If you’re in-demand as-is, then you can skip Linkedin.
But, if you’re struggling for a job…
Linkedin provides a decent “resume” template that most recruiters / talent acquisition folks understand.
It provides places where you can write articles to show-case knowledge. (EG: I’ve written articles about projects I did in college, things I’ve coded in my spare time, etc). This can act as a sort of project portfolio, especially for writing up what you learned from research while posting your code to gtihub or some place else.
When looking for jobs on Linkedin, you can use Easy Apply, where you just click the button and it sends the recruiter an email with your linkedin link so they can go look at it. No need to fill out applications and crap.
The downsides of linkedin…
There’s a lot of fake people on there. Seems like everyone has a “CEO & President of (Made up Company)” or “Executive Career Coach” or some other pompous-sounding made-up title. There’s a lot of folks using Linkedin to try to sell services to others.. like career coaching and crap.
There are fake profiles and fake jobs on linkedin posted by scammers just trying to sucker people into giving them personal info. Basically, if the job offer looks too good to be true, or is too vague and hard to google the company (or comes from a no-name recruiter with a web-site saying “we do international recruiting” there’s a chance it could be a scammer)
There’s a lot of people trying to collect network followers the way kids collect pokemon. I have a very small network, only filled with quality people I know and would support 100%. But, there’s people that will network with every person from every place they go. Got a sandwich at subway; added sandwich maker to my network. Etc. Folks with massive networks are preyed upon by sales folks looking to leverage someone’s network to sell shit.
Even if you don’t use linkedin for job hunts, you might find jobs on Dice or other places that point to a recruiter profile on Linkedin. Scammers will post wobb jobs on job sites and link to a real recruiter and a company web-site to hide the fact that it’s a scammer trying to scam you.
If you make too much of your info public, then you’ll have scammers contacting you out of the woodwork. Don’t make your emial addy or phone number public. Don’t make your real resume public. Pick-n-choose what parts of your profiel to fill out and make public.
Some jobs on linkedin will have an “apply” link that funnels you through another job aggregator site (eg: thejobsite.com, or some other bullshit job board) and to see the actual job they make you click an “agree” button which basically has you agreeing that tehy can automatically make a profile for you and copy your linkedin profile as a resume anyone on theri job board can find. Avoid those things. You just get spammed by the shit job boards (that often just recycle jobs that have long been filled), and scammers come out of the woodwork with “hey, I found your resume”
I think Linkedin is a necessary evil for job hunters looking for jobs. But, it can help you have a standardized resume online, help you organize a networks list of other folks, etc.