As someone currently unemployed, does anyone have any tips for finding jobs not through LinkedIn?
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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Privacy
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There are many platforms, I would search for those specific to your area of expertise
My university has a job board but it's shit
I was already pretty low in my estimation of LinkedIn, but this post gave me a little push to decide to close the account.
On today's episode of "How can a a company be this extremely fucking incompetent?"
Genuine question, what's the privacy respecting alternative?
Like don't ask for the passport?
It is a website, this info is not needed at this stage
I meant as a platform. Because Microsoft barely ever listens
They did the same shit to me. I refused and pestered them with numerous e-mails demanding them to just delete my account instead of reopening it. Finding a link to their contact form was a nightmare (it's hidden all the way at the bottom of their privacy policy). I also emailed legal@linkedin.com, dpo@linkedin.com, helpdesk@linkedin.com, support@linkedin.com and a number of other generic addresses just to be sure they would receive something.
I got three LLM sounding replies where they asked me to follow a link to verify my identity with a government issued identity document, but after a couple more e-mails where I wrote that providing Persona or LinkedIn with my identity documents is against my personal security policy, they just caved and reopened my account calling it a "temporary measure to protect my account". Set a new password, logged in and deleted my account immediately. Good riddance.
TBH I'm impressed you got that far. I'd have thought they would 100% stonewall you.
Good riddance for sure. That co has a long history of being sleazeweasels.
Thanks for this post. Saving it in case I ever need it.
You have the option to stop using LinkedIn altogether.
There was a time when it was useful, then it started harvesting data and accessing your contacts without your permission, then Microsoft bought it, then it became an influencer swamp, then it demanded that you turn off 50+ individual permissions hidden away in a deep preferences hierarchy, then it opted you in to feed the Assumed Intelligence black hole, which is where I opted out and stopped using it.
Job search has always been a joke, recommendations absurd, direct applications ignored and non-existent filters to make job search relevant.
In other words, do yourself a favour and leave.
I wish you were righr, as I fully agree with your sentiment, however:
Employmemt agencies in multiple European countries will force you to maintain a LinkedIn account or they will cut your unemployment benefits.
That's outrageous!
Can I ask you which countries? I can see mandating an active job search, but picking which website you have to use seems like the kind of stuff that could be taken to court.
And LinkedIn is just about the worst possible pick...
I've experienced it myself in Switzerland and when I complained about it on reddit multiple people from the Netherlands and Nordic countries had similar experiences. Not sure about Germany anymore, but I believe people there sucessfully fought against it.
I wonder how popular the idea is now to require all your details and personal information given to one of the fascist US regimes largest companies.
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Sounds like an anti-trust case waiting to happen
I hear you, but leave to where? Are we being expelled from society for not accepting this bullyish control.
And we are leaving behind the masses, the society that cannot find alternatives and will continue there and give them their information, if just 50% of the people do that, it is a huge success for them.
We have to think how to reclaim these spaces, otherwise we are just running away and losing the cultural war
While I understand your point, before I left LinkedIn I spent several years looking for work, nothing changed after leaving, other than not having to deal with the "offers" from "agents" who didn't reply, let alone look at my experience before making a stupid "job offer" in exchange for my contacts.
Leaving LinkedIn increased my quality of life significantly, even though I'm still looking for work.
I don't think it's possible to reclaim LinkedIn. It's not exactly a democratic platform and I doubt user outrage will change anything unless their user attrition rate goes through the roof. They can just tweak their algorithms, mute or limit the reach of users to hide discontent from others too. Better to just leave and try to get #fedihired instead.
this spaces should be public, with twitter also, it is like making the village square private.
a public linkedin should be next, same as a public twitter, in the direction of Mastodon, but it needs to increase in legitimacy
Are we being expelled from society for not accepting this bullyish control.
TBH I feel that is a really important point.
OK, fine, Linkedin, most ppl can just leave it. We managed before it existed, we'll manage without it. But your point is bigger than Linkedin. It's like a cancer. It spreads everywhere. It comes for things we all want or need to do. For the basic elements of living in the modern world.
