[HN Gopher] Show HN: LinkedIn sucks, so I built a better one
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Show HN: LinkedIn sucks, so I built a better one
LinkedIn feels more like Facebook every day -- noisy feeds, fake
engagement, and everyone shouting into the void. Thats why I used
to built a personal microsite on Squarespace and uploaded a video
resume to YouTube to stand out - it helped me land interviews and
get into Big Tech. But I always wondered: why isn't there a
platform designed to help you stand out like that? So I built
OpenSpot: a public, curated platform where you can showcase who you
are -- with video, audio, and proof of your work. No endless feeds.
No humblebrags. Just real people open to new opportunities. We've
already onboarded a few companies, so recruiters can reach out to
you directly. But you can also connect with other standout folks
and supercharge your network. Just upload your resume and we'll
automatically generate your profile in under 1 minute. It's early,
but feels like something people actually need. Would love your
thoughts.
Author : fliellerjulian
Score : 111 points
Date : 2025-03-23 18:52 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (heyopenspot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (heyopenspot.com)
| hypebrand wrote:
| Honestly, this looks really cool. LinkedIn has become almost
| unusable for actually finding interesting people or jobs.
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| thanks a lot, really appreciate the feedback! thanks for
| signing up!
| JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote:
| > LinkedIn feels more like Facebook every day
|
| You can also restrict yourself to following friends, and disable
| notifications from people who write too much crap. I do this and
| my feed is acceptable.
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| That's fair, and it definitely helps clean up the feed
| experience.
|
| But the core issue we're trying to solve isn't just the feed --
| it's how hard it is to stand out when applying for jobs.
| Resumes and LinkedIn profiles all start to look the same, and
| you're often just another name in a pile.
|
| From what we've seen so far, people who include short videos or
| unique showcases of their work get 3-5x more interviews.
| drewbitt wrote:
| I still would want to mute terms. I am not going to delete
| current or past coworkers just because they became a LinkedIn
| 'entrepreneur' or into bad AI takes. Baffling that this isn't a
| thing on a site with such blatant post slop
| franceso_ wrote:
| The idea of making your profile feel more like a personal pitch
| makes a ton of sense. Honestly surprised something like this
| doesn't already exist at scale.
| cleung11 wrote:
| agreed. insane how all platform profiles just replicate the
| resume format (which also warrants another discussion)
| markx2 wrote:
| Please be prepared for the onslaught of spam, SEO, porn that is
| most definitely going to happen.
|
| I wish you luck.
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| To clarify: OpenSpot doesn't have a feed, followers, or any
| social mechanics. There's no algorithm pushing content or
| encouraging endless posting.
| markx2 wrote:
| Exclude every search engine?
| ddejohn wrote:
| Then what does "curated platform" mean, exactly?
| fakedang wrote:
| The user curates their profiles?
| davedx wrote:
| I also find LinkedIn spammy and I'm fed up of videos everywhere,
| so for me the answer is definitely not more videos, sorry.
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| Totally get that -- video fatigue is real, especially when it's
| everywhere and often meaningless.
|
| We're not pushing video as a requirement -- it's just one
| option for people who want to show more personality or
| communicate things that don't come across in text. Some folks
| prefer writing, some showcase projects or code -- all of that
| works on OpenSpot.
|
| The idea is to give people more ways to be seen for who they
| are, not force everyone into the same format.
| epolanski wrote:
| You lost me as soon as I saw users can create content.
|
| All platforms become bad as soon as you allow average Joe speak
| his mind.
|
| The only ones that somewhat save themselves are the likes of HN
| and Reddit where it's all about discussing, but users are mostly
| anonymous and not trying to promote their brand.
