Is LinkedIn Good for Anything?

I’m willing to hear from others, but from where I sit the answer is a simple, “no”.

I have 273 1st degree connections. Some of these people I actually know, but others are just strangers caught in a net thrown in the general direction of my so-called career. I did get one writing job through the site, but–as with most writing jobs since the advent of the internet–it wasn’t worth the trouble. I have found some old friends that I wasn’t able to find through facebook, and for a while I was getting a few notifications of interesting job openings.For some reason, those have stopped, and even if I click on the “jobs” link, I get the following message:

Sorry, no jobs match your current preferences.

This, in spite of the fact that my preferences say that I will work anywhere in the United States, that I will work for any size company, and that I have selected at least six industries that I will work in.

If I do a more specific search, say “veterinarian”, I get 11, 401 results. The first 3 are Medical Records Director, Nursing Assistant, and Physical Therapist.

My favorite (on the first page, because with these results I’m not going to bother going beyond that) is for Senior Management Consumer Insights for Fruit of the Loom. Well, I have been wearing underwear for more than five decades now, but I imagine with just that qualification I have a lot of competition, many of whom may change their underwear more often than I do (once a day, whether I need to or not).

My favorite part of LinkedIn is the endorsements. I have been endorsed as proficient in Social Media, as well as Research, by someone who only knows me from a short and disastrous relationship, and for Public Health by someone my son took tae kwon do from over 5 years ago.