During my undergrad, I made a LinkedIn profile so I could have a larger digital presence and have another link on my resume. Part of that included adding anyone to grow my network end up in more search results.

After sending out connection requests, it said I could only have a certain amount pending, but if upgraded my membership I could send as many as I wanted. I didn’t notice any hard blockers being a normal member till this, so I decided against it since I didn’t see any return from having a profile yet.

I canceled my pending requests, and only added who I knew. After a while I stopped adding people and started receiving messages from recruiters. I’d craft a genuine response, they’d ask for a resume or schedule a call. Then it wouldn’t lead anywhere and say something like “let’s stay in touch” or just ghost me. It was a bit frustrating that they were using my free time to pad their working day.

Putting two ideas together (more connections means more messages, recruiters are paid to reach out) I came up with a simple method to grow my network and make sure I’d have contacts in case I fell on hard times.

Firstly, I gave up on adding random people I didn’t know. Either most don’t check enough or they’re filtered since I’m not in their network. Secondly, I don’t waste time with a hand-crafted reply and use a canned response:

  • Recruiter: Hey I have a positions
  • Me: Sounds good, let’s connect
  • Recruiter: Great, please click here or send me your resume
  • Me:

I feel a bit guilty ignoring people doing their jobs, but they’re compensated for their time while I’m not. For the first year or two I’d get a connection or two every month. Then as my profile built momentum i would get cold messages, which lead to more connections. After 3 years, I finally hit the venerable 500+ connections.

The phrase “Your network is your net worth” is somewhat true. And while I don’t think LinkedIn is the best way to get a job, it’s a strong tool that’s helped me progress my career.