Tuesday, August 13, 2013

You've Got Mail

I am starting to worry about LinkedIn. At first, when we met, things were fine. I rarely ever connected with LinkedIn and LinkedIn mostly left me to my business, always there when I needed but never needy or pushy, the perfect relationship. Lately LinkedIn has started to take a turn. It started off slowly, sending me emails to update my profile, telling my about my contacts updated information, asking me to endorse my friends. However, now LinkedIn is like that overly attached girlfriend, you know the meme I am talking about.

It seems that every day I have a new email from LinkedIn. Michael has endorsed me, John has endorsed me, I should endorse Rob, Ryan has a new job! I get it! Jeeze. When did LinkedIn get so attached?!

The worst part about LinkedIn being such a Stage 5 Clinger is that I don’t know a single person who has ever actually benefitted from their LinkedIn profile. Who seriously gets clients or job offers from LinkedIn? I have yet to meet a single person. Sure, potential employers can stalk me on the Internet if they want, I will gladly give them my LinkedIn profile if they really desire, but I am not sure they will find any information on my page that they couldn’t simply read on my resume. I suppose they could look at who all has endorsed me and what skills they have endorsed, but even then, that means very little. A friend of mine has endorsed me for my skills in the service industry, I get emails about it every.single.day but this person has never worked in the service industry, therefore all he has to go off of is what I tell him and what he sees when he comes into my work, so should his endorsement be taken as seriously as a former manager or someone else working in the industry?

At the end of the day I suppose it doesn’t matter. I highly doubt any of my potential employers are looking at my LinkedIn profile and I highly doubt they care about my service industry endorsements, but damn does LinkedIn care about my endorsements.

Maybe I should be thankful that LinkedIn cares so much. It is kind of nice to know this website wants the best for me and wants to encourage me. LinkedIn is just trying to remind me that my friends also want me succeed. So, while I may not need to get the same reminder every single day, maybe I should look at the bright side of things.

LinkedIn doesn’t want to be forgotten. I can understand that feeling. However, a website having feelings is super creepy. But, I get it. LinkedIn is feeling neglected and maybe a little useless in this relationship. I guess the least I could do is update my profile every once in a while and maybe visit LinkedIn so it knows I have gotten its 300 emails about Michael endorsing my vast array of skills. Or maybe it is time to end this relationship, rip off the Band-Aid and admit that maybe this isn’t a mutually beneficial relationship. I suppose only time will tell if it is meant to last. 

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