DEC 12, 2024 | FEATURES | By Esabella George
At first, the phenomenon emerged for me as a way to check up on the classmates or friends of my older sisters who I had a crush on. They didn’t need to know I existed, regardless, I wanted to see what they were up to and, sweet, there was a professional profile of them on something called “LinkedIn.”
It is like an enigma. It’s always been there (at least in my eyes) then all of a sudden one day your peers have become leagues ahead of you in your own respective professional pursuits. It’s no longer just a webpage to see a profile picture and blush.
It is esoteric as hell. If you aren’t “online” there, sure, maybe you feel better than us, you don’t need a whole other profile and social media to have to keep posting and connecting with people. But I will admit, I am kind of obsessed with it. You have audacious, unquestioned permission to just go ahead and request a friendship with anybody and everybody you may vaguely know. And there is no reason for an awkward walk by each other in the library because aren’t we all just clicking to get by, progressing even closer and closer to the ultimate testament to our productivity?
Everyone who knows and is on there and consumed by the data, the analytics, the updates of peers who have by now completed their undergrad, we may just begin to convince ourselves, oh I’ve got this. I can “bag” some random, unheard of position at an analytics firm in New York City if it comes to it. Maybe it is what you’re dying to do. (I still don’t know what they do there, but good for you.) And maybe you don’t even need a profile because your mom or dad, uncle or aunt has you lined up from the moment you accept your diploma (I’m bitter, perhaps).
“Congratulate (insert name) for their new position.” I still have yet to comment or “congratulate” someone for their achievements on LinkedIn, but believe me…I have seen it.
We live in a time where we all just want to look as good as we possibly can. If some are doing it this way, shouldn’t we all? It’s kind of like, sure I feel wrong trying to portray myself in the best light possible and let go of the ugly, but if some of us are doing it, then are we leaving ourselves disadvantaged by not buying into it? If you’re not over-selling yourself via a professional profile database, someone else is going to do it, and they may be taken more seriously, so was I falling short because I never started posting on there?
I have interviewed CC students this week who have stood out as either pillars on a pilgrimage toward absolute professionalism or characters who have stood out to me as someone with a unique, maybe humorous opinion on the subject.
Like me, Charlie Livaditis ‘26 (125 connections, 0 posts) has not yet posted, for we have the same question: “What would be post-worthy?” He has an answer shortly after posing the question, “If you do something you’d put on your resume, it deserves the reward of a post” and well, looking back he should have posted about his summer.
Livaditis is an approachable, familiar face on the 2nd floor of Tutt Library. He is also, coincidently, my most recent LinkedIn connection when this interview occurred (I have like 25 new connections since then for the purpose of research…research strictly…) Liviaditis started using LinkedIn seriously after scoring an internship during the summer of 2024 in D.C. Relocating to the capitol city, he mentions, “all the other people in the program had it as well as roommates.” Why experience FOMO any longer in the professional realms? That’s what inspired the profile becoming legit.
Hearing from another CC student who takes LinkedIn very seriously, as an opportunity to optimize connections and professional growth, Lilly Asano ‘27 (500+ connections, numerous posts) describes her relationship to the website after completing her profile at the end of her freshman year: “I got in a habit of working on it every day and became a daily user. I frequently go through suggested connections and normally am on LinkedIn at least twice a day.”
Asano is someone who came to mind instantly when brainstorming who I’d speak with as a campus LinkedIn user above 500+. I recall a post shortly after New Student Orientation when we were both Priddy Leaders, where she described her experience via a LinkedIn post. I remember thinking, I should have done that too. Missed opportunity! Regarding the courageous act of posting to LinkedIn, Asano does not see it so much as something to dread. For her, the criteria of posting typically looks like wanting “people to see what I’m passionate about and also use LinkedIn as a professional journal. I think it will be really cool to look back at my old posts in a few years and see how far I’ve come in my career.”
Requesting connections can be nerve-wracking for some personalities, yet it can also be a sort of dopamine boost for an avid user: Asano describes the prominent feeling when requesting a connection: “I get so excited.” With her diverse work and leadership experience from the last few years, she explains, “Occasionally, I’ll go through my account as if looking at it for the first time as a potential connection. I’m really proud of everything I’ve accomplished and new connections inflate my ego: I love thinking about someone being impressed by what I’ve done.” And that’s what, to me, it’s all about. We should be able to look back at the truth of all we’ve done and give ourselves a big pat on the back, or as I like to do, go on a connection spree!!!
