Linked in or Lies

I wanted to recount an experience. My company is looking for a marketing person. Someone who can write, understands web marketing and is enthusiastic about working for a small company. The usual. What I find when I interview people who have 20+ years of experience in the corporate work place, they are keen to prove how "hip" they are. This means talking about blogs, newsletters, using macs or social networking. I encountered one of these today who was bragging about how critical using Linkedin was to top-tier professionals in today's environment, and how this influential people only wanted to connect with other linked in people. This of course is a valid point.

Unfortunately he didn't have a linked in profile.

Maybe he chose to keep it hidden from people outside his network. But he he was a freelancer communications/PR person, and it would be beneficial to show up in the network results, right?

So I guess he's not in the cool club.