But you're a compsci major. Compsci/IT jobs thrive on that shit, man. It's internet, it's tech, it's digitaltastic Google Facebook Github binarific. Got a Google Glass on your head and an iPhone in your pocket and an iPad and a netbook in your bookbag. I have a standard-ass Lenovo computer (though it has a touch screen and Windows 8) and a phone that is so dumb it would qualify for disability if it was made of cells. Also your friend must be one of those people who can stomach Twitter and has a sales rep/marketer personality. I don't. It feels forced, ungenuine, and like there's a grinning Enzyte Guy face that gets plastered on... well, somebody in that equation. I'm not a hard introvert, but I lean introverted-of-center and have a low bullshit tolerance too.
LinkedIn got me my past 2 jobs (great, well-paying, benefits, 401(k), all that shit) and I work for a bank in an area (compliance) that really has nothing to do with technology. LinkedIn works for my dad and he works in project management for insurance companies. I think LinkedIn is really great for people in given industries. Of course I can't speak for all science jobs but I bet there's a corporate science industry that uses LinkedIn. Part of it is a matter of whether you'd be willing to work in corporate science - big companies that aren't too personal and wouldn't give you freedom to do all the science-y shit you might want to do. And...in case you're curious...right now I have a stolen, zombie laptop with mostly broken USB ports and a disk drive so fucked up that I just pulled it out of the computer so now there's a big ol' hole. I admit I have an iPhone, but it's because the company pays for it. I wouldn't choose to pay for that on my own. LinkedIn is where recruiters go when they're trying to find people. That's why it works well for corporate industries. It's very much not a computer science/IT crowd sort of thing. It's much more digital networking. I get soft job offers there probably once a month. I'm just saying, don't knock it as the realm of tech professionals. It can really help you in the long run. I nearly doubled my salary with my first LinkedIn job...and I wasn't even looking for jobs at the time. A recruiter emailed me and asked me if I'd be interested, and I said yes.
You may have a point there about industry science jobs; there's kind of three separate 'worlds' when you talk about science; academia, industry, and government. The culture is different in each one, though academia and government are similar in more ways than each one is to industrial science. I've applied for both academic science jobs for this upcoming year and government science jobs. I'm avoiding industry unless I get desperate, because from what I know of it, the culture and I just aren't as compatible, and that's not where my goals are anyway. Academia and government don't really use LinkedIn, from what I can tell. So it's not like LinkedIn would benefit me much.
In my opinion and in part because I've had to deal with a perpetual grad student for my roommate this year, I feel that people are too afraid of working in the industry. They view it as "selling out." Why? What are you selling out? My roommate claims she "couldn't survive" if she got a corporate job. Well, with nearly 200k in student loan debt, she's not going to survive on an adjunct's salary, either. You probably know more about corporate science culture than I do - it might vary from the general corporate culture that I do know. Maybe there isn't a lot of creative freedom to it, or maybe it's very very boring. Maybe your heart is set on research and you couldn't do that in a corporate environment. I'll tell ya what though, I find the corporate world almost completely painless, and being able to pay my bills will never be boring. It's not what I want to do with my life, but I fail to see why something I do for 40 hours a week should be considered what I'm actually doing with my life, either. What I'm doing with my life is what I achieve during the rest of the time. (And during my down time at work...whistles innocently )
I'm not afraid of working in industry, I just don't want to. Why shouldn't something you do for 40 hours a week not be considered what you're doing with your life? I have a strong inkling that many of the people I've called my supervisors over the years have considered it a (very significant) perk that they get paid to do what they love most, and the pay isn't like what doctors and engineers get anyway - nobody goes into the lab for the money. Microbiologists come to mind. I was at Woods Hole in the summer of 2012. My roommate got on my nerves sometimes when she got up in the middle of the night and left the room, and when I finally asked her what was going on, she said she had to incubate bacteria. Microbiologists work the weirdest hours but I don't think they would have stayed in this subfield if they didn't positively love working with the little buggers. Paying the bills is obviously a necessary part of life, but I'd rather that be a side effect of my job rather than the purpose. Screw a job, I've got a vocation and a calling. Which happens to pay the bills.
I think when it's a viable option, go for it. My frustration is mostly directed at my roommate, who just got her Master's in Communications, has the aforementioned 200k of student loan debt, and is determined to go on to get her doctorate in Communications despite the fact that she was turned down from every one of the 10 grad schools to which she applied (an astronomical number and cost when you consider application & transcript fees). She now plans to take a year off, teach or something - probably making about $20k for that year if she does teach because she will be an adjunct - retake her GREs (more $$), and reapply to schools (even more $$) that will not fully fund her schooling (more and more and more $$$$$$) and then after that she is determined she will get a full-time, tenure track job in Communications when every article out there that you read about academia warns would-be professors that calling the tenure-track job market "slim" is being kind. The most memorable article I read on the subject crunched the numbers and concluded it was more likely for a kid to become an MBA star than a tenured professor. And she's trying to do it all...in the Communications field, which strikes me as a field that probably has extremely low demand for professors. I have a friend who's getting a doctorate in some kind of biology at Harvard. I don't know that much about biology, he worked on this in undergrad, maybe you would find it interesting. I know he's got publications out there but I can't find any; I don't have access to the big publication databases any more, not here. Idea of this is that STEM fields seem to have actual options that pay actual money post-grad degrees. He can keep on doing his research. There's interest in it. He's discovering new things...that maybe companies will turn around and incorporate into the industry at some point. If you don't have to work in the industry and can do something you love, by all means go for it. But I see a lot of people like my roommate who fight the industry while going hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt to pursue a dream that is not going to reap the paybacks she will need. It's frustrating because I feel like they rebel against the industry without having any real reason besides "it's not what I love." YOu can't pay student loans like hers based off of jobs that don't exist.
Dude, I think you should look into the NIH investigator pay scales. Tops out at about $181,000. You gotta pay your dues in biology, but you can make a lot of money in the lab. There aren't a lot of PI's out there who are starving, just the grad students and post-docs....and the pay isn't like what doctors and engineers get anyway - nobody goes into the lab for the money.
Oh, I know the NIH investigator pay scales are huge. It's really hard to get a lab there unless you're super-established, well-respected, and sort of a field household name. I hear some stuff through the grapevine from a relative who works on the 'other side' in extramural grants. It's also pretty hard to get a tenure-track job right now. My 2012 supervisor has been a postdoc for like seven years.
It takes some real major justification and long-time work to justify that huge of a salary in your grant package. Here's a table of average salaries by field and rank. The average for a full professor in biomedical sciences - FULL - is about half that. Also NIH's paylines are shit. There's a guy named Yuntao Wu - brilliant HIV investigator, mentioned in the textbook of the HIV class I took last summer - who is basically preparing to move to China because his money went down the crapper, last I heard. (He may have changed his plans. I don't know. He's still in the United States.) Relative in NIH grants says that handwringing and complaining is de rigueur in Bethesda these days.
I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to linkedin. A recruiter found me there, I landed a job that has been incredible for me and my family.