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| Totally hear you and I agree that most platforms go downhill
| when the focus shifts to likes, followers, and constant
| posting.
|
| To clarify: OpenSpot doesn't have a feed, followers, or any
| social mechanics. There's no algorithm pushing content or
| encouraging endless posting. When we say "create content," we
| mean things like a short video intro, showcasing past work, or
| writing a quick blurb about what makes you unique -- all on
| your profile, not for public engagement farming.
| markx2 wrote:
| > all on your profile, not for public engagement farming.
|
| The spammers, the SEO farmers, the porn merchants won't care.
|
| A link is a link.
|
| I've been tackling spam for 15+ years and you will get hit. I
| wish it were not the case, but it is. Expect it.
| eastbound wrote:
| The opposite of spam is machine-generated content. All
| platforms have it, at least to pretend the platform is not
| empty at the beginning.
| hk__2 wrote:
| > The opposite of spam is machine-generated content.
|
| Spam is not machine-generated content?
| Fuzzwah wrote:
| You might be interested in my next start-up; hand
| crafted, bespoke and artisanal spam as a service.
| fakedang wrote:
| I think you got it wrong. There isn't a feed that people
| can see when they log in. There's just profile pages, like
| walls on Facebook. Someone can see your content if they go
| to your wall, but they won't be fed your content. At least
| that's what I think this concept is.
|
| If it is so, I don't see the problem with that. Sure,
| you'll have the fake-happy and fake-positive content, but
| they'll not be force fed to you.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Yes, he will get hit. At the same time, it's not at all the
| same problem as algorithmic engagement. If someone puts up
| a spam page that I never see, I don't care that much. There
| are also some technical things he can do to reduce e.g. the
| SEO value of any content that is posted on the site like
| nofollow.
| what wrote:
| >nofollow
|
| Most links are nofollow these days. Those still provide
| SEO value. Google will find your site very suspicious if
| your dofollow to nofollow ratio is too high.
| winwang wrote:
| There is always an algorithm, explicit or not, "malicious" or
| not.
|
| For implicit algorithms, outside of the issues/misincentives
| of time-sorted feeds, there's also game theory and behavioral
| economics.
| datadeft wrote:
| Do you think that there is form of communication where you
| reach a higher understanding? Are we average Joes on HN?
| DeepSeaTortoise wrote:
| > All platforms become bad as soon as you allow average Joe
| speak his mind.
|
| Hard disagree on that one. Average Joe is perfectly fine.
|
| But I strongly agree on professional platforms allowing users
| to create content being an incredibly bad idea.
|
| A possibility turns into an obligation for success real quick.
| I have just about 0 interest in creating 10 posts per day to
| game some algorithm into promoting me. And neither would I like
| hiring someone who spends 80% of his time awake trying to game
| some algorithm into enlongating his job title.
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| Yep and that's exactly what we're trying to avoid.
|
| Openspot has no algorithm, no feed, and no pressure to post
| daily. It's not about creating content for engagement -- it's
| about helping people show their real value in a more human
| way than a PDF resume or a keyword-stuffed LinkedIn profile.
|
| You don't need to "game" anything -- a short video intro, a
| demo of your work, or just a few lines about what you're
| great at is often enough to stand out. That's the whole
| point: quality signals over content farming.
| graemep wrote:
| > All platforms become bad as soon as you allow average Joe
| speak his mind.
|
| I do not think that is the big problem. The problem is what
| platforms promote: content that creates engagement.
| winwang wrote:
| Hard to argue against engagment being good overall, but I
| think we need some kind of "regularization".
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| You said two conflicting things. HN and reddit is average Joe
| speaking their mind. The problem is not the average Joe, but
| the influencer culture where users are incentivised to increase
| their numbers.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| You lost me when you said Reddit is a positive example of
| social media.
| lbourdages wrote:
| It used to be, but that ship has sailed a long time ago.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I guess he'd consider Medium to be a behavioral sink too. (I
| had to facepalm when some guy told me I had to get on Medium
| because it was so amazing he got 70 views on an article, I
| had to break it to him that I thought 50,000 views was a lot
| of views [1])
|
| [1] I accomplished that for the first time by writing a news
| article about an event a few months before it happened.
| otterley wrote:
| It depends on the subreddit. Some are dumpster fires; others
| like r/woodworking are lovely.
| adminm wrote:
| > All platforms become bad as soon as you allow average Joe
| speak his mind
|
| Perhaps not right when, but it becomes bad when you decide by
| yourself (or take advice from someone to pays you money) to
| show it to me.
| brulard wrote:
| What would be a good alternative? Who is going to create that
| content? Corporations? Media? I don't get it
| ctxc wrote:
| Works only in the US. Worth mentioning.
