With all the social media platforms that are constantly sinking away our time, LinkedIn baffles me as the weirdest one out there. It’s cringey, individualistic and very, very corporate.
I joined LinkedIn whilst at University, to start putting myself out there for potential employers for internships and job opportunities, from the advice of career advisers. Although I’ve never managed to job from LinkedIn, I still use it occasionally to see what’s out there and keep my options open.
I watched this brilliant Youtube video Has Linkedin Ruined Your Career which touches upon some great points about why this professional social media platform is so…strange.
LinkedIn states that they are:
The world’s largest professional network on the internet. You can use LinkedIn to find the right job or internship, connect and strengthen professional relationships, and learn the skills you need to succeed in your career.
However, in my experience, this is no longer the case. It’s cringeworthy and narcissistic, from both sides. It started with good intentions, but now it’s full of individuals expressing fake positivity, appreciation and ‘look how much better I am than you’.
I mean, people wrote appreciation posts to their employer when they were made redundant. Capitalism is a disease.
Here are the main things I find strange about this platform:
You have to pay for features
50 people have viewed your profile! Great. Oh, you want to find out? You need to pay for LinkedIn premium for £17.99 a month. No other social media platform specifically asks you to pay for features that should already be included in it. It’s another money-making scheme, which is done with advertising anyways and can mean you’re very limited and again just means people with the money are having the advantage of getting their foot in the door. That is hardly a positive for students!
This monetisation makes sense for courses like LinkedIn Learning, offering so much educational content (that is very high quality) but seriously, you have to pay to send a message to some people. Who put them on a throne?
It’s a requirement
Your LinkedIn is very likely requested or expected, on job applications. Many job adverts will only be advertised on LinkedIn as it is the biggest job search site in the world, and rightly too. It’s crisp clean standardised format makes it much more acceptable to recruiters than other sites. This means we’re often forced to spend time creating a profile just to apply for jobs and put ourselves out there, oh and you also need to write a full CV and a cover letter too…why not!
You’ve probably heard ‘It’s about who you know, not what you know’. With LinkedIn growing continuously, although it’s not the largest social network if someone is on LinkedIn creating connections you will automatically be at a disadvantage. So, whether you like it or not, it’s often a requirement to be on the platform, and active, to get ahead in your career. How you do this, of course, is completely up to you.
There is far too much power given to the employer
So, you’re going to spend time (and sometimes, money) to write a killer bio, list out your credentials, your promotions, and your award for winning the egg and spoon race in Year 3 just for the job advert to not have the salary range? Really?
Company pages can get away with limited information and most job adverts unfortunately still include vague expectations, not to mention the dreaded ‘wish list’ and the entry-level jobs requiring 2+ years of experience (more on that in another post, a hideous practice).
LinkedIn gives companies the database of all these potential employees, but we’re not getting anywhere near the level of information back unless they’re a huge corporation that has paid someone to fill things in for them. Now that’s not for all companies, some really make an effort to ensure they have a great presence and their employees have public accounts where you can cold message questions before you decide on whether it’s for you. However, this power imbalance does mean hiring managers are able to find a replacement for you in a second with a database of ‘high-achieving’ individuals.
A job is a two-way system. It’s an exchange of contracts, literally. Both sides get a say in the efficacy of this. We are giving so much information about our professional lives, through our profiles or posts, to apply for jobs where you don’t hear even hear back. Not to mention, still requiring a CV to be attached to the job advert when all the information is already on your profile is quite lazy.
Self-comparison
Now, all social media is guilty of this and it’s a package that comes with being on one. How is reading about your friend from high school’s humble brag post about being promoted for the 15th time in their soul-sucking corporation helping you? It’s just going to affect your mental health and make you feel like you’ve never made it. Let’s face it, there’s always going to be someone better than you. You have to be grateful for what you have and focus on doing the best you can with the path that you’ve got.
Everyone is on their own career journey and that is so individual. Some people choose to work pull 70 hour weeks, some enjoy working part-time and spending time with their children. LinkedIn makes us feel like we’re always behind, not like there aren’t a million other things in our life that essentially tell us the same (you’re 28 and an unmarried woman? better hurry up!)
Corporate worship
Let’s be honest, no one is going to slag off their employer on LinkedIn, even if they’ve left, as they don’t want to burn bridges and their motive on the platform is to advance their careers. Therefore, everything is well curated and positive towards an employer, to ensure they keep their job and reputation.
Companies are getting their image boosted for free by their employees (who are sometimes asked to have a presence there). With this level of engagement, everyone now thinks that working for that company sounds amazing. However, this also makes it easier for the companies to ignore their areas of weakness and complaints, because they’re already backed up with so much ‘good stuff’.
Most of LinkedIn is American, which is normal, as it’s an American company. It is also very corporate, focusing mostly on employees from large companies. This makes it a very unrelatable place for people outside of this sphere (I’m British and work for a startup), as I don’t wear suits and ties or have to struggle with working overtime, which is more of an expectation in American culture than it is British.
No one is really themselves
Of course, how you talk to your manager or colleagues is not the same way you talk to your friends and family. A working environment means everyone needs to be polite and courteous whether you like it or not, for the sake of respect and the fact you’re stuck with your colleagues.
Now, this is super important in the workplace (even if you want to swear at HR), so it is the same case on LinkedIn. It is very ‘each to one’s own’ as we’re gunning for our dream jobs by boasting about our achievements and subtly hiding away our weaknesses. Although there are now many posts now highlighting these weaknesses and bad past experience, our language and professionalism is still the front and foremost.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does link in with our comparison of others. Just because that woman is climbing up the corporate ladder at breakneck speed, doesn’t mean they’re actually a nice person or are happy. They’re of course, not going to show their true selves on LinkedIn whilst they may be more open on Instagram or Twitter. It is all fabricated to make us look like the model employee (a robot) despite the fact that we’re all very, very human, so give yourself a damn break.
Overall, I think LinkedIn is here to stay, but it is a warning that it’s often more toxic than you think. As long as you are using it intentionally (for job searches, building connections) then you can really make it work for you, and harness all its positives. I’d advise not scrolling through the feed if you can, and only following companies that you know are related to your career.
I’d like you to reflect on how you found LinkedIn. Has it worked for you? Or are you staying away?
