No LinkedIn

Am I doing my career a disservice by not having a LinkedIn account?

I don’t have a LinkedIn account.  I do go in cycles where people will send my requests to add them to my LinkedIn network. Some people seem pretty persistent about it. I get invitations multiple times (and I am not talking about the system-generated reminders for not responding, but new requests).

So why don’t I have a LinkedIn account.  Actually I used to have one. I created it after getting an invitation from someone at the church I was attending. That was years ago, and I no longer have the account.  LinkedIn was in its infancy; I didn’t do much with it at the time; and then the guy who originally invited me really dissed me good. I tried to find a way to remove him from my network, but couldn’t find the option (is there such an option now? I don’t think there was then).

So I ignored the account so long until it somehow expired and no longer exists. How do I know it no longer exists? I got an e-mail much later about people hacking LinkedIn accounts and to check you accounts. When I input my e-mail address, it told me there was none associated with that e-mail. So I know it is gone.  And I haven’t created a new account since.

Years later, after making the original account, and then getting dissed by the guy who originally invited me, I got another invitation from him to join his network. I was going to a different church, and he was leading a different church. I thought he had unmitigated gall (to use a good-sounding phrase that few people today really understand what it means) to invite me to his network, after what he did. Probably was just running through his e-mail address book looking for any e-mail of someone he hadn’t invited.  Might not even have thought about who I was that he was inviting me.

So that personal anecdote is the source of my general antipathy to LinkedIn — I don’t really want to run across him again, in any form. But I also have a philosophical antipathy. What do I need that network for, that I cannot get what I want from Facebook or my direct social acquaintances? Why do we have to join every social network that comes along that is a bit different? I am already part of more groups and networks than I can keep up with like I want to.

So, how much benefit do you think most people actually get out of theis Linked? What sort of benefit should I expect to recevie if I join?