I knew there was a reason
for my removing myself from Linkedin the day MS bought it.
Microsoft has glued LinkedIn and Office 365's Word together so it can automatically help folks write or update their résumés – and find them new jobs at the same time. Resume Assistant in Office 365 Given Redmond has owned social-network-for-suits LinkedIn since 2016, we're floored it took this long. Specifically, Microsoft …
Do you mean that you only have ONE email address?
I run many. Any address that goes out to uncontrollable sources - and any commercial source is uncontrollable - is an address that I don't mind losing. I regularly cycle them around - as I do my credit card numbers, and various other hooks through which I am connected to the outside world.
That way, I can always disassociate myself from any unpleasantness...
"I've been meaning to delete my account there for a long while. This is a good reminder to actually do it."
and why ???
If this had been put in openoffice or another open source application most of the nay-sayers on here would be applauding it - but Microsoft noooooooooooooooo
Its not on by default, you have to go find it, don't like it, don't look for it - simples
Tedious
If this had been put in openoffice or another open source application most of the nay-sayers on here would be applauding it - but Microsoft noooooooooooooooo
Its not on by default, you have to go find it, don't like it, don't look for it - simples
Doubt it's an issue for me anyway, as the email account that might (might) have access to Awful365 is not the same as the one I use for LinkedIn. So it wouldn't link the two anyway.
But as regards OpenDocument; I'd like it if sites would actually support ODT files (which my resume is formatted in). They're quite happy to use DOCX, even though DOCX is a sketchy, poorly documented, not-quite-open format, yet sites are all set to use it.
>I wouldnt even interview someone without a Linked In profile. Good way of background checking.
I think that's a bit unfair. LinkedIn is the only social media I use, mainly because I still find it useful, once ad-blocking is turned on. I follow most people I meet and connect with for a while. If they post things infrequently, and what they post is useful or interesting I continue to follow them. If they post (or like) any self-help type bollocks or mostly-made-up sob stories then I don't. And if they post any "I just got this pointless certification from Acclaim because I now know how to fill in my corporate time sheet" bollocks then they're off the list because I can't be bothered keeping ublock up to date to hide them. Yeah, IBM people, I'm looking at you. How to get yourself unfollowed in one easy step.
Back to the point - the best way of checking someone's background is by speaking to them. You can bullshit as much on Linkedin as you can on a CV. In fact most people bullshit a lot more on LinkedIn.
Still don't want it integrated in Word though. But given that both are necessary evils it kind of makes sense.
"I think that's a bit unfair."
You can think what you like, but lots of people use it for that. And for hunting for candidates in the first place. Remove yourself from it and you most definitely restrict yourself from some job opportunities.
"Back to the point - the best way of checking someone's background is by speaking to them.!"
No, that takes way more time and synchronising diaries, arranging a call, etc.. I can filter a candidate in outline in a few seconds on Linked In.
"If the information is accurate..."
And again Linked in shows me who they are linked to - I can ask people I know what they think and if they are any good.
"As a background check it is pretty worthless "
It is effective for stage one filtering and minimizing time wasted on calls and interviews.
"If you are not a 'WASP' you might want to avoid it."
That's what we use it for. Firstly we throw away all the CVs with foreign surnames (most of them these days - what is it with Asians and low grade IT jobs?!) , then we WASP check versus Linked In. So we end up just hiring Brits or culturally very similar types. Means no more not being able to go out for a Chinese meal because it's not Halal and no more not being able to hold the morning meeting in the pub because someone's a Muslim, etc. etc. It's great for corporate culture.
"I wouldnt even interview someone without a Linked In profile. Good way of background checking."
If the information is accurate... I have a former colleague whose description was Managing Director and Technical Test Specialist at <big company employing 20,000+ people>. The reality was that, as a former contractor, they were the managing director of their one man company and a cog in the big company. What they wrote was therefore accurate but not true at the same time. Although an extreme example this is one of the problems with LinkedIn - the information is unverified and anyone can say what they like. LinkedIn is just a crappier version of FaceBook but with a 'business slant' where you can boast about your job instead of your pet cat. As a background check it is pretty worthless and I wonder how many competent and outstanding people you've lazily rejected for interview because they're not into business orientated social media boasting?
"I wouldnt even interview someone without a Linked In profile. Good way of background checking."
This is actually a good reverse rejection method for applicants:
As others have pointed out the definition of "Good" here is "lazy" as it isn't an accurate way of checking anything, just a quick way to think you have.
I haven't signed up to LinkedIn so that I don't accidentally get employed by someone as lazy and sloppy (or just plain ignorant of accuracy in social media) as this.