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| yea you are right, we are working very hard on expanding to
| more countries. Feel free to sign up on our waitlist to get
| notified as soon as we launch in your area :D
| hk__2 wrote:
| We should build some sort of global network where all
| websites would be accessible to everyone. It would be an
| interconnection of networks, we could call it Inter-net.
| harvey9 wrote:
| Legal compliance. For example the UK just enacted a law
| making hosts responsible for forum content so any site with
| user content now has one more risk to think about.
| I_am_tiberius wrote:
| I just wanted to ask if you're EU based but this answers it I
| guess.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| I wish I could tag filter and control what I see on my feed for
| example political content on LinkedIn is largely an unfollow
| event for me. Also I'd like to be able to filter for recruiter
| content and just jobs.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| It's not about the platform itself, it's the users.
|
| Am I going to be able to find new customers on this platform,
| consistently, like I do in LinkedIn? If not, why would I spend
| the X number of hours I have dedicated this month to finding new
| clients on this platform?
|
| If you can Crack this nut you will have no problem finding users.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| When LinkedIn originally started, it wasn't about "finding new
| customers on the platform", and I for one would be more than
| happy if another site decided _not_ to support that as a
| primary use case.
|
| At least when I joined, LinkedIn was about connecting to your
| respected colleagues, so that in the future if you needed help
| from your network (a job, info about a product, but perhaps
| most importantly, a 2nd-level introduction), then you could ask
| for it.
|
| I'm perhaps a dying breed but I still only connect to LinkedIn
| people that I either have worked with or know at more than a
| passing level. I make strong use of the "I don't know this
| person" when I receive unsolicited invites.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| That's where they make their money though.
|
| In my view you are missing out on a huge part of the value,
| and a lot of career opportunities by not using it to meet new
| people who share your field, vision and passion for your
| work. It's like listening to the same songs over and over and
| never doing any music discovery. It's not so "salesy", it's
| more about expanding your network beyond people you already
| know. This isn't something to eliminate, this is the whole
| value of the platform. Otherwise it's just a glorified mass
| text.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| There are ways to do that in paces with a way better signal
| to noise ratio. Especially if I care about local
| connections in my area. (Meetups, local communities, etc)
| iancmceachern wrote:
| It's funny, it's the exact opposite for me.
|
| I can go to a dozen local meetups and not meet one heart
| transplant surgeon or CEO of an artificial heart company
| or other blood pumping medical device. Even major cities
| have only a handful and they are busy. There is very
| little chance of bumping into them at a local meetup.
| It's much more time efficient for us to connect in this
| way.
|
| Anecdotally, I've seen its common in the bay area at
| least for folks to exchange linkedin qr codes right away
| when meeting new folks, like a business card.
| dusanh wrote:
| I apologize this is not directly related to OP, but if you, like
| myself, get mad at all the "Suggested" posts LinkedIn is pushing
| on you, you can use the following ublock filter to get rid of
| these posts: www.linkedin.com##:xpath(//span[te
| xt()="Suggested"]//ancestor::div/div[contains(@data-id,
| "activity")])
|
| Combined with carefully managing who I actually follow, it made
| it for a much more pleasant experience.
| anthropodie wrote:
| Thank you this makes it so much better!
| lclc wrote:
| Your About page doesn't work. I'd not share personal information
| with an anonymous company.
| briandear wrote:
| Isn't the point of sharing the info so that it would be public?
