The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[ian]

Dear job applicants, please stop contacting me through LinkedIn. This will not help your case – more so if done repeatedly – and no, I won't respond. The application is thataway, follow the instructions and apply if you are interested and would like to be considered.

[Captain Nemo]

Luton Airport: your 3-letter code is LTN. Always has been, so your branding using LLA is confusing. Luton ain't in London, however wishful your thinking might be, so stick with LTN, kthxbai...

LLA is the code for Lulea airport in Sweden...

[CAMRAMan]

I have been there, as it happens...

[Cudzoziemiec]

Surely time they rebranded as Lulea Stockholm, if not Lulea London!

[TheLurker]

...contacting me through LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is still a thing?  Gosh.

[CAMRAMan]

Surely time they rebranded as Lulea Stockholm, if not Lulea London!

Even by Ryanair standards that's a stretch!

[Kim]

All airports eventually get appropriated by London.  We're going to end up with London Baikonur and London Kennedy eventually.

[Cudzoziemiec]

London Kennedy is fine, it's when what's at the other end is also described as London...

[Kim]

London Tranquillity.  It's only a matter of time.  And delta-v.

[mrcharly-YHT]

...contacting me through LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is still a thing?  Gosh.

LinkedIn is bigger than ever, and the company seems to have plans to expand well beyond the 'professional contacts version of facebook' paradigm. Training courses, marketing products; it is all there.

I've found contract work through Linked in, plus my previous and current job.

[ian]

Yeah, LinkedIn still a (very big) thing, though I'll say the quality of the applicants we raise through it is at the very shit end of very variable. Read the fucking job description. Here's a handy way to compose your own posts.

It's more useful for professional stalking, figuring out who's who in the competitors, so we can try to steal them. Honestly, we have a hard time with open applications, if you need to fill a role, go find them. Unfortunately, I have five roles open at the moment so I'll be reading CVs until the end of time. Fortunately, I only have to do the final interviews.

[Wombat]

Surely time they rebranded as Lulea Stockholm, if not Lulea London!

except Stockholm's airport is Arlanda... (yes, I've been there several times.)

and as everybody knows, LLA is the code for Llanfair Caereinion railway station.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yes, the point was rather that it's nowhere near either Stockholm or London.

[TheLurker]

...LinkedIn is bigger than ever

Yeah, LinkedIn still a (very big) thing...

How depressing.

[mrcharly-YHT]

...LinkedIn is bigger than ever

Yeah, LinkedIn still a (very big) thing...

How depressing.

Why is that depressing?

Via LinkedIn, I'm still in touch with the (ex) managing director of a software firm I worked for 20 years ago. I have no desire to link 'social media' accounts to him, no interest in his family, but it is interesting seeing what he is doing (working on an aerospace communications centre).

Pre-linked-in, I was a member of a usergroup for technical authors on Yahoo (remember yahoo groups?).

What is different (or bad) about Linked In?

[perpetual dan]

...LinkedIn is bigger than ever

Yeah, LinkedIn still a (very big) thing...

How depressing.

Why is that depressing?

Via LinkedIn, I'm still in touch with the (ex) managing director of a software firm I worked for 20 years ago. I have no desire to link 'social media' accounts to him, no interest in his family, but it is interesting seeing what he is doing (working on an aerospace communications centre).

Pre-linked-in, I was a member of a usergroup for technical authors on Yahoo (remember yahoo groups?).

What is different (or bad) about Linked In?

All the recruiters.
Merely existing doesn’t make you someone I know professionally.
If you’re offering me a JavaScript job then I suspect your client is too desperate to be somewhere I want to jump ship to.

But I do like it (as noted above) as a way to keep in touch with ex-colleagues. If I was looking for a job it would be part of my search.

[mrcharly-YHT]

...LinkedIn is bigger than ever

Yeah, LinkedIn still a (very big) thing...

How depressing.

Why is that depressing?

Via LinkedIn, I'm still in touch with the (ex) managing director of a software firm I worked for 20 years ago. I have no desire to link 'social media' accounts to him, no interest in his family, but it is interesting seeing what he is doing (working on an aerospace communications centre).

Pre-linked-in, I was a member of a usergroup for technical authors on Yahoo (remember yahoo groups?).

What is different (or bad) about Linked In?

All the recruiters.
Merely existing doesn’t make you someone I know professionally.
If you’re offering me a JavaScript job then I suspect your client is too desperate to be somewhere I want to jump ship to.

