Why You Won't Find Me on LinkedIn

If you're reading this, chances are you work in HR or recruiting and have asked for a link to my LinkedIn profile during a selection process. I'm sorry to disappoint, but I don't have one—and yes, that might cost me a shot at some opportunities.

Still, if you're curious about my reasons, let me explain why I believe LinkedIn is a deeply flawed platform that both industry and society should reconsider. At the end of this page, you’ll find links for further reading if you’d like to explore the topic more.

Don’t Relinquish Control Over Your Professional Life

This critique applies not only to LinkedIn but to any centralized employment platform. Why should an external entity control our professional connections and opportunities? In the past, humans managed to build careers and relationships without such centralized silos—and arguably with better employment outcomes.

Today, we’ve become overly dependent on digital platforms to facilitate job searching and hiring. This dependency has eroded our ability to connect directly and meaningfully in the professional world. That’s both unnecessary and unfortunate. Sad.

It’s Just Another Social Network

Let's be honest. LinkedIn parades itself as a "professional network," but what does that even mean anymore? The content flooding my feed, back when I reluctantly had an account, was a bizarre mishmash of self-congratulatory posts, motivational quotes that belong on a teenager's bedroom wall, and "thought leadership" pieces that are often just thinly veiled sales pitches or, worse, regurgitated platitudes. Where's the actual professional substance? It's become a platform for performative workaholism, where everyone is "humbled and honored" to announce their latest minor achievement, or sharing deeply personal stories under the guise of a "professional lesson." It feels less like a tool for career advancement and more like a digital stage for corporate-themed vanity. The line between genuine professional interaction and cringeworthy personal branding has been completely obliterated.

Spam, Fake Content, Bots and People Lying

And then there's the sheer volume of noise and deception. Even before the AI/LLMs boom, my inbox was a relentless barrage of unsolicited messages: recruiters offering jobs wildly unrelated to my skills, salespeople pushing products I'd never need, and connection requests from people I've never met and have no reason to connect with. It’s a spammer's paradise. Beyond the spam, the platform is awash with questionable content. Fake profiles are rampant, used for who-knows-what nefarious purposes. Bots engage in automated, meaningless interactions to boost engagement metrics. And let's not forget the human element of dishonesty: the "LinkedIn embellishment." Skills are exaggerated, job titles inflated, and accomplishments are often presented in a way that borders on fiction. It's a curated reality where everyone is a top performer, an innovator, and a visionary. If everyone is exceptional, then no one is.

Bad Practices

Beyond the user experience, LinkedIn as a company has engaged in practices that should give us all pause. We've seen reports of data scraping on a massive scale, with user information being harvested and sold. There have been controversies around algorithmic experiments conducted on millions of users without their explicit consent, manipulating their feeds to see how it affects their behavior. This isn't just about annoying features; it's about the ethical implications of a platform that holds so much data about our professional lives and can subtly influence our career perceptions and opportunities. The pressure to conform to the LinkedIn ideal – the always-on, ever-positive, hyper-networked professional – also contributes to a toxic "hustle culture" that often ignores the realities of work-life balance and mental well-being. They profit from anxieties about career progression, pushing a model of constant self-promotion that benefits the platform more than the individual.

Conclusion

I understand that not everyone will agree with my perspective. Some may genuinely enjoy using LinkedIn, and that’s okay. Platforms, like tools, affect each of us differently depending on how we use them. My goal here isn't to shame anyone for engaging with it, but to highlight concerns that are often overlooked or normalized.

So if you’re a regular user, I encourage you to pause occasionally and ask yourself: is this platform truly serving me, or am I serving it? Be skeptical. Question the systems you participate in. Do your own research. And above all, don't feel bad for enjoying a platform that someone else dislikes—just make sure it's a conscious choice, not a default one.