| isaacremuant wrote:
| > So I built OpenSpot: a public, curated platform where you can
| showcase who you are -- with video, audio, and proof of your
| work. No endless feeds. No humblebrags. Just real people open to
| new opportunities
|
| You can already do this in many places and it still will be more
| noise than signal.
|
| This pitch seems more aimed at solving a want from the type of
| companies that want a one way interview (film yourself telling us
| who you are) to save on resources than anything else.
|
| It's even worse when you consider that in the word of LLMs
| they'll still want to parse those automatically into
| recommendation and filter systems.
|
| I don't think you'll really love our thoughts. Heh.
| mikenereson wrote:
| Its not about the product or features any more - LinkedIn wins
| because of its network.
| lnsru wrote:
| This! It always nice to get the 101st message from random
| recruiter that ends up in a decent job. And I must only keep my
| profile updated.
| cleung11 wrote:
| that's fair. on the other hand, i'd rather use a platform with
| higher quality people (regardless of quantity) than a platform
| that simply values vanity metrics. i guess it also depends what
| you're using linkedin for.
| ramon156 wrote:
| Sounds what people ar looking for is a "professionals only" feed
| where average Joe has nothing to say. I honestly don't know
| enough about social media to say whether that's realistic. All i
| can think about is YouTube Community but with a set limit of
| subs/views
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| That's a really interesting take -- and I think you're onto
| something. A lot of the frustration comes from signal getting
| drowned out by noise, especially when everyone's trying to
| "perform" professionally.
|
| With OpenSpot, we decided to skip the feed entirely. Instead of
| trying to fix the feed, we just removed it. No likes, no
| endless scrolling, no performance metrics -- just individual
| profiles curated around quality signals.
|
| It's not about restricting average Joe, but about giving real
| talent -- whether loud or quiet -- a space to be discovered for
| what they do, not how often they post.
| uxcolumbo wrote:
| Congrats on the launch. Another big annoyance of LinkedIn is that
| the UI performance feels sluggish on desktop. The app kills my
| battery on mobile.
|
| Had a look at your site and the carousel seems to slow down the
| entire site for me. Scrolling becomes janky and it's a drag to
| scroll down. I'm using Firefox and also tried it in a chromium
| based browser.
|
| The carousel itself also jumps to the beginning when it reaches
| the end, i.e. it's not a seamless loop.
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| thanks for the feedback, working on this now!!
| nosioptar wrote:
| Another problem is that you moved the scrollbar to the wrong
| side of the screen. I set Firefox to put it on the left, your
| site moves it to the right.
|
| I would encourage you to just remove any custom scrolling
| code, it doesn't work well.
| osigurdson wrote:
| LinkedIn even has Tiktok like videos (near misses, etc.). Every
| time I see those, I just wonder "why"?
| cleung11 wrote:
| 100%, they are clearly hopping onto a trend with no meaningful
| connection back to their platform.
| janalsncm wrote:
| In tech, I have found the best way to stand out is a personal
| technical blog. Write about things you've worked on. Doing is the
| best way to learn, and writing about doing is the second best way
| to show you know. (The first is a demo.)
|
| The LinkedIn feed problem can be solved by not going to the feed.
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| Totally agree -- writing about what you've built is a great way
| to both learn and stand out. Blogs, demos, and personal sites
| are powerful signals, especially in tech.
|
| Openspot actually leans into that same idea: instead of feeding
| the algorithm, you just show your work -- whether that's a blog
| post, demo, video, or a quick walkthrough. It's all hosted on
| your profile, so you can focus on signal over noise.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| Writing a blog relatively regularly got me job offers from
| FAANG companies and book offers from publishers (some of the
| latter I accepted). It's also a good exercise to get better at
| your job because communicating effectively is just as important
| a skill for programmers as writing code is.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Are you saying that anyone in your interview loop took time
| to read your blog posts? And it wasn't just you passing the
| standard interview process like everyone else has to do.
