Why Linkedin Should Eliminate The "Open" Groups Option

Yesterday I left 4 Linkedin groups because their owners made the irreversible mistake of switching from "members only" to "open". In "members only" groups, only members can post and read discussions. In "open" groups, only members can post but anybody with an internet connection can read and follow discussions.

Being in an open group is a little like installing one way glass throughout your house so that outsiders can look in but you can't see who's looking at you.

I think open groups is one of the stupidest things Linkedin has ever done. I love the power of LInkedin. There are things you can do with Linkedin that Facebook doesn't even know you need to do but sometimes I think the suits who run Linkedin have never used it themselves. If they did, they would realize that "open" groups are an attack on group member privacy and that the only people who benefit from "open" groups are the exhibitionists who try to fill the new discussions carousels of every group they belong to and update their status every 5 minutes. (By the way, I have recently removed connections who constantly update their status and I have ejected or changed the posting permissions of group members who lack the empathy, consideration and impulse control to exercise posting restraint. I warn them first, refer them to group rules, then eject them if they persist in making a nuisance of themselves.)

When Linkedin first announced that groups could switch from "members only" to "open" I announced to my groups that I would never betray them by making my Linkedin groups "open" and that my 3 Linkedin groups would only go "open" when Linkedin pried the  "members only" option from my cold, dead hands. They thanked me for it. Except for the exhibitionists, Linkedin users don't like "open" groups.

I've done my part to prevent group owners from switching to "open". I've sent other group owners personal messages in which I predicted that switching from "members only" to "open" would have a chilling effect on discussion. Several group owners who already made the switch and regretted it have asked me how to switch back to "members only". As far as I can tell, the door from "members only" to "open" swings only one way; once you've gone open the only way to go back to "members only" is to delete the group and start a new one.

If you own a Linkedin group and you've already made the mistake of switching from "members only" to "open", I suggest you go ahead and bite the bullet and delete your group. It's easier if your group is small because you'll inconvenience fewer members. The group owners with a really big problem are the  ones with really big groups - unless those groups are full of exhibitionists who want as many people as possible to see their mug shots and read their spammy discussions.

I don't have any data to support this but I suspect there are two reasons group owners make the mistake of switching from "members only" to "open". The first reason is laziness. I suspect that some group owners, upon discovering that there's actual work involved in owning a Linkedin group, make their groups "open" because they think they'll have to act upon fewer membership requests.

The second reason some group owners switch their groups from "members only" to "open" is lack of empathy, inability to imagine how naked and invaded and betrayed members will feel when they find out anybody with an internet connection can spy on their group discussions.

It's because of these lazy and unempathetic group owners that Linkedin should do away with the "open" groups option and switch all groups back to "members only".

Why Headhunters Prefer "Passive" Candidates

The job search discussion we're having in my Linked Liberals group on Linkedin reveals some misconceptions about headhunters and how to work with them.

Many job seekers think they increase their odds of getting the attention of a headhunter if they send out their resume -unsolicited - to as many headhunters as they can. Wrong. Don't send resumes to headhunters. When you send an unsolicited resume to a headhunter he knows you've also sent it to every other headhunter and employer and that you have wallpapered Corporate America with resumes. The headhunter who receives your unsolicited resume sees you as a lightweight. The headhunter who receives your unsolicited resume would rather work with a "passive" candidate, not an active candidate.

What is a passive candidate? Instead of just giving you a lifeless definition, let me draw you a picture of an actual passive candidate I recruited for a client way back in the early 90s.

My largest client needed a GM for one of their offices in the South. I knew that qualified managers in that market would likely be under non-compete contracts so I focused my attention on markets that were a commute away in hopes of finding someone who would either relocate or commute the adjacent market. Back in those days we didn't have Linkedin and Google so we had to identify good candidates the old-fashioned way. I started with my Rolodex - remember those? - and started calling everybody I knew in the markets surrounding the market in which my client needed the GM. One name kept coming up: Bob Maynard.

"The guy you need for this job is Bob Maynard", they'd say. "I don't know if Bob is looking, but he's great."

Not only was Bob not looking, Bob wouldn't talk to me at first. Bob had a steady job with a company that didn't appreciate him. Bob was underpaid and he probably knew it but, emotionally, he was at a place in his career where he was willing to swap job security for the chance to make more money and get on a track to career advancement. My client offered all that and I knew that if I could just get Bob to talk to me I could get him to meet my client and that when  he met them he'd leave his old employer and come to work for my client. I was right. Bob started as a GM and worked his way up to a VP job. He stayed with my client for 15 years and had what we call "a good run".

Incidentally, while it was a headhunter who got Bob to come in and talk, he was not unknown to my client. People in the organization knew who he was. His reputation had preceded him. All I did was get him to the table but Bob really earned the job by being a great center manager for a competitor.

Bob is the perfect example of a passive candidate. He was a great manager who didn't have a current resume and wasn't looking for a job but deserved a better job than he had. That's a passive candidate. Headhunters love passive candidates.

Had Bob been sending his resume to everybody I could have invested a lot of time in him and lost him to another employer.

I was once an "expert panelist" at a career night event. Someone in the audience asked me how to find headhunters. I said, "You don't find the headhunter, the headhunter finds you - if you're good."

As I've said in previous posts, headhunters network until they find what they need.

But it's still better to be introduced to an employer by your professional co-signer than it is to be introduced by a headhunter. I'll tell you why in tomorrow's post.

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To Get The Job, Get Out Of The "Stranger" Category

A Fortune 400 company advertised a position in their government affairs office. According to the published ad, the successful candidate would be someone who spoke an Asian language fluently, had lived in Asia, and had worked for a government agency.

The person who got the job had never worked in government, never lived in Asia and couldn't speak a foreign language of any kind, Asian or otherwise. The successful but unqualified candidate had something the qualified candidates didn't: she had a relationship, a professional co-signer, whose intervention made all those pesky "minimum qualifications" requirements melt away.

Having a professional co-signer can launch less qualified candidates past better qualified candidates. It happens every day. It happens in large Fortune 400 companies like the one above and it happens in the small mom and pops.

Until my Linked Liberals group on Linkedin started having a big discussion about job search, I had no idea that so few professionals in their 40s and 50s have somehow failed to notice that the hiring process is not "fair" and that the best candidates don't get the jobs unless they have professional co-signers who vouch for them.

The sooner you realize that life isn't fair and that the hiring process isn't meritocratic the sooner you'll spend your time looking for a professional co-signer instead of spending your time playing the low percentage game of sending resumes to strangers.

I've said this in my previous few blog posts but I haven't fully defined what I mean by the word "stranger".

Harry Beckwith has correctly observed that people don't like to do business with strangers if there is a non-stranger available. So what is a stranger? A stranger is someone who is both unknown to you and unknown to anyone you know. In other words, a stranger is 3 degrees from you. To get the job, you don't have to be the hiring manager's best buddy, you just have to get out of the 3 degrees away category and get to the 2 degrees away category. That happens when a mutual friend or colleague - this is your professional co-signer - introduces you to the hiring manager. The hiring manager immediately warms to you when your professional co-signer introduces you to him.

In my next post, I'll address some misconceptions about working with headhunters.

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