[justrudd]

Yeah. The site had no information on it.

But I wonder, is LinkedIn really "the" way to connect professionally? My personal bit of anecdotal experience is that it isn't for me. I was on LinkedIn for maybe 15 years? I accepted everyone on LinkedIn (I was not discriminating at all). And in that 15 years, I never found one job through it. Right now in Seattle (where I've been for 10 years), I go through my "people I drink beer with" network.

What I'd love to see is a network that would introduce me to people in other cities. I want to move to NYC, but I know no one there. So I don't know the good vs. bad neighborhoods, companies to stay away from (you know there is a list), etc.

[ytjohn]

I'm a Linux Sysadmin/Automation Engineer/"devops guru". My last 3 jobs (each better than the last) all came from recruiters finding me on LinkedIn.

2 years ago I was trying to move upwards in my career path. I had a good job, but boring and I could go weeks with doing almost no work. I was simultaneously considered a valuable employee while actually operating as fluff. I decided to move into the world of configuration management and "devops". I spent a few months implementing puppet in our lab and in a few places. Then I updated my Linked with puppet experience. A few months later, I got an offer at a local university that was implementing Puppet. I figured I would work there a year and get really solid Puppet Experience. I worked there about 3 months, got much better with puppet, but hated the place. I updated my LinkedIn resume again with my additional Puppet experience (all my responsibilities at the new job were puppet/automation related). I instantly started getting calls. Then I landed an awesome job with a large service company. I loved that job, hated the commute. I wasn't even looking but as I updated my resume, I started getting recruiters from Facebook, Netflix, Google, and finally a work-from-home one from EMC that I jumped on.

[justrudd]

That's very cool to hear. I'm glad it has worked so well for you!

[JoeAltmaier]

Similarly, I've been using it for 15 years. While I don't get jobs from recruiters either, I use it to keep connected to former colleagues even as they change jobs, email addresses, marriages and inter-state moves. This network gets me work.

[ghaff]

Ditto. LinkedIn is a self-updating Rolodex for me and it's useful for that. Plaxo sure wasn't any better and I do like having a service of this basic type.

I basically don't use it for anything else and generally ignore emails that they send me. (And only accept connection requests from those who I--within 5 seconds or so--see some reason to connect with. If I don't recognize your name or your company doesn't imply some good reason to connect, I'm ignoring you if you send me a canned request.)