> removing myself from Linkedin
I assume you got confirmation that all copies of your profile were deleted, backups and history of changes included?.
Colour me cynical, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of such account deactivations fall in this bucket, and the bucket where your data is actually deleted is a lot harder to get into. From the account deletion page:
Closing your account means permanently deleting your profile and removing access to all your LinkedIn information from our site
Then further down is:
You can reopen your account in most cases if it's been closed less than 20 days, but we're unable to recover the following even if you reopen your account:
Endorsements and recommendations
Ignored or pending invitations
Followings (Influencers, Companies, etc.)
Group memberships
Which effectively states that they are not deleting *any* of your personal data, just not showing it on the interwebs. They still have that data to use for whatever internal purpose they desire - be it training AI to write CVs, or any other research purpose. Add to which they probably store the account history changelog, so it probably doesn't really impact things if you first change all your data to junk like "Professional Human Cannonball" before requesting the account termination.
Local data protection laws may override this behaviour in some jurisdictions - perhaps worth asking them what they have on you now that your account is terminated (assuming they are obliged to answer and can't wriggle out of it by transferring the info to a separate legal entity that's in a different jurisdiction that isn't subject to the same rules by some legal loopholing - IANAL, YMMV, etc...)...
Make a temporary email account you can delete later.
Confirm change at Linkedin via received email.
Change every entry of profile to nonsense.
THEN delete account. Because they don't delete info.
Confirm if any emails received.
Delete temporary email account.
You'll still get spam on a variety of email addresses you use. Make sure on email client that you never acknowledge "read receipts" and "remote content" is disabled.
Do not click "Unsubscribe" on any spam. That simply confirms your email address works.
Don't know... Maybe I'm really old fashioned, but...
When we/ I used to hire people, we used their application to make a selection based on the material they sent us. I know. Silly us. If now, with these kind of things cover letters/ CVs become buzz word, impersonal, ironed smooth, middle-of-the-road spam, the only effective way of properly hiring people will be "improved" to "People, we're looking to fill this spot. Does anybody know anybody good? Got any knowledgable family members maybe? Know people from the pub? There is free beer for the golden tip!"
``This is going to turn in to Facebook. You can definitely see it coming.''
Too late. It already has. It's already here. The default ordering in your "feed" (or whatever LI is calling it these days) is "Top". I.e., "most popular" posts. Oh you can change it to "Recent" but you aren't able to make that your default for sorting your feed.
The feed is now littered with advertisements -- there's really no other word for them -- from people touting their employers loan offerings, come-ons for online classes, and completely random posts that are ``Trending in Chicago'', ``Trending in Linux', etc.'. The stuff that shows up in your feed is almost never related to the topics you told LI you'd like to follow. I'm guessing the writers of those posts paid to get them there. And all of these are accompanied by huge (and often pointless) photos or videos (thankfully not auto-playing).
And my all-time favorite turned-to-crap feature: Being able to see who has looked at your profile. At one time (long ago) this was pretty much always possible to see who visited your profile. Then you started seeing that some profile viewers had chosen to view using `private' mode. Upgrading to a premium membership was supposed to--according to the list of advantages that you'd see in the ``wouldn't you like to become a premium member'' messages--allow you to see who those viewers were and that actually worked for a while. Then, apparently, it became possible for some members to view profiles in ``super-secret private mode'' (for more $$$ undoubtedly) even when viewing profiles of premium members. Nowadays, most all you see are ``Someone in the ABC industry'' or ``Someone with the job title Recruiter''. Marvelous. I immediately discontinued my premium membership upon learning that.
AC Lets face it clippy thought I was writing a letter when I was categorising and listing my mp3 collection so I expect this to be equally useless.
Well, fair enough, it's an understandable mistake if you were cataloguing your Beatles tracks...
"Dear Prudence,
I want to tell you,
Another girl,
All you need is love,
And I love her.
Ask me why,
Because.
All my loving,
-Johnny B. Goode.
P.S. I love you."
"MS would love it to be Facebook (which makes money). It won't be though."
No, it's never going to be Facebook. Its for corporate types - and is largely used to find contacts to sell expensive services and stuff. So there is a LOT more money potentially involved than Faceplant. It's perfect for Microsoft.
"Why, do you like being spammed by recruitment agents via every communication medium under the sun?"
Usually what happens when you apply for a job via Reed, Indeed or Monster... that's when the spam really starts. You know - the "jobs in your area" emails which have no bearing whatsoever on any of the recruitment sites you are registered with, and magically start appearing after applying for certain jobs through the mainstream ones.