1w ago

We need a Linkedin replacement

I just reviewed this awesome fediverse list, did a broad search, and checked out /alterative.to -- but no luck.

Is there nothing on the fediverse that can take the place of that bloated, spyware site run by MS?

And, if I were to start working on it, what roadblocks would I run into? Thanks!

ETA: These are the features I would want to see in a replacement service, since you asked:

really decentralized - anyone can stand up a server instance
post your profile - list your resume, skills, education, interests, charities, publications, etc...
link to friends, co-workers
post your business - allow people to say they work / worked for you
post Posts to say things to your friends and colleagues
post Jobs - tell people you're hiring, how to contact you (off site, on some other service)

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This is going to be very hard as I think many people are on linkedin for one thing. Career. I use linkedin but if I can ever retire I will keep it but exclusively in case someone I worked with needs a reference. I think the inertia on linkedin is higher than any other website kind of thing.
- Agreed on the inertia, but we have to start somewhere, it seems. Seems worth looking into, to me. Considering my options here...

Abstracted from the business model of the website/company LinkedIn, what are the crucial aspects that you would want replicated in a fediverse equivalent of LinkedIn?
The essential components the way I see it would be the capacity to post jobs (with federation) and for users to have professional profiles that could interact with those job posting but could also make posts.
There is an immediate big question around sensitive communication, I would be worried that even if you put up signs everywhere not to send sensitive information through DMs or other means on a fediverse software like lemmy or mastodon as a user that problems would arise that would involve important bits of information being where they shouldn't. Idk, maybe I am overthinking this.
In a way I think something like SecureScuttlebutt with an actual chain of interactions and posts might be a really nice fit for this.
https://scuttlebutt.nz/
I haven't used Friendica, but I feel like it is already probably a decent fit especially with some minor tweaking.
https://friendi.ca/
- Yes, I think the structure of Friendica is closest but then I would add the ability to post your work experience in a loosely structured way, since sharing where you've worked, what your skills are, is what makes LI different from other social media. Thanks for these ideas.
- I have used Friendica. It might appear useful as a base for a fedi-linkedIn, but not in its current state. It does the basics, but only barely, and it's not particularly stable. The instance I'm on falls over regularly (for days or weeks), despite the admin's best efforts. It feels like a new project, instead of something that has been under development since 2010.

I see LinkedIn as a symptom of the generally broken recruitment process. So even of you successfully fedified LinkedIn and got everyone using it most of the problem wouldn't be solved.
I don't know what the solution is and I'm not sure anyone else does either because it's been broken for decades and only getting worse.
- I mean, I think the solution is obvious and is implemented by millions of people every day - getting jobs via personal and professional networks. The much-cited statistic says "80% of job openings never reach public jobs boards". Why? Because when an opening is announced (or even floated) internally, someone already in the company fills the position or else recommends someone they know for the position. For almost all jobs, actual technical know-how is only about one quarter of the real qualification for the job. The rest is general competence at learning and getting things done, and personality. This is why personal recommendations confer such a strong advantage in getting jobs - you get someone to really stick their neck out for you and vouch that you can get shit done, get it done well, and arent a dick.

I don't understand what features from LinkedIn you are missing. Blogs are available in WordPress with ActivityPub installed, microblog posts are in Mastodon, etc. Etc.
- The industry-wide de-facto networking and job recruitment part
- Yep, see my ETA update in the post above. I want people (mostly outside the big corps) to be able to find work, list jobs, share news and stories, all in a decentralized server ecosystem. I want to destroy the idea that we need LI to do all of that.
  Oh and I want all that in one service and it should include posting your resume / work experience, be focused on employment - like LI used to be a long time ago.
  EDIT (added the project's name, link):
  I found this github project - FediWork, but it was based on Mastodon, which seems wrong IMO. And it's not been updated in a long time now.

I could see some kind of LinkedIn type Fediverse for gig work, but I don’t think a copycat of LinkedIn is a good use case. I’m not anticapitalist per se, but I think LinkedIn is a capitalist cesspool that encourages primarily the worst in humanity - self aggrandizement, transactional relationships, and severance of work life vs community.
I come to the Fediverse to find community and escape all of that.

Have you seen the mastodon hashtags fedihire and getfedihired?
Most of those jobs are in the tech field, but that's the closest I've seen to LinkedIn like interactions

I'm not sure how it could be done without having central servers
Let's explore the following:
companies have their instances where they post their vacancies
there is a bunch of instances, bigger, smaller, some for one person only, where people post their resumes and use to browse the jobs
we could even add some tagging system into the mix, so you can follow a set of "#city #branch #technology" for example
In order for a job to appear on my instance, someone on the instance would have to follow the account of the company that posted the offer
for personal instances that would mean I would have to discover a company before it posts a vacancy. Most of the jobs I see on LI are from companies I have never heard of
for instances with multiple users, that would mean some would have the job post you are interested about and some not
if we tried to have regional instances (already a centralization), someone would have to maintain the federation list
some kind of discovery/bridge instance? Regional?
And then there is a question of privacy. I would not like someone on the instance of my current employer to possibly be notified of me sending a message to another instance
So decentralization of all that would be hard. And without decentralization, the instance would have to be pretty hefty and it will be just a matter of time until some big company tries to have a special deal with the body running the service. Or will simply drown out the feed compared to a company with just one job post
I guess it might work if the central instances were owned by employment offices. But at the time, most of local governance doesn't even post on fediverse

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