Do hiring managers or recruiters care whether or not an applicant follows their company LinkedIn?

Tony Snark crackjack:

I'm not a hiring manager or recruiter, but if I were in their position, whether or not someone is following the company on LinkedIn would be about #962 on my list of things I give a crap about for a potential candidate. I don't even know why this would come up, interview or otherwise.

Also, is there a reason why you wouldn't just follow them if you're concerned about this? It takes like 15 seconds to look up the company and follow them...

To answer your question, it might make me look too sleazy if I follow firms that do guys stuff on LinkedIn. This is why I'm not thrusting myself into the opportunity. Don't feed me excuses and tell me it's ok because you do it. I'm not the guy with the username @crackjack.

I don't see how I'm feeding you excuses. Do you honestly think that if you're a qualified candidate, some hiring manager so going to say, "well, his GPA and work experience is good, let's check his LinkedIn page. OH SHIT, he's following our company, how sleazy is that! Ding." If you're following a firm that you yourself is interested in working for, how on Earth would they view that as a negative? If anything, if you get dinged because the person looking to hire you doesn't like it, you would have dodged a fucking bullet, because any firm that nitpicks that much would be pretty terrible to work for.