I was made redundant last year. Although it wasn’t my first rodeo, it felt like a strong career history was nowhere near enough when re-entering the job market this time around. I now also had to have an ‘online presence’ where I shared my ‘work wins’, perhaps alongside titbits of wisdom – like a Dalai Lama of careers. And nowhere did that feel more like bringing a water pistol to a gunfight than on LinkedIn.
Once simply a place to house an online CV, the careers platform has metamorphosed into a whole new beast. Status updates range from paeans to former colleagues, to those detailing the minutiae of scoring a commercial deal, and even musings on how getting your child into nursery is the ultimate deal to broker. Sure, there’s no Instagram grid aesthetic to cultivate, but there is a professional brand to nurture, a braggart’s life to live and a whole lot of pressure.
John Hickey, who runs the Instagram meme account @bestoflinkedin, has picked up on this curious new medley of content, to the thrill of his 50,000 followers, bringing us the most unhinged status updates from, ‘I’m WFH this week – working from hospital! Please expect some delayed replies while I recover #StayHealthy’ to vomit-inducing (and entirely unrelated to work) pregnancy announcements: ‘I put a baby inside my baby.’
‘Most of the content on LinkedIn is cringe,’ Hickey says. ‘There’s almost a built-in expectation that if you’re at a certain level, part of your job will involve marketing yourself on [it]. Everyone is everywhere now. And if you’re not, you’re behind in some ways.’ He adds that a fear of calling out the cringe (due to our real names and workplaces being attached to our profiles) also allows it to run extra wild on the platform.
And it’s not only cringe status updates. Some (actually a lot of) people are even using LinkedIn as a place to find love. According to one poll asking how singles preferred to meet new people, 52% chose the careers platform as their number one (while apps like Tinder and Hinge scored just 39% of the vote). But when did this shift – from endorsing your second cousin Steve for copywriting, and learning how Lauren (who you sat next to in Year Seven maths) nails her marketing decks, to engagement announcements and avoiding being propositioned – occur and, perhaps most pertinently, will it ever end?
According to Samantha Price, talent solutions director at Morson Group, we can trace it back to the pandemic, when fewer opportunities to network IRL led people to flex their professional (and, increasingly, personal) muscles on LinkedIn. She also believes there’s a benefit of this new openness to potential employees who can glean the culture of a certain workplace through each post. ‘People come for a salary, but they stay for the people they work with, and if you can’t see it, you can’t be it. LinkedIn is that channel for corporate organisations.’
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Despite our own icky discomfort at updating a collection of our current and former colleagues, with some old uni mates thrown in for good measure, on how our Q2 projection meeting went this week, the pro’s advice for getting ahead in 2025 is still very much to leverage LinkedIn as a place to network, carve out a niche for your expertise and establish yourself as a voice to be listened to. Sorry!
While Price accepts it can be uncomfortable to share a humblebrag online, she advises a more open approach. ‘Rather than just saying, “I did this, and it was amazing,” include bumps in the road, people that supported you, what you’ve learned and what was unexpected, and how your experience has changed your perspective or encouraged you to step out of your comfort zone.’
Grace Kisnorbo, senior recruitment consultant at Zebra People, genuinely enjoys reading the content people share and is a staunch defender of the new LinkedIn era, but her advice is to stay authentic. ‘We don’t all need to be perfect thought leaders; we need to be real humans and share our true experiences. Focus on things that resonate with you, your experiences, goals, things that inspire you. Posting “true to you” content also means that those engaging or joining your network will hopefully be the right people.’
She does, however, caution against taking things too far. ‘If you’ve titled yourself “Chief Maker of Dreams”, you could find that when recruiters are searching and filtering a job title, you’re not showing up to them. Try to keep things concise and clear,’ she advises.
Unsurprisingly, the platform itself is keen to get us posting. Charlotte Davies, LinkedIn’s career expert, tells Cosmopolitan that ‘over the past year or so, LinkedIn has been making adjustments to better surface the content and conversations that will help our members nurture their network and grow in their careers, with a focus on encouraging knowledge sharing’. From LinkedIn’s perspective, it’s working, too: 1.6m pieces of content are engaged with every minute – though the platform insists going viral or providing entertainment are not the goal. ‘Personal anecdotes and experiences are a great way to share insights, but it should always be through the professional lens,’ Davies says.
Instead, she advises users to build a community by ‘asking thought- provoking questions related to your industry or sharing insightful articles with your own perspective’. And, of course, if any LinkedIn interaction feels unprofessional or uncomfortable, report it.
Even Hickey does see the benefits to this new era of LinkedIn. Ironically, it’s through his meme account that he’s been able to progress his career – leaving tech sales for creative copywriting and social media roles. ‘If used properly, LinkedIn is an incredibly useful business tool for networking, finding a job and self- promoting in a way that makes sense to your industry,’ he admits.
Of course, if posting still doesn’t feel right to you, (and tbh, we do not blame you), it’s worth having a profile at the very least, agree the experts. Start by keeping it streamlined with important skills and keywords, which will help recruiters find you, and consider joining groups aligned with your goals or industry so you can be kept up to date. If all else fails, it’s an excellent source of entertainment. Just maybe stick to Hinge when it comes to dating…
