The first time I heard about LinkedIn was when I was in university. A lot of students made profiles and would all “endorse” each other, even when they barely knew the other person. The whole thing seemed super silly to me and I didn’t bother to make a LinkedIn profile. Even after university I’ve stayed away from LinkedIn. The only time I see LinkedIn in my life is when people on Reddit are criticizing it. Of course, Reddit is an echo chamber of its own, so I’m not saying that this alone is reason to disregard LinkedIn.

I know that to some LinkedIn is very important. But to me, I’ve managed completely fine. Been able to get work and have jobs without ever having a LinkedIn profile.

When I apply for a job, I provide CV, cover letter and a link to my GitHub profile.

Maybe some of the places I’ve applied to in the past have passed on me for not having a LinkedIn profile included. I wouldn’t know. No one ever said anything about it to me. But they may have filtered out my application for it. Regardless, I have been able to get work and get jobs.

Up until a couple years ago in Germany (probably most of D/A/CH) many more people had an account on XING (ex OpenBC) and LinkedIn was relatively rare. I'd say 5-10% of my "business" contacts and endorsements are basically never used, even after 90% of the people switched to LinkedIn.

That said, I've also never been directly asked for such a profile, if it was a field in a form I don't remember it being mandatory and I don't even remember when I made my LI account, or when I actually started to input more than my name...