Jack Tame: A haven for the missing link

I always thought LinkedIn was just a way for people to give themselves wildly inflated job titles.

Opinion

I joined LinkedIn last week. I know. I have failed. I was feeling poorly and pathetic and in a particular moment of weakness I gave in to one of the many million LinkedIn emails that have spammed my inboxes for years.

So my friend Chloe wants to connect, does she? She's perfectly capable of sending a text, an email, an iMessage, a Facebook post, a WhatsApp or a DM on Twitter.

She could even just give me a bell.

I always thought LinkedIn was just a way for people to give themselves wildly inflated job titles (Jack Tame, vice-president of Awesome) or to signal to their employer that they're looking for other work.

How wrong I was.

It turns out LinkedIn is another ripe digital forum for middle-aged men to make dicks of themselves.

Human rights barrister Charlotte Proudman went public in the UK this week with a "connection" message she received from another lawyer 30 years her senior.

Rather than focusing on firms or cases or relevant legal experience, the man dedicated much of his message to complimenting Proudman's "stunning" profile picture.

The lawyer in question says his approach was misconstrued but the incident has brought to light plenty more examples of LinkedIn connections that read more like "white collar Tinder" than anything bordering on a professional approach.

People are stupid.

The digital age might allow us to peruse and recruit employees online, but all too many of us forget the most basic digital rules: a message sent and received exists for eternity.

On LinkedIn, I cannot report any approaches yet, professional or otherwise. I suspect the demographics of those who treat LinkedIn like a dating site are likely to be similar to the numbers from the Ashley Madison hack.

It'll be men more than women, 100 to one.

But at least dumb, misogynistic connections like the one Proudman received still fulfil LinkedIn's core role - recruiting talent is well and good but sometimes it's just as valuable to know who not to hire.