I feel your pain man. But IDK what to do. Except keep fighting the good fight. It feels like trying to hold back the tide.
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But then what's the solution? How do you find jobs without LinkedIn? The corporation hell prefers "efficiency", they'll always prefer these centralized solutions to find workers.
I have no evidence that LinkedIn provides work, I attempted to use it for several years to find work and was entirely unsuccessful.
Among the quagmire I left, all I saw was Assumed Intelligence slop and bots attempting to harvest contacts.
There was a time when LinkedIn was useful as a tool to grow and interact with your network, these days it's Xitter with more characters.
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Conclusion: Linkedin is malware.
Always has been.
And nothing of value was lost.
I guess I can understand some people rely on it for work (I have yet to meet anyone who actually got a job through it tho).
But aside from that, what are you missing out on?
A bunch of people pretending to be edgy by bending over for corporate life. “Please steal more of my private time mister capitalism sir”. (Not to mention the data mining)
You don’t wanna be part of that. Have a job and excell at it, but don’t do the whole “can I have another lemon please?” thing. That’s disgusting.
Linked In is extremely useful for open source intelligence.
Keep getting hung up on or sent in loops by the automated phone system? Find the engineer at the company on linked in and email them directly
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FWIW. I have defeated live cam with subtle random movement with an AI generated face video looking straight ahead with slight movement, blinking, slightly wider sho (a little random movement was sufficient). I served this back through OBS (Open Broadcast Studio).
But it’s fucked that we need to resort to tricks.
That's the worst part, their justification for more information to make one safer doesn't even work.
For-profit security theater.
I think it’s worse than security theatre. I am not usually a tin foil hatter, but im convinced tech isn’t fighting back on this because it’s a great opportunity to hone in that personal advertising.
Notice how they push back on EVERY legislative move or new regulation. But, suddenly now that the same tech can help them out, crickets… ?
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I'm running into the ID verification problem too! I uninstalled the app and when I reinstalled, I couldn't find my 2FA code in Microsoft Authenticator. Now I need to submit my government ID and do the face scan stuff.
I'm very much against all the ID verification stuff as of late, for the same reason you state.. I asked a friend to give me a PDF export of my profile and I'll maybe come back when the ID verification requirement changes.
They did you a favor. Stop using that crap.
Can we all just agree to adopt a new open source option? That is the only way companies will find us for next jobs. They unfortunately contacted me using LinkedIn in my last 2 jobs so, it is impractical to leave without having a replacement.
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Same bullshit happened to me when they froze my account after their AI bot flagged me with on false positive for "discrimination" (I'd posted a job with a legitimate language requirement).
They then made me go through some humiliating ritual of having to write them an email with a written promise that I wouldn't break any discrimination rules, which I hadn't done to begin with, but the support clown wouldn't reinstate my account until I'd done their specified grovelling.
Why did you not refuse and find a new place to do business that doesn't use computer programs to police their sites?
If you're a salaried employee who isn't currently looking for work then this might be an option. If you're a consultant who relies on networking then LinkedIn has a near-monopoly. If you're not on it then potential clients will assume there's something wrong.
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Why would anyone want back in? Linkedin is a data harvesting tool disguised as a business site that acts like Facebook.
As awful and shit as it is, it's still what you gotta put up with if you want to get hired...
The job postings don't work anymore, and sending applications is a waste of time, but the last 2-3 jobs I've gotten were because a recruiter found me on LinkedIn and messaged me...
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They accept written/scanned proof of identity signed by a municipal office (german here). Basically, show your ID to an official and haven them sign a paper to proof your identity. Also, a friend told me, a LinkedIn Support Member may neither have capacity nor skill to validate a foreign documents authenticity.
Which country should I change my location to, which provides the best consumer protection and doesn't allow companies to demand my KYC documents?
Unironically, North Korea
you can close your social media accounts before or after you get locked out
Can’t. They won’t allow me to delete it without verifying my ID with a scan of my face and DL.
so the only option at the moment is to abandon the account and not log in ever again
That’s correct
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This is what laws forbidding the youth from social media gets you. How many of you supported these laws based on the cynical arguments of tech and government that want to lock down the internet?
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