Job Seekers: Be VERY Careful on LinkedIn...

You may be sacrificing your prospects in order to help sell someone else's product.

Part 1: Emotional Triggers

While we try to separate them as much as possible, the truth is there are a lot more similarities between personal and professional life than we'd like to admit.

Is interviewing not similar to dating? Both sides tell the best story of who they are. Everyone is on their best behavior. There is so much excitement in the new potential. You start to imagine what life would be like in this new relationship. You reflect on past mistakes and think about how you won't repeat them, you spend some idle time thinking about the potential new entity in your life (person or company) and maybe even do a little "internet research" on their past - and you even start to fantasize making the social media post announcing when it's official.

After a series of increasingly intense interviews - how bad does it feel to get a quick note from the recruiter saying that while everyone enjoyed meeting you, they have decided to move in another direction? Doesn't it feel a little bit like going on a few dates with someone in which you thought there was good chemistry, only to get a text the next day saying "I've really enjoyed our dates - but I don't really see this going anywhere..."

Does the inevitable "but let's be friends!" or "best of luck to you!" conclusion not feel almost the exact same way as the "we will keep your resume available for future opportunities!" line found at the bottom of the recruiter's email? Leaving you with a mixed bag of surprise, disappointment and rejection?

Personal relationships and professional development are probably two of the most important experiences that a human being can have - and since we are emotionally driven creatures - it's also fairly easy to manipulate those emotions into a business model that monetizes on it.

Part 2: Building a Business Around Emotions

Consider how much money goes into the business of relationships.

Every single stage of relationships has a business model that understands and monetizes the emotional elements to romantic pairings. Everything from dating apps, relationship coaches, "how to pick up men/women/other", etc to the wedding business as well as divorce business. There is even a large business that preys upon the emotional havoc and brain chemistry we experience after being dumped - "get your ex back" courses and books target those bitter feelings of rejection and promise relief and strategies to reconnecting with "the one that just got away" - all for a price.

The same can be said of professional development - Over the course of my career I naturally started using LinkedIn as it became the social network for professionals. I used it for the same purpose I figured everyone else did; keeping in touch with professional networks, occasionally researching a new or interesting trend in HR, showing off my accomplishments, praising the accomplishments of others and once or twice I used it to look for work. For the most part my engagement with LinkedIn has been pretty low.

Since opening my own company - I've spent a lot more time on LinkedIn. I wanted to understand potential trends and marketing tools - learning about hot button HR topics, seeing how people engage and advertise, making connections and learning from small business entrepreneurs and I've found myself surprised at seeing the same sorts of emotional manipulation used in personal relationship businesses echoed in the professional capacity, though it comes with a worse consequence that you may not be aware of.

Part 3: Job-Hunting is an Emotional Business

Even in great economies the job hunting process is confusing, overwhelming and always in flux. The scope and scale of what an ATS can do changes each year. As does strategic interviewing or how companies think about staffing. There is also never-ending analysis about workforce planning, attrition, retention and promotion which have direct correlations to interviewing. When you work in HR, especially as a Business Partner - you become immersed in this. You have to understand all of these elements and build strategies and frameworks that tie that into business objectives. Even if you are not a very skilled HR person, you can't help but pick up these trends and have a good understanding of how all of it works. If you work in HR, are you not automatically the family and friend "go to" person to look over resumes and help with career advice?

I therefore found myself surprised when I began seeing all of these posts from inexperienced people that gave some REALLY bad advice about job hunting. And what was worse, people were buying into it. I started observing it and started to see how it worked together and how it's actively hurting people who don't recognize it.

The problem with bad advice is that it doesn't sound bad, and you don't know it's bad unless you have a lot of experience or are talking to people who can tell you that it's bad. The problem with career and job-hunting advice on LinkedIn is that it can have much worse consequences than you'd think and it's fueled by those emotional triggers that I mentioned earlier.

For example - one of the most controversial topics within the job hunting experience is that of "ghosting". That's where at any stage of the interview process, the company (usually the recruiter) simply stops responding to you. The further you were in this process, the worse it feels. "Ghosting" is a topic all on it's own but most people agree it's an unfortunate process and companies should take pains to ensure that's not part of their candidate experience.

Being ghosted can feel pretty awful and frustrating and so it may be tempting to send a harsh note to the recruiter or hiring manager - however most people don't do that because they are still holding out hope and don't want to lose their chances - so instead they do what most of us do and use social media as an outlet.

The problem is other people are waiting for you to do that and looking to take advantage of that frustration in order to further their own goals.

Part 4: Laura's Story about Being Ghosted

Laura is a good friend of mine who gave me permission to tell her story to help articulate this point. I think it will resonate with a lot of job-seekers.

