Why I Don’t Do LinkedIn

I am pretty sure most of you know LinkedIn, right? If you don’t know it yet, a short visit to their web site will explain a lot. Occasionally, I’ve got a request to send my LinkedIn account. I usually reply with hesitation. Why? It’s because I don’t update my account.

First of all, I am not looking for a job. I think there was only one time that I applied for a job, that is to become a lecturer at my university here in Indonesia. Other than that, I don’t recall looking for a job. I always offered jobs, which I didn’t take most of the time. I am an entrepreneur, so I create jobs. Thus, there is no need to update my “resume” in LinkedIn. My formal resume is actually 20-pages long. I am not joking. Since many people won’t believe it, I usually keep it to myself.

Second, I am busy. When I put “new things” — the new, new thing — in my resume, I get a lot of job offers. I always do new things. Actually I do things before they become popular. For example, nowadays people are talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, deep learning, and such. Well, I know this field. In fact, I started an AI company a couple years ago. If I put AI in my LinkedIn, then I will a lot of inquiries which I won’t reply. It’s not good for both parties.

In terms of growing network, I meet a lot of people. I mean a lot. I do quite a number of presentations. In a week, I could give one or two presentations with 100 or more people. In a month, I would meet around 100 to 500 new persons. What should I do if they ask for connections in LinkedIn? Should I approve them, even though I know vaguely about them? If I do that, that there will be thousands of connections — which is probably worthless, don’t you think. I cannot vouch for them. I ignore most of the requests. My network is slim — which is good for me, but it will give a wrong impression to other people. People outside my real network who rely on LinkedIn will not get the real picture of me. I don’t care.

Those are some of the reasons why I don’t do LinkedIn.