So yesterday, after some consideration, I canceled my Linked Out account.
Linked Out, for those that may not know, is the (currently) largest InterWeb connection sight for career minded folk - a sort of Facetome without the social side (mostly). People post their career profiles, news gets exchanged, press releases get released, etc. Innocuous, some might think. Certainly a good career move to be there. So why leave?
Three more or less specific reasons:
1) The first goes along with my general move towards decreasing my InterWeb presence. One less place is one less thing for me to worry about, be tracked by, and be followed up on.
2) In terms of usefulness, it was not particularly useful. The job I moved to 2.5 years ago I found myself. 90% of the contacts made are either recruiters or people trying to connect to sell me something
3) I said Linked Out was not social. That is mostly true. What it is, however, is the public sounding board for employment trends and policies, the "vogue" of what is in. Current philosophies and movements (if I am intentionally vague, it is because I try not discuss such things here) are front and center and debate really does not exist - I have almost never seen it. One just simply disappears down the memory hole, having committed the professional equivalent of career suicide by posting (where all folks that hire any more can see) one's own idiot opinion or by not posting on something that "should" have been posted on.
I do not need that kind of stress.
Will my career search suffer? Possibly I suppose, if ever I go to looking again. Certainly I can look forward to not being easily researched for my career and a dearth of people trying to recruit me for jobs that do not exist or professional items I do not need.
I am gambling the peace of mind is worth it.
I repeat - when my boss asked me why I had no social media presence in sinister tones, and I said the same thing as you - his whole attitude changed. I think people respect the idea of a man preferring to spend his time harassing the kids, or playing in the Man Cave or doing chores round the house. Who can’t respect that? Most of them probably want to quit too! There’s also the fact that without a presence, there is absolutely no way he can be compromised by my actions either and that is a good deal for him too.
ReplyDeleteGlen - I do not think that anyone - if they were completely honest - could.
ReplyDeleteI suspect some people - not all perhaps, but many - are on Linked Out because they feel like they have to be for their career, their current job, etc. I again state that the chances of good things coming are slim - it is not even like FaceTome in that it is your friends and family. It is a group of strangers who (more often than not) see you in the value that can add to them or their pocketbook.
I am slowly starting to weed out my presence on the InterWeb. I many not be impossible to find, but I am trying harder to be so.