I’ve written about the fake recruiters who InMail you about a great position with their company. I shut up the fakes by requesting their corporate email address at their supposed employer. But what if LinkedIn could catch them BEFORE they ever sent that InMail to me?
“LinkedIn is looking to take on scammers who falsely present themselves as recruiters or company representatives in the app, with an expansion of its company verification option, while it’s also making workplace verification required when a member adds or updates a leadership or recruiter-related role.”
From HR Dive.
Of course, the proposed Know Your Recruiter system isn’t foolproof; nothing is. Scammers can avoid the LinkedIn verification step by simply NOT choosing a leadership or recruiter-related job title.
Imagen 4.
And as much as people like me wish that people would care about verified identities…many don’t.
If “Jones Jay” from Microsoft sends jobseekers an InMail about a wonderful position,
some will blindly respond without even looking at Jones Jay’s LinkedIn profile at all,
much less checking whether his identity and employer are verified.
But at least the attempt demonstrates that LinkedIn cares more about their real users than about the scammers who pay for Premium.
I’m conducting an experiment in which an AI bot, “Bredebot,” is writing on the Bredemarket blog and on LinkedIn with almost no restrictions.
Don’t do this at home. It’s not a good idea.
This post describes an example in which Bredebot misses a critically important point about Bredemarket’s target audience in the identity/biometric industry.
“The true competitive advantage isn’t the Al tools themselves but how you use them. Your unique processes for data capture, knowledge management, and building trust are the real ‘moat.’ Al becomes powerful when it’s integrated with your proprietary insights and context, making your approach impossible to replicate.”
Moat. I like that. Imagen 4 (via Bredebot.)
Mabry also advocates including a human in the loop: his firm, Fast + Light, always asks at least one human (preferably two) to review all AI-generated content.
In my Bredebot experiment, I rarely edit what Bredebot says. If you know me, it’s very obvious that Bredebot wrote this and I didn’t.
“Building Trust: In the identity and biometrics space, trust isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s paramount. If customers don’t trust you with their most sensitive data, you simply don’t have a business. Your processes for privacy, security, transparency, and ethical AI usage are not just compliance requirements; they are fundamental differentiators. How you communicate these efforts, how you manage data breaches (heaven forbid!), and how you constantly reinforce your commitment to security are all part of this trust-building moat. This is where your wombat customers, usually burrowing away, will emerge to praise (or criticize) your efforts.”
While I certainly agree with the sentiment, and obviously don’t mind the reference to wombats, I would have made one change.
The t word
I would have modified Bredebot’s use of the T word. Just because Mabry used it doesn’t mean that Bredebot has to do the same.
“Now perhaps some of you would argue that trust is essential to identity verification in the same way that water is essential to an ocean, and that therefore EVERYBODY HAS to use the t-word in their communications.
I just published a new edition of Bredemarket’s LinkedIn newsletter this afternoon. Here’s how I started it:
“For years I maintained a negative stance on generative AI-authored text. But I recently tried relaxing it. By doing this I learned what AI authors are capable of…and what they clearly CANNOT do.”
Much of the article rehashes material I’ve shared before, but I did provide a little detail on the temperamental writer’s emotional hurt when Zoominfo turned to the bots:
“My first reaction was akin to a river in Egypt. I remain a temperamental writer, you know.”
Psst…check the book title.
But at least I closed the thing with a call to action.
“But if you are a marketing leader at an identity, biometric, or technology company, and you want an experienced human to help you with your content, proposals, and analysis, why don’t you schedule a free meeting with me to talk about your needs. Visit https://bredemarket.com/mark/ to find out more.”
Although my first of my three meetings started at 7:30 am, my day actually started three hours earlier with light Things To Accomplish. Suffice it to say that the Bredemarket blog will have daily content until Monday, August 4.
I took a mid-afternoon break before my third meeting, the Inland Empire BizFest in Montclair. I wrote about that here and here, plus on the Bredemarket socials.
Log those business miles.
In fact I knew I would be so busy today that I declined a personal invite at 10 this morning. Good thing I declined, because I was neck deep in a requirements workbook (yeah, Microsoft Excel again) for a Bredemarket client’s end customer. (Can you say TOT? I knew you could.)
Anyway, I left Montclair Place before 7:30 pm and called it a night after a long day.
Thankfully the first day of August only includes a single meeting.
Tech CMOs want to move their prospects to act and buy world-changing offerings (products or services) from their firms…and I want to move my tech CMO prospects to act and buy marketing and writing services from Bredemarket. So tech CMOs, I definitely feel your pain. But how can you move your prospects…and how can I move you?
Because my client had a specific problem. The client needed its prospects to understand how its offering could solve nagging prospect problems. Riots. Car thefts. Robberies.
And my client had a specific solution. I can’t reveal the solution without giving the client away, but let’s just say the the solution simultaneously addressed the end customers’ dual needs of speed and accuracy, as well as other end customer concerns.
As for specific results, I confess I don’t know. In this case my client never got back to me and said, “John, case study 3 attracted a prospect that ended up buying an annual contract.” And my primary contact at the client subsequently moved to another firm. But the fact that the client stuck with me for a dozen case studies and some subsequent NIST FRTE analysis work indicates that I did something right.
You see what I did there. Well, as much as I could while preserving my ghostwriter status and my client’s anonymity.
What is your specific problem?
This section of the blog post is specifically addressed to tech CMOs and other marketers. The rest of you can skip this part and watch this entertaining video instead.
Bredemarket has specific solutions depending on whether your needs are short, medium, long, or ongoing. As part of my solution, I begin by asking questions and then iterate the deliverable with you.
The specific results you need? Let’s talk about them.
