Would you believe that the ridiculous situation of Linkedin these days has a link to the understanding of global economy? I think most of you have been visited the platform called Linkedin once or more, which is a connection medium for workers and employers. I will first briefly talk about what it is. Then i will briefly mention the problems there. I will keep these short because the main thing i want to talk about is this: Why did Linkedin become the way it is today and how can we fix it? I have some ideas and unpleasant analysis.
Linkedin is an online platform where companies and laborers are using to find each other since 2003. It also lets people to connect each other and share their opinions or vision about business world. There are alternatives to Linkedin like Indeed or Glassdoor or probably your local websites. But due to its capabilities and popularity, it became the number 1 address when we try to find a job. Companies are presenting themselves, posting job opportunities, people can find jobs that they can qualify, companies that can hire them, or workers in specific companies. So far so good.
Globalization sped up drastically with the internet. The number of workers and companies exploded recently. Then the companies started to race to get the best and most optimal candidate for the jobs. But they didn't race to become the best and most optimal work environments, they just prioritized growth. Rivalry fueled and there has a new motto emerged: Networking and fancy words became dominant.
Those companies, who are not even much good at what they are doing, started employing the candidates with the strongest networks or who are polishing themselves to look more than what they are. On the other hand, years passed and the managers who are lagging behind this century kept rising in the ladders. At some point, we started thinking that "talent" became irrelevant.
Also, the seek for the best optimal candidate has given rise to a new and despicable behaviour. They started posting fake jobs. There used to be specific web pages of corporate companies to collect resumes, they used to take time for this. People used to drop their resume there just to notify them that they exist. But we knew that was not a job posting. Now the so called big companies are re-posting the same jobs over and over again and tricking job seekers that there are actual jobs. This started wasting peoples time and hopes. On the other hand, we have the ghosting job posts, where you get absolutely no response from. I mean i wonder, what those human resources personnel are doing who are taking time to re-post the same jobs.
You would notice that the platform itself is not that much responsible or guilty. But recently, the term Algorithms is storming over the internet. And linkedin started bringing the most interactive loud posts or the ones that people think as success to front. It used to be a medium where people can share their vision about the business life, now i became some sort of a fake social media where people pampering themselves. Some says Linkedin became the Instagram of the business.
There were also mistakes of job seekers. People started giving out the vibe that everything is ok and shiny. For example, a developer who is working on 20 years old code called himself as a rocket developer, instead of pointing out the elephant in the room. Some people started making up titles to make it look like they have some passion. Like people person, ninja developer or inspiration architect...
To summarize, Linked became the website where we integrate "fake it till you make it" into business environment, instead of being a talent pool and vision sharing platform. There are not much alternatives to Linkedin as talent pool. Actually we don't need alternatives to it. It would not make it easier for us. Also, the alternatives are usually profession specific. I don't know where people look for job, other than my area, software engineering. But on the outside world of Linkedin, the situation is a disaster. People expect you to pass the tests of Hackerrank or Leetcode, which doesn't even measure anything.
As a person who has been using Linkedin for years now, i can see that the website itself didn't make much mistakes. Its algorithm is a bit bad these days. But when it comes to finding a job or a company or a person, it is mainly useful. It is company's responsibility to post real jobs or evaluate the applications. And it is workers' responsibility to bring up the reality instead of creating sensation. But i guess people are afraid that employers would see their Linkedin posts and reject them. Then you sweep dust under the rug, problems accumulate and things continue getting worse.
I said there is a link between the state of Linkedin and the understanding of world economy. Economy means producing, working and spending effort. We are only diminishing the value of talent when we only look for the tricky was of everything and we try to make easy money. And as long as the economy of the world keeps exploiting labor and handling things with shortcuts or wiliness, Linkedin can't be fixed.
I can't have much proposals about what to do. Because first we need to learn to respect knowledge, labor and talent. Then we need to make sure these get their deserved share. Then we need to give up fakeness and lies. But the world is moving the opposite way. I agree that there are lots of workers and lots of employers out there. This situation is creating disadvantage for both sides but we can solve this on Linkedin. First we need to change the order of the world where people who are willing to work and get paid are unable to make a living. You companies, you can at least do some good for others by mentioning that you are collecting resumes when you post jobs over and over. You can also share this post on Linkedin. See you at the next post.
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