Can we all just agree to adopt a new open source option? That is the only way companies will find us for next jobs. They unfortunately contacted me using LinkedIn in my last 2 jobs so, it is impractical to leave without having a replacement.
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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Privacy
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I got at least one job through LinkedIn but it wasn't a quality job. Pay was good but was subcontracted and we were treated differently. In my industry you really need to know someone. Linkedin does help in a pinch for sure though.
Maybe a Freindica Business option. Wonder if it's open source. Maybe, it needs to be free with student IDs or some type of apprenticeship, and paid for by professionals, or just some other bot prevention measure.
Maybe have it with an interface that auto uploads formats that can be used by employers for resumes. Then you can sell the interface option to employers as a way to get resumes autofilled. Might be complicated.
My company has huge retention, people dont tpically leave. Maybe entry roles but they progress to decent conditions really quick. It is usually a job for life with people often doing 40+ years.
Everyone is on LinkedIn. Posting company shit, and liking each others posts. Very odd time someone leaves for a similar role elsewhere but usually either really high level roles and post retirement or entry level management. It boggles my mind, the company even holds days where they get photographers to go out to sites to take linkedIn profile pictures.
Same bullshit happened to me when they froze my account after their AI bot flagged me with on false positive for "discrimination" (I'd posted a job with a legitimate language requirement).
They then made me go through some humiliating ritual of having to write them an email with a written promise that I wouldn't break any discrimination rules, which I hadn't done to begin with, but the support clown wouldn't reinstate my account until I'd done their specified grovelling.
Why did you not refuse and find a new place to do business that doesn't use computer programs to police their sites?
Probably because they want to actually make some money.
By all accounts I've heard, linkedin is garbage. No one finds work there.
And yet 99% of good paying jobs won't even consider you if you don't have a LinkedIn. You don't have to apply on there, or even be active, but you do need one.
I used to host my own professional portfolio. Maybe it's time to do that again. It was just easy html that I whipped up in KompoZer.
It used to show publications, training certificates, codes, visualizations of analytic codes, hobbyist builds, etc.
That's news to me I haven't heard that yet.
I do know a lot of corporate jobs make you hand over social media handles and passwords to do a deep dive on you, then run all your information through threat detection software to see the likelihood that you will develop a case of morals or patriotism that would lead you leak details of the company. That was going on 15 years ago, can't imagine how bad it is now for banks and the like.
This is what laws forbidding the youth from social media gets you. How many of you supported these laws based on the cynical arguments of tech and government that want to lock down the internet?
They accept written/scanned proof of identity signed by a municipal office (german here). Basically, show your ID to an official and haven them sign a paper to proof your identity. Also, a friend told me, a LinkedIn Support Member may neither have capacity nor skill to validate a foreign documents authenticity.
Same thing for me in the US. They just didn’t provide a reason and their Tech Support will not respond.
They did the same shit to me. I refused and pestered them with numerous e-mails demanding them to just delete my account instead of reopening it. Finding a link to their contact form was a nightmare (it's hidden all the way at the bottom of their privacy policy). I also emailed legal@linkedin.com, dpo@linkedin.com, helpdesk@linkedin.com, support@linkedin.com and a number of other generic addresses just to be sure they would receive something.
I got three LLM sounding replies where they asked me to follow a link to verify my identity with a government issued identity document, but after a couple more e-mails where I wrote that providing Persona or LinkedIn with my identity documents is against my personal security policy, they just caved and reopened my account calling it a "temporary measure to protect my account". Set a new password, logged in and deleted my account immediately. Good riddance.
Thanks for this post. Saving it in case I ever need it.
TBH I'm impressed you got that far. I'd have thought they would 100% stonewall you.
Good riddance for sure. That co has a long history of being sleazeweasels.
Why would anyone want back in? Linkedin is a data harvesting tool disguised as a business site that acts like Facebook.
As awful and shit as it is, it's still what you gotta put up with if you want to get hired...
The job postings don't work anymore, and sending applications is a waste of time, but the last 2-3 jobs I've gotten were because a recruiter found me on LinkedIn and messaged me...
I wouldn't do it. When I hire I will score someone negatively if they put linked in on a resume.
I care about my personal information and my businesses. The candidate obviously does not.
Conclusion: Linkedin is malware.
Always has been.
you can close your social media accounts before or after you get locked out
Can’t. They won’t allow me to delete it without verifying my ID with a scan of my face and DL.
Facebook does that too I hear. They need ID to verify your id, but to delete they need id.
And nothing of value was lost.
I guess I can understand some people rely on it for work (I have yet to meet anyone who actually got a job through it tho).
But aside from that, what are you missing out on?
A bunch of people pretending to be edgy by bending over for corporate life. “Please steal more of my private time mister capitalism sir”. (Not to mention the data mining)
You don’t wanna be part of that. Have a job and excell at it, but don’t do the whole “can I have another lemon please?” thing. That’s disgusting.
