[krschultz]

Being able to contact former co-workers is invaluable. I moved out of New York in 2009 and moved back in 2012. In between the startup I had worked at basically gone out of business and everyone had new jobs. I didn't have anyone's email address or phone number or even Facebook connection, but I was connected on LinkedIn. I was able to reach out, find out what companies were hiring, get some interviews, etc. It massively helped in my move back and I'm in a far better place because of it.

All the recruiters, resumes, cover letters, and interview prep pale in comparison to just having a bunch of people that want to work with you again. Ultimately whether you use LinkedIn or Facebook or a paper rolodex of phone numbers, the key thing is that you need that collection of weak connections. These are not my 20 friends, these are the 150 people that have been in a company with me and know my reputation but probably don't know much more than that.

I find LinkedIn is a good tool for that. Sure there are some negatives, but I haven't found anything better. I don't necessarily want to be Facebook friends with all of the people I currently or previously worked with, and there is no way to keep an up to date contact list by yourself.

[yati]

> Being able to contact former co-workers is invaluable.

Agreed. Maybe I never felt the need of using LinkedIn for this because I'm already well connected with most of my former colleagues via other channels, since before this, I was at a pretty small startup.

My friends with management jobs love LinkedIn as a job finding tool, and some even claim that being connected to influential people in the industry on LinkedIn helps them stand out somehow, but most of my programmer friends do not like the type of recruiters on LinkedIn. In my personal job searches, I almost never needed anything other than a CV, a cover letter and Github/StackExchange accounts (as opposed to "connections" with famous people).