But I do like it (as noted above) as a way to keep in touch with ex-colleagues. If I was looking for a job it would be part of my search.

Not a single one of the jobs I've had (via linked in) involved recruitment agencies.

I've either been searching (and found the job listed on there) or been contacted directly.

It's much better than JobServe. (anyone remember JobServe?)

[ian]

I don't mind LinkedIn, it keeps my professional life distinct from other social media. Yes, some of the posts are toe-curling, but mostly it's a resource for finding people. Professional stalking I call it. It also satisfies those idle 'I wonder what they're doing now' queries about former colleagues and associates (and exes).

Yeah, I get a lot of recruiters contacting me to sell me candidates, but you can (and I do) ignore them. I get a lot of people offering me jobs (or at the least the opportunity to apply for them, some on target, some off). The quality of CVs we get via LinkedIn are variable, it does get a backwash of keyword-based applications, but I work in a field where direct recruitment is a far better option, so LinkedIn is a good resource for finding who's who, and who works in similar teams for our competitors, so we can sic the 'talent acquisition' (HR is always going to HR) on them.

[perpetual dan]

...LinkedIn is bigger than ever

Yeah, LinkedIn still a (very big) thing...

How depressing.

Why is that depressing?

Via LinkedIn, I'm still in touch with the (ex) managing director of a software firm I worked for 20 years ago. I have no desire to link 'social media' accounts to him, no interest in his family, but it is interesting seeing what he is doing (working on an aerospace communications centre).

Pre-linked-in, I was a member of a usergroup for technical authors on Yahoo (remember yahoo groups?).

What is different (or bad) about Linked In?

All the recruiters.
Merely existing doesn’t make you someone I know professionally.
If you’re offering me a JavaScript job then I suspect your client is too desperate to be somewhere I want to jump ship to.

But I do like it (as noted above) as a way to keep in touch with ex-colleagues. If I was looking for a job it would be part of my search.

Not a single one of the jobs I've had (via linked in) involved recruitment agencies.

I've either been searching (and found the job listed on there) or been contacted directly.

It's much better than JobServe. (anyone remember JobServe?)

Oh for sure, it's useful.
It's just that (in comparison to a special interest group) i get a lot of recruitment spam and connection requests from recruiters that i have no connection with. It makes spotting useful interactions harder.

[Wombat]

Yes, the point was rather that it's nowhere near either Stockholm or London.

I didn't have a clue where Lulea was!  I couldn't be arsed to check, so assumed it was a Swedish regional airport.  For all I know, it might be on Christmas Island, or Easter Island, or second Sunday in Ascension Island.

I thought it might be more likely I'd get a lippy comment that there isn't a railway station in Llanfair Caereinion, but I'll be working there tomorrow, so there is, so there!

[TheLurker]

...LinkedIn is bigger than ever

Yeah, LinkedIn still a (very big) thing...

How depressing.

Why is that depressing?

What is different (or bad) about Linked In?

From the very brief time that I was signed up a long time ago the volume of utterly, utterly, *utterly* irrelevant spam from slave traders and requests to be "fiends"*.  I wasn't that impressed by the turgid and vainglorious boasting that seemed to constitute most profiles either.  So, if Linked-In is currently the best bet for finding new work the prospect of having to sign up there is too, too depressing for m'dear.  There are other reasons as well, but they are purely commercial in nature.

As for keeping in touch with ex-colleagues. There is the wonderful invention called e-mail or even, if they hang out on the same forums as oneself, the personal message.

Yeah I remember yahoo groups,  aren't we old?

*Or whatever the LI terminology was/is.

[ian]

You are just jealous that I have 794 followers.

Never make the mistake of setting your profile to 'hiring' though, I swear the entire population of India contacted me in a single afternoon.

Seriously people, hounding me personally will not gain you my favour in the hiring process (I'm not even the hiring manager for any of these roles).

[hellymedic]

D has optician's appointment at 16.30 today. Shop is about 400m hence.
Sets off on foot at 16.20.
Phone call from opticians at 16.22, wanting him...

[ian]

Leisure centre provider, if the pool is now open because you fixed it, maybe you could take the message off your website that it's closed, and maybe post a note to the effect that has reopened in any of your social media channels. That way I wouldn't have to randomly find out about it from someone who managed to evade your answering machine.

Hopefully be a quiet session though.

[Beardy]

I’m going to have to venture to the supermarket for provisions tomorrow because the damn place will be closed and popping out to get ‘things we have forgotten’ will not be an option.