Internal vs external. Recruiter vs sourcer. Direct hire vs contract placement.

Your 95% messages are probably coming from external sourcers working on contract placement roles. Their motivation is to get any type of lead and pass you up the chain.

My experience is to ignore them if the job is not relevant or they seem scamy - and to ask simple questions to quickly screen them (who is client? what is salary?) Suddenly 95% of them disappear.

Edit; Turn this setting off: jobs-->career interests-->"let recruiters know you're open"

I encourage everyone to delete their LinkedIn account. I guess if you need one when looking for a job, create an account and then delete it when you're done.

LI is so strict with its rules and data usage generally. I wish they would fight hard to cut back on the obvious spam. Ruins the experience and makes it harder to sell its use to job seeker clients.