Now I know I’ve loaded this post with links to previous Bredemarket content that addresses the…um…specific topics in much more detail. Maybe you clicked on the links, or maybe you didn’t. I will find out.
But if you are ready to move forward, this is the one link you need to click. (“Now you tell me, John!”) It lets you set up a meeting with Bredemarket to discuss your specific needs.
(Author’s preface: I was originally going to schedule this post for the middle of next week. But by the time I wrote it, the end of the post referenced a current event of astronomical proportions. Since said current event may be forgotten by the middle of next week, I am publishing it now.)
You get a message on a platform from someone you don’t know. The message may look something like this:
“John ,
“I hope this message finds you well. I came across your profile and was truly impressed by your background. While I’m not a recruiter, I’m assisting in connecting talented professionals with a startup that is working on a unique initiative.
“Given your experience, I believe you could be a fantastic fit for their senior consultant role. If you’re open to exploring this opportunity, I’d be happy to share more details and introduce you to the team directly. Please let me know if you’re interested!”
Let’s count the red flags in this message, which is one I actually received on May 30 from someone named David Joseph:
The author was truly impressed by my background, but didn’t cite any specifics about my background that impressed them. This exact same message could be sent to a biometric product marketing expert, a nuclear physicist, or a store cashier.
The author is not a recruiter, but a connector who will presumably pass me on to someone else. Why doesn’t the “someone else” contact me directly?
The whole unidentified startup working on a unique initiative story. Yes, some companies operate as stealth firms before revealing their corporate identity. Amway. Prinerica. Countless MLMs with bad reputations. Trust me, these initiatives are not unique.
That senior consultant title. Not junior consultant. Senior consultant. To make that envelope stuffing role even more prestigious.
I got the note and the note is even clearer
But I wasn’t really concerned with the message. I get these messages all the time.
So what concerned me?
The note attached to the message by the platform that hosted the message.
“Don’t know David? Ask David to verify their profile information before responding for added security.”
The platform, if you haven’t already guessed, is LinkedIn, the message a LinkedIn InMail.
Let’s follow the trail.
LinkedIn let “David” use the platform without verifying his identity or verifying that Randstad is truly his employer as his profile states.
LinkedIn sold “David” a bunch of InMail credits so that he could privately share this unique opportunity.
Now LinkedIn wants me to do its dirty work and say, “Hey David, why don’t you verify your profile?”
Now the one thing in LinkedIn’s favor is that LinkedIn—unlike Meta—lets its users verify their profiles for free. Meta charges you for this.
But again, why should I do LinkedIn’s dirty work?
Why doesn’t LinkedIn prevent users from sending InMails unless their profiles are verified?
The answer: LinkedIn makes a ton of money selling InMails to people without verified profiles. And thus makes money off questionable businesspeople and outright scammers.
Instead of locking down the platform and preventing scammers from joining the platform in the first place.
Unless you’re in the surveillance industry, surveillance sounds like a dirty word. I once knew an identity/biometric CEO who forcefully declared that HIS company would NEVER work in the surveillance industry.
Imagen 4.
But as Goddard Technologies notes, surveillance can be useful even if you’re NOT chasing bad people.
But before I describe how, I’m going to reveal my age.
Kennedy (John) William (Smokey) Gordy
Let’s talk about a singer who went by the name Rockwell. This was supposedly to conceal the fact that his last name was Gordy (he is Berry’s son). But he didn’t really conceal the fact that one of the uncredited backup vocalists on his wonderful one hit was a man named Michael Jackson. This was in the 1980s, when Michael Jackson was kinda sorta popular. OK, now do you remember the song?
“Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell.
This excerpt from the lyrics provides the sinister tone of the song:
People call me on the phone, I’m trying to avoid But can the people on TV see me, or am I just paranoid?
But that was the 1980s, when there was always a person in the surveillance loop. Even if there was a video camera hidden in Rockwell’s shower, some person was looking at the feed.
Things have changed.
Goddard Technologies’ “The Rise of Robotic Observers”
Now non-person entities (NPEs) are no longer the stuff of science fiction, and they can do things that only humans could do 40 years ago.
“While much of the attention has gone to robots that do something (cleaning, welding, lifting), there’s a quieter, equally important shift happening: the rise of robots that observe.”
But what do they observe?
“These robots navigate environments, gather data, and report back. Think of them as mobile sensors with wheels, legs or propellers that identify open doors, check for damage, verify inventory, or confirm environmental conditions.”
Kaplan then notes that there are human beings that perform similar tasks, and that therefore these observer bots “align with how many industrial jobs actually work.” After the observations are collected, then humans—or perhaps other bots—can act upon the observations.
Does this affect how you perceive non-person entities? How do you feel about non-person entities that merely collect data for others to act? This is technically “surveillance,” but it could potentially reduce costs, increase profits, or even save lives.
Do you sell robotic observers, or something equally important?
Jon Kaplan used a LinkedIn article to tell his story about Goddard Technologies’ activities with observing robots.
But maybe your firm has your own story to tell.
Imagen 4. And I have to give credit where credit is due. I asked Google Gemini to create a picture with a wildebeest-authored LinkedIn article, but the article title, “The Grass Ceiling: Overcoming Obstacles in the Corporate Savana” (sic), didn’t come from me but from Google.
Why haven’t you written a LinkedIn article about your product? This lets you reach B2B prospects who are more likely on LinkedIn than on TikTok. In fact, I wrote a LinkedIn article about LinkedIn articles. (I wrote it so long ago that I only asked my clients six questions rather than seven questions.) And I’ve also written LinkedIn articles for Bredemarket clients.
Do you need help in writing that LinkedIn article that tells the world about your product? Maybe you could become one of my clients, since I help create content for tech marketers. Contact me.
Bredemarket 