Be as fake as possible on LinkedIn

Hello ____! I hope you are enjoying yourself during this holiday season. This is a great time for friends and family. I wanted to reach out to wish you well. Remember that you can always rely on me for help. Best, ______.

The above is something I saw on LinkedIn sometime during December. During a 2 am text conversation about the tech industry, a friend told me I should become a [In]fluencer on LinkedIn because of my passion for the field. I was both repulsed and amused at his suggestion because I had already been planning to write an article about my distaste for LinkedIn Influencers.

LinkedIn Warriors

LinkedIn Influencers or LinkedIn Warriors are people who, in my opinion, dedicate way too much time to LinkedIn where they post about the most effective ways to get hired at companies or other industry-related practices. They come in many different shapes, sizes, and backgrounds. They will write pages of text on some of the most mundane topics like what the number of rounds of interviews a company makes you do says about them. They complain a lot and when they aren’t, they’re posting some kind of advice that has some kind of fill-in-the-blank you can send to people to elevate your career. I have seen some truly unhinged content generated by these sociopaths and the most obvious examples are the message outlines.

Ingenuine LinkedIn Messages

I don’t know when people developed the inability to generate complete sentences that expressed their thoughts in a genuine and coherent manner. I refuse to believe that this many people exist who want to talk to a professional in an industry and are unable to come up with a succinct two-sentence message for that professional. “Hey, I think you’re awesome. Can we Zoom sometime?” It’s that simple. Who is receiving these obvious copy-paste messages like the one at the top of the page and thinking, “This person is extremely genuine.” I understand it takes motivation to reach out, but is whatever outline you’re using a good way to start or continue a professional relationship? Should you not be yourself? Do they want to work with you or the version of you that you pretend to be?

What template will you follow when you get hired?

Social Engineering Life Hacks

Other posts that make my skin crawl are when people claim to have some kind of social engineering life hack that will surely give you the edge in any situation. “Master the human mind and know absolutely what to do when…” or something like that. I swear I’ve seen people talk about how they can move objects with their mind through the power of focus and willpower. Here’s an example of how to “maximize your social intelligence” in 3 minutes with the advice of a former FBI agent.

A sign of discomfort is hiding hands because it can signal deception. Are you in a meeting with a James Bond villain? Is Dr. Evil your boss? Where does this individual work where there are people maniacally rubbing their hands together under the table? I am glad they let me know that smiling is a sign of comfort though because I thought it meant they were in pain. Also, it’s not like anyone can fake a smile.

What is LinkedIn for?

This leads us to the question of what the purpose of LinkedIn even is. I thought it was supposed to help you get a job, keep in contact with people in your professional network, and be hip to all the industry news. I think it’s the way it helps you achieve the first objective that I have a problem with. LinkedIn does a great job of giving people a platform to represent their professional selves and find job positions, but it doesn’t do a good job of promoting authenticity and passion. Two tenets that are very near and dear to my frail little heart.

LinkedIn has become an echo chamber filled with screams over what keywords you need in your resume, how to position yourself when it comes to salary negotiation, and how to manipulate people to get what is best for you. Where is the excitement for improving other people’s lives, for working at a company that’s trying to make a better world, for doing what you love? Not that there isn’t a celebration of these things, but I just see so much focus on the small insignificant aspects of working. A great prioritization on earning a better title instead of focusing on what someone can do to make sure they are doing their most. A company says it wants employees to help change the world and the job market hears how a paycheck will change their world.

Maybe I’m just focusing on the bad. I could be letting a small minority of people taint the platform for me. Even if it’s a majority, I can’t be angry that not everyone aligns with my ideals.

Conclusions

LinkedIn has its faults like every other platform. The one I have a real grievance with is the user base that preaches empty words and encourages others to be disingenuous. A reliance on templates and AI-generated responses leads to the death of oneself. It makes me fearful of one day working in an industry filled with people regurgitating the same words they were just fed because they’re unable to develop their own. The best I can do to combat that future is by being true to myself and hoping others do the same.