I’ve never quite understood the point of LinkedIn.
For students, LinkedIn is pushed as a necessary tool to set themselves up for professional success. You are encouraged to create a profile, “connect” with as many other users as possible and start networking. University career centers push the idea that a refined LinkedIn page is the key to unlocking a world of possibility.
Yet, LinkedIn feels like an empty platform that resembles social media more than the professional networking tool it claims to be.
LinkedIn was initially marketed as a tool for job seekers to find opportunities and for employers to post listings. Now, timelines are filled with life updates and personal achievements that can be liked and commented on as if they were posted on Instagram or Facebook. More than anything, the platform today has lost much of the “professionalism” it once claimed to be built upon.
It’s evident that people are not on LinkedIn to wholeheartedly connect with others and establish a professional network. Contrarily, it is an online space that is overwhelmed with selfishness disguised as professionalism.
Every post is some sort of humble — or maybe not-so-humble — brag to celebrate an achievement or highlight a skill. Each one also follows the same template, usually starting with an unconvincing “I’m excited to announce,” followed by anything from making dean’s list to accepting a job offer. Sure, these are things to celebrate and acknowledge, but the standardized LinkedIn post strips away any real substance behind these achievements.
The culture LinkedIn has cultivated is one where every individual is desperately trying to stand out while somehow all sounding the same. Is anyone actually excited to announce anything on LinkedIn, or is it a mere compulsion based on the way the platform has been reimagined?
This isn’t to say that everyone who uses or posts on LinkedIn is overly self-centered or egotistical. Part of the platform’s benefit is that it allows users to showcase their experience and circulate what is essentially an online resume for potential employers. But the space itself is driven by an algorithm that rarely surfaces content that is useful or insightful for professional development.
The performative nature of LinkedIn undermines any sense of authenticity of the platform or its users. It’s hard to believe posts about professional vulnerability or life lessons when they begin with a clickbait hook and end with a promotion of an individual, brand or company.
Now, success on LinkedIn often means racking up connections with people you barely know, filling profiles with buzzwords like “motivated” and “visionary” and crafting a well-refined persona that feels more manufactured than genuine.
This complicates LinkedIn’s intention of being an online space for professional growth and education. When there is little substance behind each connection, the platform begins to resemble any other social media site and no longer functions as a meaningful networking tool for “professionals.” Most of the time, the people you connect with on LinkedIn are presenting themselves as who they hope to become rather than who they actually are.
With LinkedIn essentially built on curated profiles and presentation over substance, it becomes difficult to take its claim as a professional networking tool seriously. People are not really on the platform to network, and employers are not necessarily searching for candidates in a space so congested with hollowness.
Instead, the platform often leaves job seekers navigating an environment filled with uncertainty. The rise of “ghost” listings — where jobs are posted but companies never seriously review applicants, or where scammers create the listings themselves — only complicates job searching rather than making it easier.
More often than not, applicants are left in the dark by companies that never follow up on an application. More than anything, LinkedIn ends up replicating the same social dynamics that define other social media platforms. Rather than creating meaningful professional opportunity, it can reinforce the same divisions and performative behaviors that already dominate online spaces.
Despite everything we are told, LinkedIn feels purposeless, and the fact that it has been socially accepted as a “must” in the professional world is almost as alarming as the questionable state of today’s job market.