| samrus wrote:
| I read it as them being approached by faang recruiters or
| hiring managers because they happened to stumble upon their
| blog and thought they might be a good fit. Although idk if
| that sort of thing happens anymore
| scarface_74 wrote:
| FAANG recruiters are dumb and not selective. They
| definitely don't look at blog posts.
|
| - a recruiter from Amazon Retail reached out to me about
| an SDE 3 (L6) position when I had nothing on my LinkedIn
| profile aside from a bunch of CRUD jobs on my profile. I
|
| - After talking to the recruiter, they suggested I apply
| for a remote role at AWS Professional Services which I
| did get. Funny enough, I had two recruiters reach out to
| me from Amazon on LinkedIn _while I was - working at
| Amazon_ and it was on my profile.
|
| - I had a recruiter from Google reach out to me while I
| was at Amazon for an Engineering Manager position. The
| problem is, my current position wasn't even a software
| developer on my profile and I had no management
| experience.
|
| - a recruiter from Meta hounded me for months about a
| senior position as a developer specializing in AI. Did I
| mention that my most recent role at the time wasn't as a
| software developer and I had no AI experience?
|
| - Even before working at Amazon, recruiters from Netflix
| reached out to me. No I wouldn't have had any chance
| passing the interview
|
| Recruiters - even at BigTech reach out to anyone with a
| pulse. I still get recruiters from BigTech reaching out
| to me about software development positions even though
| for the past five years my profile clearly shows a pivot
| to cloud consulting and customer engagement.
| harvey9 wrote:
| I've had interviewers talk to me about my personal site,
| but it's on my resume so it's not like they had to search.
| JustExAWS wrote:
| They said at BigTech companies where the interview
| process is very regimented and the interviewer at most
| has an hour and comes in with a known set of questions.
| rs186 wrote:
| Are you comfortable with sharing the URL of your blog?
|
| I find the idea interesting, but also puzzling -- If you work
| at a commercial company on proprietary software, like most of
| software engineers, there is very limited amount of things
| you can talk about work and not leak proprietary/internal
| information. Otherwise, you need to work enough outside work
| to have things you can talk about freely. I don't want to
| have a blog where it's all opinion and no concrete details,
| like my meaningless comments on HN. How do you manage to post
| "useful" things on a personal blog?
| tombert wrote:
| I've recently started blogging again, mostly as a form of
| documentation for myself later at this point. I'm always
| working on some weird project, I'll get to some milestone, lose
| a bit of interest, think about it two months later only to
| realize I'd have to relearn everything and don't do it.
|
| Having a blog allows me to compile my notes into a digestible
| and easy to read way, so if I revisit a project later I at
| least don't have to start from scratch.
| runlaszlorun wrote:
| I'll have to wait til later but I think this is a great idea and
| needs to be done. I think it's somewhat of an embarrassment to us
| all that LinkedIn is the current de facto place for our
| professional presence.
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| you nailed it!
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| LinkedIn has become Facebook Pro.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| In fairness, we did get r/LinkedInLunatics out of LinkedIn, and
| I thoroughly enjoy that.
| runlaszlorun wrote:
| > r/LinkedInLunatics
|
| Ha, hadn't heard of it. I'll have to take a peak for sure...
| blainm wrote:
| I like the idea of blending a portfolio-style showcase with some
| kind of network on top. Consider how to maintain meaningful
| engagement without falling into the same pitfalls as existing
| social media.
|
| Some ideas:
|
| Avoid Engagement for Engagement's Sake - Features like posting
| and analytics can create the same inauthentic cycles seen on
| other platforms, where users engage primarily to boost metrics
| and reach rather than build genuine connections.
|
| Encourage Thoughtful Interaction - Consider placing limits on
| outreach, such as allowing only one new direct message per day.
| This ensures that when someone reaches out, it's intentional and
| meaningful, not spam.
|
| Resist Monetisation Pitfalls - Rather than introducing premium
| features like LinkedIn's paywalls or sponsored content, a fair
| enterprise model such as paid job postings section could sustain
| the platform without diluting its core value.
|
| Your approach is promising, and with the right focus, OpenSpot
| could offer a genuinely valuable alternative. Best of luck!
