“LinkedIn! It’s hands down the best social media platform.”
Who makes stupid comments like that? Me, it turns out.
Last year, during an FM team meeting that had meandered onto the topic of social media, this was my staggeringly insightful contribution. It’s stuck with me because in the months since — and having spent more time using the service — I realise just what a totally inane and inaccurate bit of word vomit that truly was.
In my defence, at that point I was looking at a lot of company news on the platform. As a result, I erroneously interpreted it to be a benign jobs board, where you also find useful information on organisations and industries you’re interested in.
Wrong.
Have you spent any time on the business- and job-orientated behemoth? Beyond putting up a profile (because it seems the right thing to) and swiftly forgetting your login, that is.
If you have waded into this murky, career-focused world, then you’re in the company of roughly 830-million others — 10.2-million of them from our own electricity-less shores, Statista said in May.
This isn’t the Tinder Swindler, but I would not begrudge your enemies for coming after you
Interestingly, the German consumer data company put that at a 100,000-member jump from April, which surely says something about jobseekers in SA. They are patently not just disgruntled workers who, having been forced back to the office, are having a gander at other prospects. Or are they?
But I digress.
Yes, you can find a job on LinkedIn or, indeed, recruit someone through the site. But for the most part, the platform is a hotbed of self-promotion. And it’s easy to put its more prolific users into a handful of categories. They are, in no particular order:
The bragger
You’ve started a new job and have posted about it. Go wild with that: it’s part of the LinkedIn package, and we’re happy for you too. But using that snap of the Emirates business class TV screen and glass of bubbly to “subtly” indicate you’ve received yet another grant or promotion this quarter? Not so much.
This isn’t the Tinder Swindler, but I would not begrudge your enemies for coming after you.
The suck-up
You’ve been working at your new job for a month and just want to share how amazing the company is. On LinkedIn. Your firm has a Zen breakaway room, and last week your boss gave a team chat that you think needs to be recorded as a TED talk.
Oh, come on! Can you not just be a regulation order arse-creeper and tell your line manager that you think their slide deck looks great? Keep the career toadying to yourself.
The sickly-sweet altruist
The poignant tale of how you taught yourself to use Excel, help the old guy you pass on the way to the office every day, or came to understand time management from watching your child while working from home during Covid. By all means — do carry on ... we’re all learning so much ...
The work culture evangelist
It turns out there is such a thing as a LinkedIn influencer, with the likes of Bill Gates and Richard Branson at the zenith of the category (take from that what you will). Top-tier aside, this crowd is basically like its brethren on Instagram — only, instead of filtered images of a comped bush trip, its members thrill the crowds with their “insightful content”.
Somewhere in this LinkedIn mix are the self-styled quasi-motivational speakers of the platform. You know the type — they’ve possibly just (self) published a book that they’re billing as the corporate equivalent of The Secret, and they’re not afraid to post about it. Their shtick might be bolshie and bullish — “stand up to your boss about late-night mails, you tragic column of flesh!” — or more in the style of gently but firmly encouraging you to embrace the power of no and be your own favourite colleague.
The only thing worse than these LinkedIn tropes is the sucker who reacts to every one of the posts they publish. A heart, a pair of green clapping hands, a light bulb, another share.
My constructive but caring feedback to all of them? Stop posting about work and do some!
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