There’s an odd thing I’ve noticed about LinkedIn. As it gets more and more ubiquitous, I have more and more connections to people who I work with. Well, this makes sense — that’s part of the purpose, connecting (and therefore, staying connected in the future) with the people you know, and who know you. Being connected to those who’ve worked with you just makes sense.
What’s odd is, as this occurs, people are invariably connected to their supervisors, and to their supervisor’s supervisor, and so on. I know, that’s still not odd, except:
I think I have yet to see a LinkedIn profile that doesn’t have one or more of:
- career opportunities
- consulting offers
- new ventures
- job inquiries
listed in the “interested In” category.
Just find this strange because usually, at least in North America, one does not advertise to one’s managers that one is interested in leaving the company.
Granted, it’s also assumed in North America that people will take the best opportunity available, so there is the unspoken assumption that everyone is open to a better offer, if it comes along. Also, since basically everyone includes those points, they eventually become unremarkable.
Has anyone else ever found this strange?
I thought that idea had died out. Working for the same company your entire life.
Well, yes, I think it has. And of course, everyone is open to a better opportunity, provided it’s good enough.
LinkedIn just makes incredibly transparent something that might normally hardly be discussed… at least, probably not with your direct supervisors.
I think at the point where everyone at my company says they are interested in employment elsewhere, nobody is standing out. Everybody would bail on their job for something better, it’s a question of better.
Also, my management is delusional in thinking there isn’t anything better out there. *grin*
Management always wants to think that. ;-)
And really, at any company worth working for, they should think that; just like the best salespeople only sell products they really believe in, etc, etc.
Of course, in the real world… yeah, sometimes that’s delusional.
I don’t really think that people think much about their contact settings - I know I don’t.
Having just checked my entire team on LinkedIn, some seem to have career opportunity, almost all have job inquiry and a few have nothing at all in their contact details.
Afterthought: I think what’s MORE interesting is that people don’t seem to have trouble adding recruiters to their network.
If you’re connected to your manager and you connect to recruiters, your manager will see when you connect to those people.
Now THAT I think is worth discussing, because it doesn’t just reflect a general mindset - it reflects current actions and behaviour!