This is a continuation of my last post about LinkedIn. TL;DR: LinkedIn is an essential tool for software engineers, but not all features are worth your time. While LinkedIn is great at placing your profile in front of recruiters, it also doubles as a job board. The big question is: how effective is the job board functionality for applicants looking to land a SWE role?
The good: research phase
LinkedIn offers some undeniable advantages for job seekers and I have personally found it very useful for the following 3 reasons:
1. Discover local employers
LinkedIn’s search functionality makes it easy to explore employers in a specific area. This is awesome for understanding the local job market if you’re new to the area or evaluating a potential location for a relocation.
I have used this feature extensively when considering a city / state for relocation. What I’ve found is that certain tech stacks are favored by different industries and different industries tend to cluster in different locations. This is something I will discuss in more detail in another blog post 🙂.
2. Research and network: who works there?
As you browse job postings, take note of any connections, alumni, or others with shared backgrounds who work at the company you’re interested in applying to. In my experience, people with shared background are most likely to help you out with the job search. Use this feature to reach out and ask questions / request a referral.
This has been my go-to method for finding referrals in the past unless I already knew someone directly (rare).
3. URL trickery
If you’re already a LinkedIn user, you’ve probably noticed the discouraging “Over 100 potential applicants” message 😥. I definitely did and felt discouraged.
My next thought was to sign up for an email alert to get fresh job postings right in my inbox.
This also doesn’t work (at least for me) because it’s still too late by the time it hits your inbox and you actually find the time to review the postings. I want to caution you not to over-rely on LinkedIn job board for the most up-to-date postings (more on that below 👇). But if you insist on using LinkedIn to find the latest job postings, you can edit the URL directly to get the results you want:
First, filter the results by the date posted:
Notice that we have a new parameter in the URL:
Note: this only works in the web browser. I have not found a way to do this in the LinkedIn app.
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search/?currentJobId=4081330258&f_TPR=r86400&geoId=103644278&keywords=software%20engineer&origin=JOB_SEARCH_PAGE_JOB_FILTER&refresh=true86400 seconds is 24 hours. Lower this value to obtain the most recent results. For example, to get postings from the last hour, the value should be 3600:
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search/?currentJobId=4081330258&f_TPR=r3600&geoId=103644278&keywords=software%20engineer&origin=JOB_SEARCH_PAGE_JOB_FILTER&refresh=true
The bad: LinkedIn is not your last stop
Large companies already have their own applicant tracking systems (ATS) and LinkedIn is only part of their recruiting efforts. Some may not even check the LinkedIn applications at all 😲 (I couldn’t find the source at the moment, but if I find it, I will update this blog post). As a result I do not recommend applying to jobs directly on LinkedIn.
The “Easy Apply” button has worked out for me exactly 0 times in the past. I always find the role directly on the company’s website and apply there instead. You should do the same.
Once you have mapped out the companies in your area, just bookmark their careers pages and check that (or sign up for alerts) instead of using LinkedIn. That way you don’t end up looking at stale posting on LinkedIn. Sometimes companies will close out a vacancy but will forget to remove the job posting on LinkedIn 😐.
Bottom line is: always apply directly on company’s website.
The ugly: don’t get scammed
Unfortunately, LinkedIn’s job board also has its darker side:
Scams and data mining exist on LinkedIn
Scams and suspicious postings are not uncommon. Some listings may exist purely to harvest your personal information. Be cautious and do your homework before applying:
- Who from your network works there?
- Does the company have a careers page on their website with this exact job posted?
- What else can you find out about the company?
- Append “Reddit” to your Google search query and see if anything interesting comes up.
Not every job posting on LinkedIn is legitimate or well-maintained. If something feels off, take the time to verify the listing through the company’s official website or by contacting someone who works there.
Sketchy recruiting agencies
Be vary of sketchy recruiting agencies that may contact you directly on LinkedIn. They may pretend to have a perfect role for you and will ask you for your resume. Then they will ask you a bunch of questions about your current role, where you’re applying to, and who you’re interviewing with. If they are pushy and insist on your response: it is a red flag 🟥.
Once you give them the information they are looking for, they will likely ghost you (the role they promised doesn’t exist) and send hot leads directly to the hiring manager at the company with which you’re already interviewing. Let me know if you want me to write another post specifically about this.
Just to be clear: not all recruiting agencies are bad, but please do your research and do not reveal too much information to anyone reaching out to you on LinkedIn.
