It’s very rude and almost never well-received. I had a (very young and new) co-worker who tried something similar, unsolicited LinkedIn invites, and was to to f–k off enough that he realized it was a bad idea and stopped. Had we known what he was up to, we wouldn’t have let him do it, but he was trying to “show initiative”.
As for the OP, it’s so far over the line that the line is coming up again on the horizon.
I’d be tempted to put some kind of warning in my status update line.
FWIW, the HR director where I work sent a company-wide e-mail with three paragraphs of ad copy about the company. One paragraph was for Twitter, one for Linkedin, and one for Facebook. Each employee was to copy, paste & post on their walls (or feeds or whatever) as appropriate.
It was NOT optional, and the e-mail came with the warning that all three networks would be searched to see that employees were complying.
Jesus, seriously?
I think this is something I would quietly forget to do.
To be fair, it wasn’t ad copy in the sense of “our products are great!” It was more like “Come work for us!” They’re in the middle of a huge recruitment drive, and employees get a $250 bonus for any referral who stays with the company for six months.
I wouldn’t close my LinkedIn, but I wouldn’t cooperate - sounds like overreach to me. If I thought he would contact my network anyway, I would go so far as to change my LinkedIn status update to advise my contacts that he doesn’t have my permission to contact them.
This. Networking is talking to people you know personally in order to get to know more people. Stalking the contacts of total strangers is creepy; and I can’t imagine anyone he contacted that way would be even remotely receptive to anything he had to say. So not only is it invasive, I highly doubt it’s even effective. I certainly wouldn’t have the time of day for my friend’s uncle’s boss’s cousin’s receptionist’s wife’s employee.
I’d say this is more Sales/Biz Dev than Advertising/Marketing (totally different approaches), but oh, this is so true. I’m actually inclined to believe they don’t understand the concept of boundaries, period; they personally don’t have any. I had a boss like this. He kept “requesting” that I share some extremely personal things with the entire office (small business, 6-8 people at any given time, so everyone knew everyone). I was constantly telling him to stay out of my personal life – in very explicit terms, including “any part of my life that happens beyond these four walls is none of your business.” At one point I said “No,” turned around to go back to work, and without missing a beat he said “Don’t forget you need to do…” Not surprisingly, he was the business development guy.
I’d be tempted to ask them when they were planning to produce a national ad campaign to market my freelance work. If they’re expecting me to use my personal resources – which I use for self-marketing, and not for marketing someone else – to market for them, then surely it’s fair that they use their resources to promote me.
Or they can pay me for the ad space, like they would for any other kind of internet advertising real estate.
So you set your Facebook privacy settings to “anybody but them?”
I’d would probably email HR right back and ask if counsel had vetted his request.
This just happened to me, actually. I got two calls about a week apart from a recruiter, and out of courtesy I called back to say I wasn’t interested. BAM, instantly I get a Linked-In request. Umm… how about no.
This guy sounds like a complete douchebag. I’d tell him to drop dead.
If things like personal networks are going to be useful, they have to be respected. This is “social media spam” and inappropriate.
Now, I don’t mind putting some sales folks and recruiters into my linked in Network. When you are looking for a job, these are really nice people to know you are looking for a job. But I ignore them unless I need them. I’m basically a business card in their Rolodex.
Exactly. The whole point of networking is not to walk up to a stranger and go, “Hey, you know Joe Schmoe? I know Joe Schmoe! So, how are you set for insurance these days?” Instead, it’s to build a good relationship with Joe so that he introduces you people people he knows and tells them how wonderful you are. This guy is trying to skip over the whole point of the process. A contact you’ve plucked out of a random co-worker’s LinkedIn, without forming some sort of relationship first, is no better than a name you’ve pulled out of the phone book.