TJ Kelly

Dear LinkedIn: WTF is this?

LinkedIn social suggestion fail. I know it’s for “professionals” and all, but LinkedIn is still a social network, right? Ok, so maybe its connections are designed to follow professional or industry lines, rather than purely friendly or social ones. But on a screen called “People You May Know,” why are these suggested connections in such a backwards order?

LinkedIn social suggestion fail

LinkedIn social suggestion fail. WTF is this, LinkedIn? This is why you suck at 'social,' you corporate douches.

LinkedIn, WTF is this? This is why you’re bad at “social.”

Am I missing something?

Is there some valid reason why LinkedIn would arrange my suggestions this way? Are they looking more at to whom I’m connect and less at to how many? I suppose that would make sense, but I can’t see past one issue: if I have 67 connections in common with someone, even if none of them are in the same company/group/industry, wouldn’t you think I’d know them?

Admittedly, I’m no expert in these things. But I’m not the first person to wonder. Does LinkedIn talk about their algorithm or API? Have others discussed this? Can anyone weigh in?

4 thoughts on “Dear LinkedIn: WTF is this?

  1. Sheila

    The only thing I can think of is to get you to click through to more pages of it… it’s so bad that you KNOW you have to click through multiple pages to find the people you want.

    Reply
    1. TJ Kelly

      It’s a great question. Precisely why I browsed People You May Know in the first place.

      As it happens, he and I went to the same high school, though our years there did not overlap. We know many of the same people from our common hometown, though I don’t think we’ve ever met.

      But I doubt LinkedIn knew that.

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