But then, on the other hand, why the hell are people lying on LinkedIn? You are fundamentally altering the purpose of the website. That’s like the worst thing ever. I think I lost a large portion of respect for a friend of mine when I realized they were lying on LinkedIn. You did not work “full-time” at the habitat restoration site in Ballona, California. You actually volunteered there for one eight-hour shift during our high school day of service project. Many of these organizations are probably not even aware that their brand or organization is being used to propel the young adults eager to advance their fresh professional career.
Could it get any worse? Yes. The worst of the worst is when you connect on LinkedIn months after starting a situationship involving visiting that someone twice over the summer, regardless of it being one of your busiest, most full of work summers yet, and when you visit them the first time, they happen to have started working at a local liquor store just two days before, and then when you are there they ask for time off because their “girlfriend is visiting,” and then they get the time off. And then you’re there and they don’t want you to see the place they started working at. Then you leave, and they quit two days later, totaling an entire four days of work there. But what do you discover at the end of August via their LinkedIn: The Liquor Store listed in their “Work History” section, stating: “May 2024 – Aug 2024 · 4 mos”… and “Full-time.” Oh god, that’s a straight up fucking lie!!!!
So anyways, these things get messy, and they might even give you the ick, and even a harmless request for a connection on there could expose you if you make shit up for your own benefit.
I asked a few students the following question: Do you view or see peers differently when you encounter their LinkedIn profile? (like are they trying too hard, making stuff up, anything like that?)
Asano describes a sort of different set of rules to LinkedIn, when iterating with peers: “I interact with their posts differently on LinkedIn than on Instagram or TikTok, and am also more likely to follow/connect with someone back. I have a really bad habit of not following people back on Instagram but since LinkedIn requires mutual acceptances, I do connect with people on LinkedIn I don’t follow on Instagram. I’m honestly one of the people who’s probably trying too hard on LinkedIn and have definitely joked about how hard I’ve worked on my page with friends.”
On the other hand, Massimo Flumian ‘27 (157 connections, one post) describes viewing LinkedIn as not too different from other social media, just another excuse to create a public persona: “LinkedIn is kind of an extension of Instagram to me.” Flumian is “a little bit disappointed” by his peers’ shameless pursuit for connections: “When people I know but we’re not even tight and add me I’m always like why does it feel like you’re performing? It is a double-edged sword.” Flumian feels pressured into following through with the request, but at the forefront of the dilemma is a bit of a fear of being perceived.
Now for the funny bit, because there is a lot of humor to the existence of something like LinkedIn, where I am still baffled to see certain profiles present someone in such a professional lens when I remember them not so fondly pouring White Claws on my friend’s head, down her tube top in the basement of Sig Chi, stumbling over drunk after suggesting, “It wasn’t me.”
Asano shares a little bit of a confession about the etiquette or thrill that LinkedIn can provide its users: “It’s also one of the few places I’ll willingly interact with guys or former flings that I’ve ghosted or have ghosted me. I’ll still like or comment on their stuff, even if things between us ended horribly. I honestly think it’s kind of funny, when it comes to social networking, apparently I’ll do anything for a new connection.”
A dear friend and roommate of mine, Emma Langas ‘25 (280 connections, 0 posts) described her own dilemma with the platform, enlisting a new question for myself and future readers to sit with: “I have trouble when people I know connect with me on LinkedIn because I cannot tell if they are flirting or not.” Another friend shares it is the place to communicate, safely, with an “ex-sneaky link.”
Remember when we were told that colleges would really look into everything about us, that it would be detrimental, even change the entire trajectory of how hard we worked in high school if our social media contained anything a bit risky or impure? I sort of see this era of selling and representing ourselves to mirror that, it is just our own form of curating ourselves, making us seem like the right fit or the one that “professionals” would want.
I told an interviewer when asked about a project I have been working on about this article idea, and she laughed out loud, as a hiring manager, and I interpreted it as a nod to everything I was saying and exploring…like people see right through it, and I was appreciative that this specific job had no opportunity to share our profiles, almost as if they know it doesn’t really share much of anything with the employer.
Despite trying to present ourselves in the very best light, it was refreshing to speak with peers who are not drinking the figurative Kool-Aid but are still lurking on there: As Flumian shared, “I will deny people I don’t know, let people just sit there (in the inbox). I don’t know…I like leaving them in there,” but what does he do when telling me this? He accepts a connection right in front of me. I think my prying may have peer-pressured him.