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| >We've already onboarded a few companies....with other standout
| folks and supercharge your network.
|
| As soon as I read 'onboarded', and 'supercharge your network', I
| gave up (being young[er], I guess).
| carra wrote:
| I feel like any LinkedIn alternative is doomed to end the same
| way. Because most of its problems come from corporate culture
| itself.
| briandear wrote:
| It might. But it might make the founder rich en route to that
| doom.
| runlaszlorun wrote:
| As far as being doomed, you could easily be right. But couldn't
| the same case be made that HN would just be as bad as any other
| forum or comment section and therefore not worth doing?
| julius-fx wrote:
| Thank you - LinkedIn became extremely annoying over time. I'll
| check how it compares, when I'm hiring for my team.
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| thats awesome, looking forward to your feedback! feel free to
| join our discord so we can keep in touch
| id00 wrote:
| I personally like Linkedin - it's so trashy that it makes me work
| harder to retire early to get away from all those crazy prople.
| Or at least to close the tab ASAP.
| cleung11 wrote:
| i'd pay for linkedin premium if they marketed their platform
| like this
| dougc_seismic wrote:
| Hi, this is Doug commenting from inside cursor
| taberiand wrote:
| I don't quite understand people's problem with LinkedIn - for me
| it has only one real page, my profile, and two other areas:
| recruiter chat and people I might know personally to link to. I
| got a job via recruiter chat on it once, and I drop in every few
| months or years to add a dot point to the resume. There's nothing
| else on that site?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Exactly. I have my updated profile on Linkedion. I occasionally
| ask for recommendations and I respond to messages from
| recruiters and use it as a professional address book.
|
| I also use it to research the background of interviewers,
| potential managers, and coworkers. I work remotely so it's the
| easiest way to do so.
|
| Besides that I completely ignore it.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| This doesn't solve the problem with LinkedIn.
|
| One problem with LinkedIn to find jobs is that every job
| applicstion gets hundreds of applications. Your site won't have
| any jobs available - that's the opposite problem.
|
| I have looked for and found jobs 7x since 2012 when I joined
| LinkedIn. Two of those jobs came from my reaching out to
| recruiters who posted jobs that I was somewhat uniquely qualified
| for. Those people won't be on your site.
|
| The other two were from recruiters reaching out to me based on a
| search on skills. Those people won't be on your site either.
|
| Not to mention that when I'm looking to find out about my
| interviewers, manager etc, I'm not looking on your site either,
| neither are they looking for me there.
|
| A large part of my profile is also recommendations.
|
| What problem are you trying to solve?
| Kamillaova wrote:
| Xing just exists.
| scosman wrote:
| I tried this years ago. Some advice: target your marketing and
| product at "beautiful+easy portfolio" to start. See if you can
| make something beautiful people want to share, and when other
| people see one they want to create their own.
|
| You can't compete against LinkedIn on network for now, and many
| years to come. So need to talk about the now value. But try to
| build in network effects (tag who you worked with) as soon as you
| manage to crack growth.
|
| Or ignore me. My version didn't work!
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| This is really good advice -- thank you for sharing it,
| especially with the honesty about your own attempt.
|
| Totally agree: we're not trying to compete with LinkedIn's
| network (yet). Our focus right now is exactly what you said --
| making it beautiful and dead simple to create a portfolio that
| feels personal, professional, and worth sharing. Something that
| makes people say: "I want one of those."
|
| We've got network effects on the roadmap too -- things like
| tagging collaborators, showcasing teams, and making intros more
| fluid -- but only once we've nailed the individual value first.
|
| Appreciate you taking the time
| yellowapple wrote:
| Looks nice.
|
| Immediate feedback:
|
| - The mobile v. desktop detection seems based on the screen
| width, which would be reasonable if it didn't mean halting my
| onboarding process because my browser window ain't maximized.
|
| - The auto-generated profile didn't capture much from my resume
| or LinkedIn profile. Only the two most recent roles plus some
| early-career freelance work; that covers maybe 20% or so of my
| overall career.
|
| - Related to the above, it'd be useful to have more control over
| the (what appears to be) AI-generated summarizations of things.
|
| - No way to reorder the "key accomplishments"?
|
| - A place to list certifications and (in my case) clearances
| would be handy.
