I've learned after 10+ years on LinkedIn to auto block anyone whose initial message includes the phrase "I'm always looking to," as in "I'm always looking to connect with high impact professionals such as yourself." Pure garbage 100% of the time.

I love the idea of replying to people's asinine requests with a healthy dose of trolling. Else, the platform just feels like an endless chasm of suck. So many seedy networkers and course hawkers.

And the bots! Oh, the bots. Best tip I got last year was to add an emoji to my LinkedIn display name so that anyone using an automated spambot will have their first message to me show up as "Hey 🎧Steve" which gives me the instant green light to report them and block their account.