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This should be the top comment. OP is looking for confirmation bias and got plenty here, but they really need to introspect on how to be a more appealing coworker.

Linking to Jack Posobiec’s tweets and complaining about being called a racist on hacker news, on your linkedin account, just makes you look radioactive. And dumb: linkedin is for hustle porn; 4chan, twitter and their derivatives are for online political warfare. Your inability to distinguish between these shows that you will likely act inappropriately in a professional environment. It shows you don’t know your audience at all, which are the people whose money you want.

And then there’s the age-old question of whether you want to be right, or be liked. It’s not really your responsibility to educate your coworkers on socio-economic-political realities, and they likely don’t come to work to hear others’ opinions about it. But you are shaping an online persona that advertises such a service.

I’ve gone through long stretches of looking for work and fear another in this market environment, so I do sympathize. But you gotta button up. And don’t just shape a better image of a pleasant coworker–actually be one. I’ve worked with too many this-is-your-brain-on-social-media types, of all political persuasions, and it’s miserable.

OP most certainly is not looking for confirmation bias. OP is looking for other people's experiences, as OP asked for in the original post. OP is quite happy working alone making video games, but would prefer to be working full time with a paycheck.

It's really fun (no sarcasm) watching all of you people jump to the wrong conclusion as you judge my motivations and reasons for posting this though.

Aside from seeing a few posts and knowing he's right wing, I don't even know who Jack Posobiec is. Politics isn't my main thing. As I stated above, I am "socially apolitical". I have my opinions and my affiliations and I mostly keep it to myself unless it benefits me to do otherwise.

this, especially points 1, 2 and 3, are precisely why the recruitment industry needs to be completely disrupted. most recruiters have absolutely no understanding of how to read developer skills and history, nor how to match them to a company's requirements.

i've worked with many, many recruiters over the years, and only a handful who weren't actively interfering with finding a good dev / company fit.

between that, automated resume filtering and linkedin's requirements to serve linkedin before serving anyone else, we're all living in a situation that would be hilariously ridiculous if it wasn't so sad.

Their feedback was the last push I needed to motivate me to delete my LinkedIn account. I'll take my chances and apply to jobs without one.

I completely agree that we need a disruption on the hiring front. The entire hiring process is broken.

I actually didn't ask for feedback on my personal situation. But since you've decided to dig into my profile and offer up advice from a throwaway publicly i will defend myself publicly -

1. > No expertise in technology:

Strongly disagree. I'm an expert in python, javascript, c#, application development, object oriented programming, agile, communication, and much more. I guess this isn't shining through on my profiles. Will have to find a way to fix it. There are many companies who value a generalist skill set.

2. > 2016 "gigs"

I had health issues starting in 2016 which derailed my career. I took what I was able to get and was still able to progress. I was promoted from eng I to eng II prior to the health issues. Later I was able to land a job as VP of engineering.

3. The lead engineer (VP of engineering) role that I had was a complicated situation - I performed my duties well and was rewarded handsomely. Working for startups doesn't always end well. From there I took time off to work for myself and you're correct, that's when the downturn started. Had I known AI would be released and jobs would dry up, i wouldn't have taken the risk of starting my own company at that point in time.

4. I havent worked for huge companies my entire career, much of it has been for start-ups but Enova, DoubleClick and Threadless are actually well known. Enova is a huge corporation and DoubleClick (one of my first jobs) was purchased by Google which is what lead to them becoming an ad company. Threadless has declined in popularity, but at the time it was extremely popular and well known. Other than that as I said, startups. Idiotic to judge a person based on whether or not the company is well known.

5. I haven't "complained" on LinkedIn. Regardless, i have deactivated my LinkedIn account, which I had planned on doing for the last month. Thanks for giving me the motivation to do so tonight. It is a silly echo chamber that has never lead to anything positive for me. I didn't even have an account until a few years ago so it will not be missed. It's clear that maintaining a LinkedIn social media account is a career hazard. That's the most useful thing your unsolicited feedback has turned up.

6. > political posts

Political posts online prevent me from working? That's absurd. My politics haven't even been stated aside from my position on H-1B and globalism. I should be allowed my political opinions without fear of reprocussion from a biased hiring manager such as yourself, but i really haven't even put any out there other than this post.

