Is LinkedIn a necessity in this day and age?

The creators of LinkedIn are known for their scummy business practices, and they have unfortunately succeeded in making their service ubiquitous enough that hiring companies have begun wondering what's "wrong" with people who don't have one. And so more people create an account our of fear, and the people who don't have one seem even more "weird." It's an ugly phenomenon, far worse than other social media which is usually just for fun. LinkedIn blackmails people for their livelihood, and blatantly encourages discrimination by the attaching of photos, etc. of job applicants. It's a mostly useless service and the people behind it are trash. That said, I have a token account.

Do you think that this type of networking is a necessity in order to stay competitive in this era's job market? LinkedIn is not "networking" so much as "making your resume available." If you're serious enough about jobhunting that you have retained a career counselor to help you out with it, then having a LinkedIn account is probably something you should be doing. I also found that the job listings on LinkedIn were superior to the sort of thing that I would find on monster.com. It's not so much "social media", IMHO. It's not about being social so much as a professional's tool. That said, it's more for people with office jobs or the self employed.

Sorry I don't have the link - but I read recently that something like 90% of employers are checking your Linkedin page before hiring. I believe it. In fact, when I do a quick search on a candidate and turn up nothing on LinkedIn, it raises red flags. Please consider: there could be a hiring manager out there who thinks like you do, valuing close personal relationships, who will be relieved to find someone like you who doesn't use LinkedIn. I think that's pretty unlikely.

As others have mentioned, you can have a placeholder kind of account on LinkedIn. Recruiters do scour the site and real action is found in the moderated forums. LinkedIn has started being kind of spammy so do NOT give them your address book or access to any of your other apps. I simply established the general resume points. You want to show that you are cognizant about your online presence and social media BUT choose to be conservative and discrete. There is no shame in that at all. It is a tool that is handy for research but like anything needs to be carefully used.

I had a career counselor once tell me that I needed to get a twitter account and model my twitter self after Alyssa Milano because she was really good at personal marketing. (I also had 4 different career counselors tell me there was only One True Resume style, and that mine was terrible and had to be completely reworked. Note that these were 4 different people with 4 different ideas about what the resume should look like.) So, take the advice you think will work for you and disregard the advice that doesn't. I got a job without a twitter (or linkedin, incidentally) and by reverting my resume to the original one I had before getting it tweaked by a bunch of different bullshit artists. YMMV.

My career counselor says that I am shooting myself in the foot if I don't begin to use it. If you are in the corporate sector, I would agree with this. My partner is a recruiter - someone without a linkedin profile means questions about them can't be answered without an interview, and there are lots of other candidates with linkedIn profiles, so she can filter before the interview process. Wouldn't always be a deal-breaker, but raises questions, as generally people without a LinkedIn profile are either a) Old and kinda clueless when it comes to basic IT literacy, or b) Have something to hide about their employment records. People like you, who just don't like it, are an ever-shrinking group.

I am an IT consultant for 25 years. I'm an introvert too. I wouldn't go near Linkedin. I have an account with nothing on it. It is a giant privacy/data collection, annoyance machine. As one replied, "Think of LinkedIn as the electronic version of your resume." and for some unknown reason I don't want the whole world to see my resume.

Other things to consider: 1. First thing I do when scheduled for a job interview is look at the interviewer's background on LinkedIn. Looking for shared connections/interests and discussing them in an interview is really helpful. 2. I personally like the updates when my former coworkers find a new job. I find the names of their new employers interesting. 3. It is also a handy tool for reaching out to former coworkers long after you've lost their original email addresses are gone. People will get back to you.

I hate Facebook but I'm on LinkedIn. It helps me connect to other people in my field and serves as an online resume. You can lock it down, but unlike Facebook they don't change the privacy settings every three months to be completely useless.