The Problem With LinkedIn (in the GCC)

Like millions of other people, I have a LinkedIn account and have had it for several years now. I've made great contacts in the past, and have used it for personal advancement to learn from others in my career, and for professional gain as a recruiter / head hunter in my own firm.

As much of a great tool that LinkedIn has become, there are some issues that the good folks out in Mountain View may not be aware of, perhaps due to cultural differences, or perhaps of legal restrictions. But we are not in Silicon Valley; we are in the Middle East. The GCC to be precise. A place where millions of expatriates, millions of nationals and millions of expatriate-wanna bees are competing for the same limited number of roles. The rules here are different, and LinkedIn needs to step up its game to create an experience that is positive for its users out here. I'd like to use this post to discuss a few issues of concern:

"Hit Like or Comment"

Over the past few months, what was once a minor irritation has become a full-blown motive to stop using and paying for LinkedIn altogether.

It's those damned "hiring for all positions in all countries, hit like and add your email to be considered".

When will LinkedIn do something about this? I see those posts every time i log in; whether on my laptop or my mobile handset, these posts are always visible. There is no way to stop them: you can only block 50 people and my emails to LinkedIn explaining that 50 people is a negligible number if you have over 2,000 contacts in your network. They are often posted by people working for no-name entities, and it is enough that one person "likes" a comment for it to appear on their timeline for all their contacts to see. The multiplier effect is quite serious, and millions of people every day are being exposed to these scams, whose primary motivation is for the post owner to rise up in the ranks of visibility of LinkedIn, thus skewing the results and demoting the actual professionals to the bottom of the ranking. 

What's even worse is another new-ish trend; those that write the full scam ad then say "this is a scam, no one gets hired, please do not fall into this trap" etc etc. Why would a professional do this? Yet you will see people posting their contact details on those posts too! Again, all of us are forced to see these scam ads day in day out, and now we have to deal with removing/blocking more people!

Speaking of removing: I should not need to go through several steps just to remove someone from my list: make removal as easy as it is to add people.

"Nationality matters out here".

The GCC in general, and more precisely, in the UAE, several jobs require candidates of certain nationalities. I wholeheartedly disagree with Affirmative Action and other positive-discrimination policies, but when it comes to Nationalisation of the workforce, I fully support the agenda and look to use LinkedIn as a tool to help me find suitable candidates that are nationals of the UAE.

However, even though I can use Recruiter Lite to specify my search, I am unable to search based on nationality, in the same way that Gulftalent, Bayt or other job boards allow me to do. Sure, selection based on nationality may be illegal in the USA, but out here, the law stipulates priority for citizens in employment, and moreover, companies must diversify their nationality base in order to remain in the higher Ministry of Labour classification, as they face financial penalties and higher labour fees if 25% or more of the employee population is made up of one nationality

Again, this is a problem unique to the GCC due to the sheer number of expats who are looking to work here. We must be able to search for candidates based on citizenship; and when it comes to deciding whether to pay several thousand dollars to access a jobboard such as Gulftalent, or paying that amount to LinkedIn, it is clear that I'll get a better return on my investment with boards that allow me to search based on nationality. 

"Networks"

When LinkedIn was first created, it made sense to add only those you know. However, with over 300 million professionals with an active LinkedIn profile, and with millions of those people having over 500+ people in their network, there is no reason to keep the "How Do You Know John Smith" page". I doubt anyone uses any option other than "Friend", and I highly, highly doubt that anyone actually has 2,000+ friends and more. Remove this page (its already removed from the mobile app, but not the desktop version) and allow people to add contacts freely, leaving the receiving party to decide whether they want to accept or deny the request.

These are some of the issues I am having with LinkedIn, and I am sure I am not the only one with the same issues, nor have I compiled all known issues with those using LinkedIn out here in the GCC.