It seems pretty obvious to me. It specifically asks permission to access your contacts, and it’s easy to decline. What’s annoying is that it asks you at setup, and periodically asks you again.
With that said, if someone was distracted, I can see it being very easy to click through a bunch of “Continue” boxes without realizing you gave it permission to access your contacts.
I just checked my LinkedIn profile, and it says I have no imported contacts, so it appears that I have managed to avoid this.
And while people ought to realize it’s got a reason to want access to your contacts, some may not think to interpret ‘access your contacts’ as ‘send multiple emails to everyone in your address book.’
Exactly. Though FWIW I just read on a LinkedIn help screen that they no longer automatically send LinkedIn invitations automatically to your contacts.
(Which is something I don’t think they ever should have done. No software should be sending out invitations in your name without your explicit approval, much less automatically.)
The person who had my cell phone number before me (going on 7 years now) also apparently has an old forgotten Linkedin profile, because every so often I get calls or texts from headhunters for her. I wish she would kill it or fix it.
I joined LinkedIn because that’s what you did back in the day. I never made much effort with it, other than collecting connections. In what I do, LinkedIn is a Captain Dunsel.
Then Microsoft acquired it. Somehow I got on a list to become a LinkedIn Advisor. I signed up. That’s where they send out periodic emails asking opinions about new things they might do, or are about to do, or old stuff they might keep or remove from LinkedIn. I decided to pour sugar in their gas tank and respond with nonsensical answers, or trash a proposed new feature. In short, I became George Hayduke of the LinkedIn Advisors Monkeywrench gang.
I’m still a LikedIn Advisor. That’s all I do with it. I need to go to the store now and pick up another bag of C&H pure cane sugar, because another Advisor email arrived. They want my opinion again.
Something like this, though not to the same degree, for me as well. I’ve gotten two consulting offers through LinkedIn, at least one of which was legit and worth a pretty good slug of money (I was a little suspicious of the second offer; it might or might not have been something fraudulent). Old friends have occasionally found me through LinkedIn as well.
Despite that, I don’t actually care for LinkedIn. IIRC, I pitted them on this board a few years ago for their failure to follow through when I reported a fake account set up using my dead mother’s personal info. The fake profile finally disappeared a few years later, but AFAICT that wasn’t due to anything LinkedIn did - after initially responding to me and promising follow-up, they completely stopped communicating.
A couple of people have now talked about getting consulting work from LinkedIn. This is what I was talking about when I mentioned “self-promoters.” OK, I don’t mean to sound uncharitable, but that seems to be the type of person for whom LinkedIn works best: people who are hustling for clients.
I’m a Japanese interpreter/translator with an MBA, and I think I might have gotten one contact through LinkedIn in the whole time I’ve used it. I’ve also never seen any easy way to look for potential clients on there–then again, I really haven’t looked for clients in the past 12 years or so.
It’s just never done anything for me, and I decided that it wasn’t worth handling all the crap emails that come from it.
Yeah, I get contacted a lot from two groups of people. The first group consists of recruiters (i.e. headhunters), which is OK as far as it goes, although I’m currently employed and not looking for a job. The second group is far more numerous: people trying to add me as a contact so they can bombard me with potential client offers. However, I don’t add anybody to my contacts unless I personally know them, so that cuts down on this.
Heh, you could be right, but I’m totally not a self-promoter. However, I have an unusual skill set - a strong editorial/publications management background combined with knowledge of infrastructure finance and policy in Indonesia. Not many clients would need that combination of expertise, but I was a very good fit for the legit nibble I got. (I ended up turning them down; the assignment was much larger than I wanted to take on at the time.)
I also like LinkedIn. It’s the social media for people I don’t want to be friends with. I can message or keep track of people who are limited to professional acquaintanceship. It’s a handy thing.
It’s also to have a business-only route of communication for strangers who might want to get in touch with me for professional reasons. I don’t want to be on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or whatever. But I like that people can find me on LinkedIn if they really need to. And vice versa. I appreciate being able to get in touch with networks of professionals without having to find their contact information.
It’s also handy for looking up the resumes of people I don’t know personally. In certain lines of business, if you don’t have your credentials posted on LinkedIn, that’s a sign that you’re not serious. Also, one expects to be able to find job applicants on LinkedIn. Not there? Looks fishy.