She's a talented Marketing professional with some experience in leadership. She worked primarily for travel companies and was with her last company for almost 6 years. As COVID-19 came, she lost her role and like millions of others is now looking for work. So like millions of others she began to spend a lot more time on LinkedIn, the social media of professional life and beacon of hope to the unemployed or those seeking career advancement.

As she updated her LinkedIn profile, she began applying to jobs. She started making network connections with marketing leaders and marketing recruiters. She looked at resume writers and began following trends for "interview tips", "interview hacking" and "resume optimization." Naturally, LinkedIn picked up on these behaviors and began to serve her content and ads designed to help job seekers. She started to see some good traction - a few people reached out to her for phone screens, she was hired to do a quick freelance project and she felt pretty confident that she would land within a few months.

Eventually she was contacted by a small tech company and began the interview process. She was told a few times that the organization was in a strange transition period. She had 5 stages of interviews, each one with higher level employees until the last interview with several VPs in different divisions. I was going to be one of Laura's references. She was in a fever pitch of excitement. It was a great position earning about 15% more than what she was earning before. All the signs looked good.

The hiring manager sent her a note after the final interview telling her she was a really strong candidate but there were a few organizational elements in process as it related to potentially being acquired by another company and so it was going to take a little while for a final answer.

3 weeks went by and Laura sent two notes: one to the recruiter, the other to the hiring manager. Neither was returned.

Feeling those stings of frustration and aggravation, she signed on to do her round of job searching on LinkedIn and saw a post about ghosting.

It had very high engagement - something to the effect of 2000 likes and 500 comments. The profile picture was of a smiling woman in a professional background. It felt like this was Laura's personal champion, everything in this post was what Laura was feeling.

If you've spent any time on LinkedIn, you probably know exactly this type of post:

"Dear Recruiters

Every candidate deserves complete communication at every step of the process. Ghosting a candidate is absolutely unforgivable and unprofessional. If you don't select a candidate, they should receive a personal call with tailored feedback. Do better recruiters!

Share your worst ghosting story below so recruiters can learn!

Like and share if you agree!"

(40 Hashtags)

Laura looked at the profile and the profession indicated "Author", "Career Strategist" "Top 100 Linkedin Accounts to Follow". This helped build credibility - this was obviously someone important and could help make positive changes. Laura read hundreds of comments supporting the post, sharing some of their own stories and indicating their opinion on the abysmal nature of recruiters. She made her own comment in support, liked and it shared it within her network with a comment saying: "This just happened to me - what a horrible way for recruiters to treat candidates. Do you even want good employees?"

All of this sounds perfectly reasonable, she experienced something unpleasant and wanted to vent that experience. She wanted to add her voice to the populace indicating that ghosting shouldn't happen and since she made a post within that hashtag, she just taught the LinkedIn algorithms that these are the types of posts she wants to see, and so each time she logged on she kept seeing posts of this nature.

Since she was engaging with these posts she was spending less time on LinkedIn job searching or building skills or networking and was simply spending all of her time reading ghosting horror stories and writing scathing replies in the comment sections to recruiters who tried to explain that they have never ghosted anyone. This of course lead to more comments as everyone wanted to share their opinion - especially if you have the nerve to dissent against the popular point.

Laura began to notice that the first month she was unemployed and using LinkedIn, she had some pretty good traction, a number of employers had reached out to her to schedule screenings or phone interviews, but that recently it had turned completely cold.

She decided to spend more time using LinkedIn as a job search tool and tried to ignore getting pulled into comments and posts about ghosting - still, no matter how much time she spent looking and applying for jobs, sending cold emails or updating her LinkedIn profile, she was simply getting no response.

She eventually asked me for help on how to job search on LinkedIn and how to build a good LinkedIn profile and that's where I discovered where Laura's frustration and aggravation were being manipulated - and with some pretty bad consequences.

Recruiters and hiring managers use social media, especially LinkedIn, as a way to learn about possible candidates.

It is very common that when you apply to a role, the recruiter, hiring manager and interview panel will all look at your LinkedIn profile. Unless you are a direct connection most information beyond your career profile isn't available unless you update your privacy settings- but if a recruiter is using a premium account they may have much higher visibility than you think and if you haven't specifically updated your privacy settings, all of your information is available for recruiters to see.

Part of that profile is your activity. Everything from what you have liked and shared, to what you have commented on or articles you posted, even groups you are a part of and who you follow are all available for a recruiter to learn about you.

I could see all of Laura's activity clearly. One quick look at her profile showed me the companies she worked for and right below her professional profile was "Activity". I could see everything Laura had done on LinkedIn. Every post she liked, commented on or shared, and it brought me directly to her comment that was almost always negative as she had been commenting solely on negative ghosting stories.