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| Really appreciate the detailed feedback -- this is super
| helpful!
|
| While we are still super early and the platform you are seeing
| is our MVP, you're absolutely right on all points, and we've
| already added everything you mentioned to our backlog. We're
| now working on improving the resume/LinkedIn import, giving
| users more control over summaries and ordering, and adding
| fields for certifications and clearances.
|
| Also, great catch on the viewport detection -- we'll tweak that
| so it doesn't block onboarding just because your browser window
| isn't full screen. Thanks again for taking the time to test it
| and share your thoughts
| mushufasa wrote:
| Cool.
|
| I use linkedin and pay for premium but the problem it solves for
| me is very different. If I want to find out how to reach an
| organisation to do sales, I need to know the structure of the
| organization and who I know that knows people who work there. I
| don't even use the linkedin-platform messaging. Really it's about
| how to coordinate my rolodex so I can get warm introductions.
|
| I have posted a few jobs on linkedin and they immediately get
| 1000s of applicants, with very poor signal-to-noise ratio. We
| don't use it for job postings anymore, we instead do more
| specific targeting.
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| 100% and that's exactly the kind of feedback we've heard from
| users too.
|
| LinkedIn still works for networking or sales in some cases, but
| when it comes to job searching and hiring, it's become almost
| unusable. The signal-to-noise ratio is brutal, especially for
| job posts, and candidates feel like they're just shouting into
| the void.
| chipster_f00 wrote:
| Thank. You. For. This. `\o/` LinkedIn is a cess pit. (see
| r/linkedinlunatics)
| ghaff wrote:
| It's all about network effects.
|
| I don't care about recruiters. Don't need a job. With the demise
| of Twitter and Facebook not being interesting for professional
| purposes, LinkedIn is just the best medium for professional
| outreach.
|
| It's just a good way to reach professional contacts.
| neilv wrote:
| Why are there photos on a resume site, and featured so
| prominently? It's not Tinder.
|
| US HR used to throw away any photos that people attached to
| resumes. (Usually someone attaching a photo was a recent
| immigrant, who didn't know the US convention.)
|
| I've even heard rumors that some companies/screeners had a policy
| of throwing away resumes that included photos or other gratuitous
| information that could be the basis for illegal/problematic
| discrimination.
|
| "Because LinkedIn does it" isn't a good argument, because
| LinkedIn is pretty awful, and the only things going for it are:
| (1) the majority of people are on it, and (2) recruiters
| sometimes search/spam there.
|
| Some social media sites do photos because they pander to the
| worst. Or, in the case of one prominent social media site,
| infamously because the original inspiration was to catalog the
| best-looking women at their college.
|
| Unless you're a headshots site/app for hiring models/actors, best
| to go with content-of-their-character, and all that.
| jmye wrote:
| Right? Photos _and_ video? Why would I ever want to post video
| on my resume? Why would I ever want to _watch_ someone's video
| if I was hiring? Are we trying to land tech roles or screen
| time on reality TV?
