Why I deleted my LinkedIn profile.
I deleted my LinkedIn profile about three months ago. I haven't for one moment regretted that decision. Why did I do it?
I can't even remember setting up my LinkedIn profile. I think it was through someone sending me an email saying that they wanted to 'connect' I blindly set up my profile and filled in the details as requested. I already had a fair few of connections when I signed up through the 'people you may know' tool.
Being a designer, it's common place to have your work on various platforms on the web. You'll have your own portfolio site, a profile on an established portfolio site such as Dribbble or Behance, and maybe a profile on a critique site or other social site. I did fall into the pitfall of trying to make sure that I had ever social base covered. As soon as there was a new site or trend, I wanted to make sure that I was signed up for it.
This can be detrimental in a few ways. Unless you have 25 hours in your working day, I don't think that you can keep on top of all the sites that you are signed up to. I've signed up to a fair few sites. I've uploaded some work and then after a week, I've clean forgotten about the site. What remains is, at best, shards of work scattered over the internet.
The exact same principle applies to social media sites. If you sign up to all of the new sites, you'll be hard pressed to fill them all with relevant, engaging content. People will see that you have your name on various platforms, and if you have half completed profiles on various sites, it doesn't reflect well.
That leads onto the reason that I deleted my LinkedIn. It was a site that I didn't have any time for. It didn't give me anything in return. If anything, it infuriated me. People prophsise about the 'work' that they've done. I would be willing to put my neck on the line and go as far as saying that 50% of people would fabricate either their work experience or position at work.
LinkedIn is a place that swarms with recruiters. Recruiters, in my opinion, never seem to aid designers. From what I've seen on Twitter and other sites, there are only ever disgruntled comments about them, why I would want to be on a site, and connected to them, furthers my argument for not being on LinkedIn. If my skills were noticeable, then you shouldn't need LinkedIn to connect with me.
pixelskylines
areudirty
theartofmadeline
romaincrisis