Do you add people on LinkedIn you have never met?

[killramos]

Interested to hear from beyonders:

Do you add people on LinkedIn you don’t know or have never met?

I get probabaly half a dozen of these kinds of requests a month, I swear it’s just people who add everyone on that “people you may know” page...

Seems like such a waste of breath to me, they could be the most interesting person in the world and I wouldn’t add them to my LinkedIn, like I want to get career updates and birthday reminders forever from people I have never met?

Very often just from the people with 500+ or 1000+ connections. Yea right. Personally I don’t even add friends or family unless I have a professional relationship of some kind.

Thoughts?

[JfuckinC]

I add them if they're in the same industry as me sometimes, not often though.. otherwise no, i don't add randoms..

[hampstor]

Generally no. I used to accept their requests but found I got a lot of people trying to sell me shit or people thinking I can get them a job.

[bjstare]

I always ignore those requests.

[colinxx235]

Never, I used to get so many as a PE at an EPCM. Especially the second you would get a quote for a product. Next thing you know it would be the sales, sales manager, vp sales, manager etc all sending requests. Probably 50-75% of my requests were from sales guys/managers of companies I had never heard of, gets old quick.

Same issue when you used to submit pipeline applications in, the cold calls were ridiculous.

[TomcoPDR]

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I add them if they're in the same industry as me sometimes, not often though.. otherwise no, i don't add randoms..

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Generally no. I used to accept their requests but found I got a lot of people trying to sell me shit or people thinking I can get them a job.

Hybrid between these two responds. Pendent on your industry (and cross industry).

[JRSC00LUDE]

Deleted that account 2 years ago, haven't even noticed it's gone. Useless.

[HiTempguy1]

I haven't ever really benefited from LinkedIn, but its one of those things I feel it is important enough to be on, but not important enough to be active on.

Facebook and LinkedIn is the first place potential business partners/clients/contacts go to look you up. Its valuable to have some sort of ice breaking contact with many people, especially in Europe that you may never run into.

[ExtraSlow]

I guess why are you on LinkedIn? If it's just to keep track of people you already know. Then yeah. Don't bother adding anyone. If you truly want to grow your network and make new connections, then of course you should add people.

I've used it to market myself and my business and I've absolutely made new connections on LinkedIn that I've turned into face to face meetings and business opportunities. It's a great tool for that if you allow it to be.

[Sugarphreak]

...

[Mitsu3000gt]

Yes if I talk to them for work, but simply haven't met them yet, or see that they are an obvious colleague of a company we affiliate with, or someone we do business with.

No if they are desperate head hunters fishing for applicants for totally unrelated jobs ("I reviewed your profile and I think you would be the perfect fit for this great opportunity!!!")

No if they are marketing companies trying to sell you branding, marketing, exposure, etc.

[killramos]

Headhunters I find awkward, though those usually come with a message about why they are contacting me which I don't mind so much. Had one of those this week, but then again:


Had another which seemed like shameless spam, mix match of common connections from the most random corners of my professional life and also an alumnus. Clearly sends invites to pretty well everyone.

Both went into ignore this morning, and a report for not knowing the person on the second...

A few months ago I had a TA who marks some classes I have taken who I have never met but know of add me

[AndyL]

Timely question.

So if a former manager adds me and requests endorsements... And he was by far the worst manager I've ever met. Should I?

[D'z Nutz]

I don't accept requests from people who I know and don't like, forget about people who I don't know. In fact, I barely accept requests from people I know and DO like because I can't be bothered to log in

[wintonyk]

I work in business development so am fairly active on linkedIn. For the most part I only add people I have personally met (in person or phone) and use the same rationale for accepting. I find it useful to get in touch with people you know that have changed jobs/been laid off, but you may not have their new contact info.

[ercchry]

I commented ONCE on someone’s post on LinkedIn... wow... never again, some crazy chick from Ontario spammed the shit out of all my socials and tried to add me to LinkedIn. She wanted to trade clients or some shit... even though with what we both did there would of been zero cross business between us

[Sugarphreak]

...

[ercchry]

Aaannd there is a notification...

[BavarianBeast]

If there a tool I can use in my industry than yeah, for sure.

I’ll only accept from a recruiter if they have a really good position to fill.

[ExtraSlow]

I keep Facebook really locked down, but I see no downside to having a large network on LinkedIn.