college, by networking with professors and other students who had gone on to work for companies you want to work for, it is absolutely essential. You did go to office hours and cultivate relationships with your professors and people that work in the industry, right? Unfortunately, due to COVID and the layoffs of engineers from the likes of Uber and AirBNB, competition right now is the fiercest it's ever been. You'll need to have extremely strong interviewing skills to make it beyond the phone screen today. That means, if you're asked a question with an optimal solution that requires a heap sort, for example, you'll need to identify the optimal solution, walk through the solution in English, code it up, then write some mock tests, and speak to the big-O notation of the solution, all in about 20 minutes. You may need to do this twice, in any given session, to be considered a strong candidate. It's a tough market, but if you're willing to move to Silicon Valley and you actually spent some time outside of your classes developing software, i.e. you're not just another hapless CS grad looking for a big payday, you can earn $200,000 in salary/bonus/stock grants your first year out of college. The extra pay 100% offsets the cost of living in Silicon Valley, and if you're talented, you can make ~$400k after five years or so, if you promote up and you're willing to jump ship once or twice. Welcome to the industry, and good luck! Edit: to add some anecdotal credentials, I get harassed by 10-20 recruiters, per month, to interview for new roles across startups and big tech alike. I had interviews lined up at several big tech companies when I graduated with my BS, worked at a startup for a while, and jumped ship later to a "2nd tier" big tech company that you've heard of, because I thought it would offer an accelerated career path. The jump paid off. But you absolutely need to be social and "play the game" to move up quickly and make big bucks in the industry. Talent is extremely important to do well, but generally, you'll be waiting a loooong time to make the big bucks if you don't ask your manager for raises, and aren't willing to jump ship when you're not paid what you like. And it's essential to negotiate everything, from starting pay to annual raises. Jecht fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Oct 14, 2020 |
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Oct 14, 2020 00:12
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Jecht posted:Make the LinkedIn account. Unless you have a strong professional network that you intentionally cultivated in college, by networking with professors and other students who had gone on to work for companies you want to work for, it is absolutely essential. So far, I've been finding that, here in Canada, the thing that's been of most help to me is a local tech job board. LinkedIn turns up a lot of hits, but they're pretty corporate and I honestly think I'd prefer to work for a smaller, more local company if at all possible. (And, I don't want to move to Vancouver/etc.) The Canadian border at least acts as an insulator, so there aren't that many skilled US techies up here diluting the labor pool. I'm still not sure about the exact details of the market here, though. Also, I was a loner in college, as described above.
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Oct 14, 2020 01:51
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Plenty of CS graduates are loners -- I know it was hard for me to personally break out of my shell. I think it's still worthwhile to reach out to recruiters for companies you want to work for. Adobe has an Ottawa office, and they've been on an acquisition spree these last few years. If you want the startup feel with big company backing, Adobe might be a company to look into. There's also a tech and marketing agency, Redstamp, that's headquartered in Canada. I know a contractor that recently quit, due to issues with being a US-based contractor working for a Canadian company. Anyway, starting out can be rough, but while you're job hunting, it wouldn't hurt to purchase a few low-price courses from Udemy, to learn some fundamentals of how software is written in a commercial environment. Good luck!
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Oct 14, 2020 03:03
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LinkedIn is a job posting site just like indeed, ZipRecruiter etc. LinkedIn, unlike indeed, don't offer free job postings for recruiters. Because of that, scams etc are rare but they do exist. You can also check companies' pages to see if they are legit and who works there. You can message current and past employees and see if the company is a good fit for you. You can also use LinkedIn solely for networking, publishing/advertising articles, learning, and fundraising for your startup. Connecting with potential investors on LinkedIn is a common practice nowadays. It is not recommended to use LinkedIn as Facebook or Twitter. Employers, recruiters, and other boomers can see everything you do on the platform. If you have a platinum account, you can see "who sees your profile", so keep that in mind when clicking on others' profiles. LinkedIn also offers a 1-year free platinum subscription for veterans.
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Oct 23, 2020 06:48
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I am pro-LinkedIn for tech jobs, but like has been said as a mostly passive mechanism. I've maintained a LinkedIn profile for many years now, and never post any news or blogs posts or even comment on others. It's just a basic searchable resume and digital rolodex. I ignore almost all the "social media" aspects of the platform, but I do like seeing how my past colleagues and acquaintances move around over the years. Never know when that sort of info might be useful. At this point in my career, the vast majority of recruiter contacts I ignore because they have nothing to offer me, especially third party recruiters. If I were earlier on in my career, or just trying to break in, that might be a bit different. That said, I owe LinkedIn at least partial credit for several of my previous good jobs. Most recently, an internal tech recruiter for a well-known company I had always been a little interested in happened to reach out to me at the right time, I followed up, and long story short I'm coming up on 2 years with the company and have been very happy. Before that, I had a more organic experience where I reconnected with an old colleague/boss when LinkedIn said "hey you might know this person", we bounced a few messages back and forth, got together in person, and I ended up working with/for/near that person for nearly 10 years at two different companies and through five job titles/promotions. Theoretically those things could have happened without LinkedIn, but they didn't, and LinkedIn was the catalyst. If you're actively looking for a job, just LinkedIn is probably not enough, but it's a key resource to use and to keep updated even when you're not looking. Even if 90%+ of the messages you get aren't worth following up on or don't pan out, even one good one once a year for nearly zero effort is worth it IMO. Guinness fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Oct 23, 2020 |
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Oct 23, 2020 18:42
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Sundae posted:I think the mistake is using it for anything other than having an updated professional profile / resume, and checking jobs relevant to your work / talking to people you already know through work connections. The broad social aspect of it is hot garbage. I think this is the correct take! I have noticed that LinkedIn recruiter behavior is wildly different per field. CS folk can get directly recruited. My field is not CS and I think I’ve had 7 recruiters ever contact me and 6 were basically not even for what I do. However! Making an updated LinkedIn is low effort and likely has a small but non-zero impact on your job search. Feel free to link your LinkedIn and goons can help provide feedback! Good luck my friend.
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Oct 24, 2020 05:44
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