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| 1. Agreed... But just for funsies:
|
| 2. There's a variety of roles out there, and for many
| "executive presence" is important qualification.
|
| (But really though,its because of tiktok)
| KerrAvon wrote:
| With respect, do be aware that "executive presence" is HR-
| speak for "neurotypicals only."
| fliellerjulian wrote:
| Totally understand where you're coming from -- and it's a super
| fair concern.
|
| We're not trying to turn hiring into a popularity contest or a
| casting call. The point of video or a photo isn't to favor
| looks -- it's to give people a chance to show personality,
| communication skills, or walk through a project -- especially
| in roles where that matters (e.g. PMs, founders, designers,
| etc.).
|
| That said, both video and photo are optional. We've seen that
| for many candidates, especially those early in their careers or
| from non-traditional backgrounds, a short video can
| dramatically increase response rates -- not because of
| appearance, but because it humanizes them and cuts through the
| noise of generic applications.
|
| We're 100% aligned that character and substance matter most --
| we just want to give people more ways to show that, not perform
| for it.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I wish you the best in this endeavor, but what made LinkedIn suck
| wasn't anything to do with LinkedIn and everything to do with
| becoming a social network that businesses could use to substitute
| for good old-fashion contact-finding. This damaged it in two
| ways: people started bending their accounts to be more (or less,
| because the spam problem is real!) attractive, and businesses
| started shotgunning recruiting info far past where it would be
| useful to the recipient.
|
| If your experiment takes off, I don't know how it avoids the same
| fate.
| daniel-takeone wrote:
| Love your approach of video resumes. We share the same vision and
| recently built a flow for users to easily create a professional
| resume videos themselves. Our tech automates the entire process.
| Check it out and maybe we can partner
| https://www.takeone.video/resume-videos
| w10-1 wrote:
| Since 2023, proof of work in the age of AI is not longer
| compelling.
|
| Since 2018, broadcasting details about yourself for marketers and
| scammers is highly concerning.
|
| The valuable interaction for hiring is when someone on the team
| asks a relevant question, and the candidate answers (honestly,
| based on their own reasoning) - assuming topics are predictive of
| success. (Granting that candidate ratings mostly don't track
| later evaluations.)
|
| All the filtering, qualification, etc. to get there is just
| noise.
|
| What I'd like are algorithms to engineer these honest and direct
| meetings without disclosing details of the company or candidate.
| I suspect this would increase availability significantly.
|
| For incentive alignment, the service gets paid for matches and
| pays participants for wasting their time, and participants pay
| the service or counterparty if wasting their time. Distinguish
| time-wasting from honest mismatch for failed matches and you're
| golden.
| vector_spaces wrote:
| My quick feedback / first impressions
|
| One benefit of an algorithmic feed is that it works as as social
| proof in showing me that other people are actually using the
| site. Since your site doesn't have a feed apparently by design,
| you'll need some way of showing me (quickly!) that this is a
| living, breathing website that people actually use, otherwise it
| feels like I'm shouting into the void.
|
| Another benefit of a feed is that I can immediately see how my
| activities and updates will look to other people. But it's not
| clear during onboarding how things will look to others, let alone
| who can see my profile and activity. Can any other user view my
| profile, or is it just a select cohort of hiring managers? Can I
| even interact with other users on this site who aren't hiring
| managers?
|
| Next, after I import my resume and setup my profile, I am asked
| (I think) to write some sort of an article or essay with AI
| assistance. This step wasn't very clear, but even if it were,
| this is a huge ask for someone who just started using your site.
| The first ask should be something much less ambitious, and
| probably would benefit from gamification to make it feel less
| like homework
|
| Finally, I clicked on the explore button to try to find folks to
| connect with. I gave a detailed description of the personas I'm
| interested in to the bot, and ended up getting a "No matching
| Candidates found" message. I think you should at least show me
| something, especially when I can't seem to do a regular search /
| browse manually -- or suggest better queries
|
| Anyway, I know it's an MVP, and I see answers to some of my
| questions on your about page, but just offering this as food for
| thought. The overall onboarding was smooth and I appreciate the
| resume import experience, and I think you have a strong visual
| identity. Curious to see where you end up taking this
| stosssik wrote:
| Really like your vision. The "no endless feeds, no humblebrags,
| just real people" pitch really resonates.
|
| LinkedIn feels exhausting, so I'm definitely going to give
| OpenSpot a try.
|
| Wishing you the best
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