If you’re on Linked In, what’s your rule for accepting invitations to connect?
A business person I respect once advised me to accept all invitations because, he says, Linked In operates like a giant networking event. Refusing to connect would be like turning your back on someone as they approached to introduce themselves. Lately, I’m not so sure his assessment fits anymore.
Linked In is supposed to be a business setting, but increasingly, it’s turning into a social venue. People post profile photos of themselves on vacation or at a party instead of in a professional pose. Some of the postings lean more toward dating advice than finding a job or increasing sales prospects. Some of the people who have sent me invitations to link look a little sketchy. One guy’s info seems legit but his photo is just two young women smiling into the camera. His daughters? Maybe, but it’s still odd. Several are in other languages so I’m not sure what they do. One claims to be active in the Second World War. Not a former fighter pilot and bomber mechanic, but a current one. His profile picture is blurry.
Maybe these folks mean well and are genuinely looking for a link but I can’t see an advantage to approving them. Some of my links have been helpful. Linked In is where I found the guy who converts Word documents into EPub, the pain-in-the-butt format necessary to publish an eBook. Plenty of voice-over professionals post to various groups and we help each other solve problems. I’ve reconnected with former colleagues and read some fascinating perspectives because I follow accomplished people like Sir Richard Branson and Seth Godin. But is it, indeed, changing? I wonder if anyone else is sensing the shift in usage that I’m seeing, and what your own rules are for deciding whether to click the checkmark or the X when someone tries to link with you.
Social media sites such as Linked In were designed with good intentions and can offer value when trying to connect or reconnect with other professionals. However these good intentions are based on the lowest common denominator, Humans who over time will distort and undermine the good intentions. If your a job seeker, a Linked In profile can help you get that job, who you like and associate with and their posts will lose you that job. Screen your Linked In request as you would any friendship and be as quick to delete those likes as quickly when they fall below your threshold of acceptability. And don’t feel guilty if you don’t accept a request, I get them all the time and I ignore them since I don’t have a Linked In account due to its lack of accessibility.
LinkedIn strongly recommends “that you only accept invitations to connect from people you know.” (https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/1303?query=who%20should%20i%20invite) Very few follow that advice which makes the whole system somewhat useless for its originally stated purpose. I try to follow this rule but even then I get people endorsing me for subjects I know nothing about. Any employer who would base his hiring decision on “facts” found on LinkedIn (or any other social media site) is a fool.
The dodgy requests are probably from people that are looking for lonely women that will eventually be persuaded to hand over large sums of money for various reasons. I’ve had a few friend requests on Facebook like that. They are always widowed, living overseas, with the military. Cyberland is a creepy place sometimes.