LinkedIn is a powerful business networking tool, and it is one that most recruiters use quite a bit for finding candidates. I have already commented on how being lazy or appearing desperate can be detrimental to your professional image, but something I am really finding annoying: receiving a LI invitation to join someone’s network referencing a group or organization I don’t, never have, and probably never will be a part of and then sending me the generic invitation. "You are someone I trust" yada yada yada.
So here is what is happening. Someone on one of my many online communities sees my email address and realizes I know a lot of people; or, conversely, they pull me up in a LinkedIn search (people, occupations, companies, etc.) and realize I probably have valuable network contacts. They contact me and where it states how this person knows me, they choose "Seattle Chapter of the Daughters Of The American Revolution." (Since my forebears immigrated here in the 19th Century this is pretty unlikely.) Sometimes, I will respond by commenting to the sender that I have no inkling of the group they are referencing, and usually I’ll get a reply "Oh, I meant HRPN".
This says two things to me. One, you were sending out mass invites and you didn’t bother to actually *add* or choose the correct group. Two, you don’t know me at all. (Guess what? I’m a moderator of HRPN…I can check out whether you are a member of that group and when you joined!)
I’m *not* an open networker on LI. I want to be able to choose the people I add to my network based on actual connections. I am generally more disposed to accept invitations than not, but the truth is I’m getting pickier as I see more of these invites come across. I’m still being nice and not hitting the "I Don’t Know This Person" tab and using the archive option (which is basically "ignoring" the invite), but I won’t guarantee that isn’t going to change in the future.