I have political opinions, and I am registered to vote, but I'm "socially apolitical" aside from a small amount of activist work I've done which hasn't been broadcast on the internet.

I don't bring politics or religion to the workplace.

You don't have to correct throwaway's opinion, you have to correct your online appearance. People reviewing your submission don't know these details you're giving and they won't ask. Unjust or not, that's the shallow first impression he got.

It's like if a user does something wrong in your app, you don't blame or explain to the user what they did wrong. You figure out how to improve your UX.

I came to similar conclusions from your public profile. The defensiveness of your response would be a 7th red flag.

> I came to similar conclusions from your public profile. The defensiveness of your response would be a 7th red flag.

This website is part of my public profile. Allowing people to shape an incorrect narrative of myself on this website is not something I will be doing. Especially when it is coming from anonymous posters who haven't shared their professional credentials.

> you have to correct your online appearance

Obviously I am continuously looking to improve my "online appearance". I disagree with the feedback I've received here. People's emotions are running high on a hot-button topic (immigration and job market woes) so in other locations in this post I'm being called a racist and a conspiracy theorist - I am taking everything here with a grain of salt and doing damage control as anonymous accounts sift through my various online profiles and offer up unsolicited advice. Defending one's position is pretty standard in this situation.

Correcting disinformation ("complaining on linkedin", "no expertise in technology", "political posts", "you're a racist", "you're a conspiracy theorist") is part of maintaining a public profile on the internet.

Lastly, as I stated in my response to the alleged hiring manager with regard to my expertise in technology:

> I guess this isn't shining through on my profiles. Will have to find a way to fix it.

The fact that several people have mentioned your public image might deter them from hiring you should raise some serious concerns. Instead of getting defensive and stubborn, take a moment to reflect. This could explain why you're not receiving callbacks. Insisting that you're right and everyone else is wrong isn't helping you.

Given how competitive the job market is right now, you have a PR issue. It's important to take a deep breath and recognize that people are trying to offer you objective advice.

If you're not willing to improve your public profile, you can't expect to receive interest.

Have you ever had a friend in a terrible relationship, where everyone can see how bad it is except for them? You have a problem with your public image. If you don't think it accurately portrays you, then clean it up. From your post, it seems like you're involved in really interesting projects—why sabotage your good deeds?

Deleting your LinkedIn profile seems a bit extreme. You should be creating it in a very polished way. All you need is one job to come from it or to catch the eye of one recruiter.

You have to play the game. That sucks, but the freewheeling days seem to be over. Play the game or accept you are making the rock you're pushing uphill heavier.

Your advice, and the advice of the people I am defending myself from is worthless. None of you know my situation. I'm laughing every time one of you posts these comments. There's nothing wrong with my public image. Most of the "advice" I have recieved is disinfo, some is is pure speculation based on false information. I don't really care if you see this as stubborn or defensive - I see you anr the other anon "advice givers" as ignorant and incorrect. Pretty funny though.

Deleting LinkedIn isn't extreme in the least. I hate the website and I'm better off without it - its a dying social media platform and i only had the account because a former employer forced me to create it. I am sure wpyou wisuph you could scour it for intel, but I had intended to delete it for months and was only using it to promote my personal projects and my other accounts, and apply to jobs. I monitor all of my sites with Google analytics and was getting very little traffic from LinkedIn, and none of the job applications I put out with LinkedIn panned out due to it being over saturated with applicants - as I said, worthless.

Furthermore, I am correct about H-1B. It is a broken system. This has been acknowledged by businessmen and lawmakers alike on both sides of the aisle. Posting about it on LinkedIn isn't political or complaining. I happen to be connected to extremely influential people. If my posts reached them and swayed their opinion to my side or even got them thinking about it: mission accomplished.

To reiterate, I didn't ask for advice, I asked about OTHER people's experiences as they pertain to racism, ageism and sexism - the fact that people jumped into my personal profiles and started offering up unsolicited commentary reveals their true motivations: trolling. Very unprofessional. Ill-informed "advice" rejected.

I don't need the internet to think for me, it's why I didn't ask, but thanks for contributing to the entertaining echo chamber.