A reader writes:
This is 50% a question for you and readers’ general opinions, and 50% a request for advice. I recently got a LinkedIn message from a stranger asking if we could discuss a particular job opening in my company. It was a position I’d never heard of; I have nothing to do with hiring and there are no open positions in my department. I wrote back and said sorry for the confusion, but I wasn’t familiar with that and she might have the wrong person. She wrote back and said I was listed under the job listing, with a link to the LinkedIn posting. It was indeed an open position in my company, but in a very different department that I know nothing about. It’s a huge company. I didn’t see myself listed, but a heading under the listing said “Best way to get this job: Get a referral!” with the profile of someone else who works for the company…whom I know has nothing to do with that department either.
So my question for you/commenters: Has anyone else noticed this feature? I don’t know if LinkedIn only gave me that “referral” bit because it knows I work at the company, or if it’s showing that to everyone, with random people at the company listed. If so, that’s ridiculous, right? It’s misleading job seekers into bugging people who may not have anything to do with the position. I clicked on some other random job listings with other companies, and although I didn’t see the “get a referral” thing again, I saw a few that said “Meet the team!” and have the profiles of people listed, but I don’t know if those people actually work on the team or are just random. If random, that’s still bad, right?
Now, my request for your advice: She followed up again asking me to put her in contact with whoever’s doing the hiring so she could “discuss this issue with them.” There’s nothing to discuss because it’s LinkedIn’s mistake, not the company’s, but she may not realize that. I feel bad, so I thought I’d just respond “unfortunately I don’t know anything about this position, the best way to apply is through the instructions on the listing, blah blah.” But my boyfriend thinks she’s just trying to get me to refer her to the hiring manager to get her foot in the door, not in an honest attempt to clear it up. What’s there to clear up anyway?
This is compounded by the fact that I received another message from a different stranger asking me straight-up to put them in contact with the hiring manager so they could interview, for a different position that I also have nothing to do with. Of course I’m not going to refer a stranger, and my boyfriend says these aren’t even worth replies, because they should know better than to badger strangers on LinkedIn. What do you think? I feel bad, and a simple “apply through the listing” sounds okay to me, but he thinks this will open a window for more pushing.
WTF LinkedIn.
This is totally a feature they’ve rolled out. The “get a referral!” thing is supposed to show you people in your network who work at that company. I don’t know if they’ve since expanded that to just show random people at the company — which would be a terrible idea since it’s inviting harassment from strangers and no one wants that — or if this was a malfunction and it wasn’t supposed to list you, or if you actually might be in her network in some way but many degrees removed.
Honestly, it’s not the great idea even if it worked as originally intended (just showing you if anyone in your network works there), because the person in your network who works at the 15,000-employee company you’re applying to, and who maybe only knows you because you once accepted a sales pitch from them two jobs ago, is not necessarily equipped to refer you in any way. Some connections will be, of course! But so many won’t be that the “get a referral!” framing is pretty bad … and is going to encourage bad networking rather than good networking.
I’d have no objection to the feature if it said “see who in your network works there” … and then you could make your own judgments about what might be appropriate to ask of them. For example, sometimes it would be appropriate to ask a contact about the inside scoop on the company, when it would be really inappropriate and presumptuous to ask that person for a referral. And yet some people are going to take LinkedIn’s “ask for a referral!” as an indication that that’s actually appropriate in every situation where it appears.
LinkedIn should be encouraging good networking, not bad networking.
As for the person who contacted you … I agree with your boyfriend that she’s trying to get you to connect her to the hiring manager to get her foot in the door, not because she wants to “clear up” LinkedIn’s error. You are 100% okay just not responding. If you feel rude about that (although you shouldn’t), you could write back, “I’m sorry I can’t help. Good luck with it!” But really, you’ve already given her one polite response, she’s pushing for more, and you can just disengage.
With the other stranger who asked you to connect them with the hiring manager for a different position, you’re fine ignoring those requests too. They’re sort of the LinkedIn equivalent of spam. (That said, I don’t totally agree with your boyfriend that you shouldn’t respond in case it opens a window for more pushing — I mean, it might do that but it doesn’t really matter because if someone pushes more, you can revert to ignoring at that point. It’s not like you’ve let them in your house and now you can’t get them to leave. If someone responds to your polite “sorry I can’t help” message with more pushing, you can just ignore them at that point.)
LinkedIn is telling strangers to ask me for referrals to jobs I have nothing to do with was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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