Tech newby Chris
Ten years ago when I started my tech career I scoured the internet for advice. I was excited at the prospect and potential of my new career, I wanted to optimize everything I had control over. I was obsessed with success, I had to achieve it. Somehow…but how?
The LinkedIn fantasy
During one of my late-night sessions, searching sites for advice I came across a string of related posts on Reddit describing LinkedIn. At first, I didn’t pay much attention. It’s the internet, after all, everything with a grain right? But I kept finding posts like the one below. I mean…with people bragging about how they have lined up a decade’s worth of work from one website…yeah, let’s check this out!
I jumped in headfirst. I built the most amazing profile anyone had seen. Real profile picture? Yep! That was replaced within a year with a professionally taken headshot (I didn’t pay for it, so it’s less cringe right?). I was hitting up current and former co-workers for endorsements, which I received quid pro quo of course. According to LinkedIn, my profile was pretty good (actually I think it was Bitchin’). I even went so far as to get a guy on Fiverr to optimize my descriptions, summaries, et al. If some are good, more is better right?
At this point, I was projecting the look of a modern professional. Now, time to sit back and network with my fellow professionals.
The LinkedIn reality
Instead, I am welcomed with an onslaught of recruiter spam. For those lucky few who have not heard of recruiter spam, it is the torrential flow of DMs called “InMail” that recruiters send to nearly anyone with a pulse on LinkedIn.
The flattery turns into a chore real quick. I felt a sense of duty to respond to these fellow humans, letting them know “thanks but no thanks”. Sometimes they don’t take a discreet approach and instead tag you in a post. This could be a little unnerving if your employer is overzealous and starts wondering “Why is Chris getting tagged by recruiters?”.
Recruiters are the bain of LinkedIn’s existence, which has been established. So why else does LinkedIn suck for most professionals?
LinkedIn opsec & privacy problems
First, simply existing on LinkedIn with a standard profile is terrible operational security and you're disclosing a ton of information to the world. While this oversharing isn’t unique to LinkedIn, the type of oversharing is. I have seen people disclose very sensitive details about plans, technology woes, and questionable business practices. If you want to brag to the world about how awesome your trip in Thailand is going while your neighbors throw a pool party, IN YOUR POOL, that’s cool. But don’t spill the beans on your employer’s lackluster tech or business processes.
LinkedIn’s paywall
The internet is a beautiful place, most of the time. People can freely interact with each other through email, creative types can produce content and share it with an audience for marginal costs (time) and on most social media sites you can send a message to someone pretty easily.
LinkedIn however has this funny paywall where it locks up things like your profile viewer history, prioritizes your profile in recruiter (uh!) search results, and gives you direct access to “hiring manager” inboxes. Most of the time these hiring managers are just frontline recruiters, so congrats - you paid to talk to a recruiter.
LinkedIn’s real problem
I alluded to the real issue with LinkedIn in my description of the “fantasy” above. LinkedIn suggests that by building out a complete profile, with real headshots, accurate skill descriptions, and employment background you will be able to network and find opportunities. In theory, this sounds great.
In practice, it falls flat on its face. Over the course of ten years in tech, I have had several interviews. I used to get asked for my LinkedIn profile and I would gladly volunteer it. And why not, it’s loaded with everything an employer would want to know about me right? My employment background, my skills, my interests, my personality? Wrong. Recruiters and hiring managers would review my profile, then (figuratively) in their next breath ask me about what is in the profile.
Let’s see if you can spot the PROBLEM:
- “Hey I see you have Fortinet’s NSE7 certificate, that’s awesome!” … “So what is it?”.
- “Tell me about your time working at _________.”
- “You have experience with ________ technology, I have heard it’s tricky to figure out…can you tell me what you did with it?”
- “Are you able to talk to non-technical people about deeply technical topics?”
Your LinkedIn profile is a shallow description of what you think is the best part of you. This is flawed! At best, one of the bullet points in your profile might lead to a click into a blog post you made or a video you shared once. This will give a little more insight into the true depth of your skill or personality, but it’s not enough.
Alright, I am done beating on LinkedIn. It’s been a long time coming and I might have overdone it. I am sorry LinkedIn.
The solution: YouTube
Remember how I started this rant, about searching for ways to optimize my journey into tech? Well, it doesn’t end once the journey into tech has ended. It continues, through the entire journey in tech. I felt the truths described above about LinkedIn for years, but never paid much attention to them. I mean everyone else is on it, so it must just be me….
If you're using LinkedIn as a means to demonstrate your expertise, skills, and most importantly the things that are unique about you (which we should all be striving to do!) then you must start creating content on YouTube. (Check out this old YT logo!)
If your still here reading, wow…you deserve this. I’ll just get right to it.
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Permanent clarity. You can forever document the true depth of your technical skills AND your personality in a video. This is my number one reason why YouTube is better than LinkedIn. It is fun too! There are a bunch of people who have spent hours building blogs and videos explaining why you should make content for YouTube, so I won’t do that here. Just take my word for it, or don’t and read all those blogs and videos. Either way, go! Get going! Start now!
If the thought of starting from scratch to build a YouTube channel is just too much right now, head on over to Fiverr and find someone there that will put together a professional-looking YouTube “kit” that will do all the hard work for $20-$30 USD.
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No paywall! There is no paywall, plain and simple. Hell, it’s the opposite. If you do well on YouTube you can “monetize” your content and YouTube will pay YOU!
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Better opsec & privacy.
Although you can limit the info you share on LinkedIn, it’s built differently. It encourages you at almost every turn to share your professional experiences, thoughts, and opinions.
On YouTube, it is MUCH easier to control the info you share and abstract your experiences into general ideas.
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Zero spam. Say goodbye to recruiter spam. It doesn’t exist here!
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Better control over your brand. You are a professional in some field, you have a brand. What’s that “I don’t have a brand, trust me!” - Yes, even you have a brand! Everyone has one, some are just ignored while others are built and promoted.
Start building your brand through intentional acts. Take an active role in your brand design! YouTube hands down has better “branding” capabilities than LinkedIn. From the concept of a “Channel” down to the nuances of the comment system on your videos - it’s built better!
What are you still doing here! Go!
I know you have a webcam just sitting there. Put it to good use. If the thought of getting on camera is too daunting, you can go the “no-face” YouTube route and record your screen while you do a voice-over. There are no excuses, just get started already!