Linked In is extremely useful for open source intelligence.
Keep getting hung up on or sent in loops by the automated phone system? Find the engineer at the company on linked in and email them directly
I got my current job through Linkedin, pretty nice one even
Edit: just saying it can work. I hate the garbage on that site otherwise and never logged in anymore until i need to search for a job again
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You have the option to stop using LinkedIn altogether.
There was a time when it was useful, then it started harvesting data and accessing your contacts without your permission, then Microsoft bought it, then it became an influencer swamp, then it demanded that you turn off 50+ individual permissions hidden away in a deep preferences hierarchy, then it opted you in to feed the Assumed Intelligence black hole, which is where I opted out and stopped using it.
Job search has always been a joke, recommendations absurd, direct applications ignored and non-existent filters to make job search relevant.
In other words, do yourself a favour and leave.
I wish you were righr, as I fully agree with your sentiment, however:
Employmemt agencies in multiple European countries will force you to maintain a LinkedIn account or they will cut your unemployment benefits.
Sounds like an anti-trust case waiting to happen
That's outrageous!
Can I ask you which countries? I can see mandating an active job search, but picking which website you have to use seems like the kind of stuff that could be taken to court.
And LinkedIn is just about the worst possible pick...
I've experienced it myself in Switzerland and when I complained about it on reddit multiple people from the Netherlands and Nordic countries had similar experiences. Not sure about Germany anymore, but I believe people there sucessfully fought against it.
I wonder how popular the idea is now to require all your details and personal information given to one of the fascist US regimes largest companies.
They will promise to keep the info safe, while storing it and selling it, including to the USG.
The US buys data broker information, all of it.
I hear you, but leave to where? Are we being expelled from society for not accepting this bullyish control.
And we are leaving behind the masses, the society that cannot find alternatives and will continue there and give them their information, if just 50% of the people do that, it is a huge success for them.
We have to think how to reclaim these spaces, otherwise we are going to lose
Maybe better than reclamation is to make our own federated version. Like we're on lemmy because we decided not to take bullyish behavior from Reddit
Are we being expelled from society for not accepting this bullyish control.
TBH I feel that is a really important point.
OK, fine, Linkedin, most ppl can just leave it. We managed before it existed, we'll manage without it. But your point is bigger than Linkedin. It's like a cancer. It spreads everywhere. It comes for things we all want or need to do. For the basic elements of living in the modern world.
I feel your pain man. But IDK what to do. Except keep fighting the good fight. It feels like trying to hold back the tide.
I don't think it's possible to reclaim LinkedIn. It's not exactly a democratic platform and I doubt user outrage will change anything unless their user attrition rate goes through the roof. They can just tweak their algorithms, mute or limit the reach of users to hide discontent from others too. Better to just leave and try to get #fedihired instead.
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But then what's the solution? How do you find jobs without LinkedIn? The corporation hell prefers "efficiency", they'll always prefer these centralized solutions to find workers.
I have no evidence that LinkedIn provides work, I attempted to use it for several years to find work and was entirely unsuccessful.
Among the quagmire I left, all I saw was Assumed Intelligence slop and bots attempting to harvest contacts.
There was a time when LinkedIn was useful as a tool to grow and interact with your network, these days it's Xitter with more characters.
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FWIW. I have defeated live cam with subtle random movement with an AI generated face video looking straight ahead with slight movement, blinking, slightly wider shot (wider shot mean angles aren’t as obvious and a little random movement was sufficient).
I served this back through OBS (Open Broadcast Studio).
But it’s fucked that we need to resort to tricks.
That's the worst part, their justification for more information to make one safer doesn't even work.
For-profit security theater.
I think it’s worse than security theatre. I am not usually a tin foil hatter, but im convinced tech isn’t fighting back on this because it’s a great opportunity to hone in that personal advertising.
Notice how they push back on EVERY legislative move or new regulation. But, suddenly now that the same tech can help them out, crickets… ?
Agreed, it's as if you would let the locksmith go through your mail, indefinitely, after they fixed your frontdoor.
Absolutely ridiculous, right? Well... not so much when your entire digital life goes through gatekeepers like Google, Apple or Microsoft.
Which country should I change my location to, which provides the best consumer protection and doesn't allow companies to demand my KYC documents?
Unironically, North Korea
They did you a favor. Stop using that crap.
I'm running into the ID verification problem too! I uninstalled the app and when I reinstalled, I couldn't find my 2FA code in Microsoft Authenticator. Now I need to submit my government ID and do the face scan stuff.
I'm very much against all the ID verification stuff as of late, for the same reason you state.. I asked a friend to give me a PDF export of my profile and I'll maybe come back when the ID verification requirement changes.
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