FROM AND EMAIL EXCHANGE ON MLPF
On the net, no one knows your a dog!
On LinkedIn, you can’t be sure you’re not linking with a “dog”!
I tend to talk in shorthand and seem to always assume too much.
In my taxonomy of entities you find on LinkedIn, I have some “findings”.
* Real people, like me! Seekers, loafers, helpers, tryers, stumbling blocks, mean well, dumb as rocks. Real people in strange places like New Jersey with all sorts of connections, motivations, and understandings.
* Recruiters — both (head)hunters and (executive)searchers — retained and contingency — with varying degrees of altruism, cooperativeness, and helpfulness.
Now, the newbies and naive think that this is all there is. Unfortunately, that is not all there is out there. I’ve begun to classify all the strange “identities” that I’ve found.
Usually found “close by” a recruiter:
* “hostages” — I think a recruiter creates a profile for some one that they are representing and not permitting any contact except for a fee.
* “strawman” — I think a recruiter creates a mythical person as “bait” with the characteristics they see in “their” candidate. They do this to encourage connections from inside or outside recruiters where they can then “switch” in their candidate.
* “beauty” or “zombie” — I think a recruiter creates an identity, with all the characteristic of someone they wished they represented. When connected, they then try to form up a solid opportunity with they can present to the real person.
* “clones” — I think a recruiter takes a profile that he likes and “replicates” it into his geographic hunting zone for the purpose of finding “buyers” and like minded “sellers”.
I think they do this to advertise candidates they represent, troll for unadvertised opportunities to sell services, find hiring managers? I don’t know. All I know is I think I’ve see it.
Usually found around individuals:
* “ghosts” — An individual creates a profile of a past boss or coworker to get endorsements.
* “pranks” — People set up profiles of people for hahas responding or not as the spirit moves them.
* “psuedos” — I’ve seen no degreed candidates create a “clone” of themselves and add a degree. Then, control access to the “psuedo” and, when approached, they will try to sell into the opportunity.
I’m just an injineer; not a hunter, nor a seeker, and I haven’t stayed in a Holiday Inn Express lately.
I only tumbled to this “barbara streisand” when I tried to reach an old College friend and hit a toll boother. Another time I found my “credentials” on LinkedIn copied to someone in Kansas City. Exactly; my babblings are pretty distinctive, so they do show on searches. So my curiosity was piqued, I pinged, and never heard anything again. I deemed that was a “clone”, designed to flush out a buyer in that area?
This is posted not to give you ideas, but to give you an insight as to what you might find.
Remember, on the net, no one knows your a dog!
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