My taxonomy of things you might see on LinkedIn
===beginning of list===
ABILLGATES – high value contact, who may or may not have authorized it, guarded by a troll, who doesn’t permit access to the contact except by preapproval.
ALTEREGO – a second profile of an individual to feature a different persona; seen by a doctor musician or was that a musician doctor.
BEAUTY – recruiter creates an identity, with all the characteristic of someone they wished they represented. When people connect, they then try to form up a solid opportunity with the person so they can represent to the real person.
CLONES – recruiting troll takes a profile that is liked and “replicates” it into his geographic hunting zone for the purpose of finding “buyers” and like minded “sellers”.
DUPLICATE – a second profile to segregate their “open” and “regular” networking. Or, created in order to “start over” with LinkedIn from a clear slate. Or, a just blunder.
EMPTYSUIT – just abandoned
GHOSTS – really deceased, like my high school chum
PRANKS – people set up profiles of people for hahas responding or not as the spirit moves them.
PSUEDOS – I’ve seen no degree candidates create a virtual “clone” of themselves and add a degree. Then, control access to the “psuedo” and, when approached, they will try to sell into the opportunity.
RECRUITER – executive search, retained, contingency
SCARECROW – recruiting troll 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.
STRAWMAN – owned by a recruiting troll, advertising a real someone, and who will “toll booth” you to make contact)
ZOMBIE – an identity of potentially a real person setup by someone else for other purposes like expanding their contact list, looking more popular, or writing their own recommendations)
===end of list===
One characteristic to look for is a single, or sparse, contact list.
Another is there are several “stubs” found “close by” a single recruiter:
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!
I’m just an injineer; not a hunter, nor a seeker, and I haven’t stayed in a Holiday Inn Express lately.
# – # – #
20071215 Found a new type of troll — POLITICIAN — like a “doll”?
There’s a “Hillary Clinton” and a “Ron Paul”!
Those have to be a violation of the LinkedIn TOS, contrary to the spirit of LinkedIn, and injecting your politics into an inappropriate venue. IMHO.
# # # # #
Posted by reinkefj 
You must be logged in to post a comment.