The first impression any recruiter was going to have of Laura was her sharing posts and writing scathing comments about ghosting. Within the last month she had 9 posts where she commented in complete support of those generic "Dear Recruiters" or "Dear Hiring Manager" posts. Commenting something like "100%! Recruiters need to do better! What a terrible way to treat candidates!"

As a potential recruiter or hiring manager what do you think this signals about Laura? Do you think they are going to review this activity and consider this as a potentially strong asset to their team?

It therefore didn't surprise me that a few weeks after this - Laura got a response from the first organization. It was a canned "Thank - but we are passing" email. I told Laura that it was possible that there was some sort of organizational delay, but that she potentially knocked herself out of consideration by engaging with these posts. I grew more confident of this when Laura also told me that she saw the recruiter had recently looked at her profile.

To be clear - I am not commenting on the validity of Laura's experience or feelings. Nor am I defending "ghosting". Being ghosted feels horrible and it's human to want to vent about it - but realize the purpose of LinkedIn is professional networking, and consider what your Linkedin activity signals about you to potential or current employers.

Part 5: How Your Emotions Are Used as Engagement Tools

When I noticed this, I began to see it with increasing frequency and I began to notice that people who tended to be the most vocal or negative within LinkedIn, also tended to be the most vocal about inertia. Yesterday I noticed a different friend who responded to a high engagement post. The original post was something like:

"Companies really need to think how they do things. There is so much available talent and they are just screwing candidates over with long meaningless interview processes and then ghosting on them. You are literally destroying your brand and reputation as employers.

Those in my network - I am here for you.

Share your most recent frustrating experience and let's see if we can help make some positive change!"

I saw the post had something like 8,000 likes and 2,000 comments and I saw my friend had posted: " I have been out of work for 3 months now. First month saw a lot of opportunities, but now I can't even get a call back. Companies are really doing everything possible to screw over talented candidates!"

When I looked at my friend's profile, I saw the same thing and got the same feeling I did when I saw Laura's profile: clear as day was the recent activity - almost all of which were him commenting on controversial posts that were designed for the sole purpose of creating engagement for other people and because he had been frustrated and started engaging with those posts, he kept seeing more of them and kept engaging with them. He wasn't realizing that could be one of the biggest factors to why he was now being passed over for work opportunities while giving one of these engagement profiles exactly what they were looking for and not realizing he was in a vicious cycle. He was doing the work that these engagement posters want, the LinkedIn algorithms were going to keep serving content like this for him and potential employers were going to continue to look at his profile, see his activity and decide to pass on him as a candidate.

LinkedIn is like Instagram and Facebook and Twitter - we like the engagement, we like to be liked and we like to see what other people are doing. How good does it feel to post something that resonates with people and others share and congratulate because they like it too? How great does it feel to post that you just started a new job, or got promoted or read an article that inspired you and you just want to share that positivity?

But realize others use LinkedIn differently and there are a LOT of people who use LinkedIn as a way to generate revenue - and the way to do it that is through engagement. People that have large amounts of followers or post content that have large amounts of comments and engagement to their content can monetize it. They use it as a platform to sell their products or services or can use it to eventually sponsor content.

One of my other favorites was someone posted something a few weeks ago. It was a very controversial topic about TikTok and privacy. He deliberately said something that was designed to fuel an argument and sure enough his comment section exploded with both sides asserting why they were right and why the other side was wrong - and of course there in his comment section was him saying: "I am one of the most followed LinkedIn profiles - if you want my digital playbook, visit my site and take a look at my products! Use LinkedIn to sky-rocket your engagement and ad spend and I can show you how!"

I started to look at these "high engagement profiles", especially those who constantly posted on Interview Advice, Job Seeking, Employment, Compensation, Diversity - essentially all those hot button HR topics (Diversity, not surprisingly saw a HUGE spike post June 1st from profiles who have never once mentioned it) and was fairly surprised (though I shouldn't have been) that they never worked within HR or as a hiring manager. A majority of them have only worked in Sales and have only a few years of experience - several are only in education, some were entrepreneurs. The common theme in all of them was that they had nothing to lose by making a negative tone general post - they didn't have an employer and they weren't actively job searching. They are just using controversial topics in order to build engagement and in most cases are owners or founders of their own business.

One particularly disappointing exchange was how I noticed a high engagement post talk about Diversity and Inclusion- it was pretty formulaic and had the standard DI, DEI, BLM hashtags, but the last 2 sentences had some pretty bad advice that any DEI or HR practitioner would question. Yet this post had something like 5,000 comments in support and nearly 800 shares. I wrote the profile challenging the point and asking for data or an explanation and learned that it wasn't actually the business owner who made the post - it was a freelancer in another country that had been hired through Upwork for $20 an hour to research common buzzwords and just make LinkedIn posts at the right time and using the right buzzwords. He thanked me for the correction. And I while I don't know anything for sure, I suspect the business owner didn't give a rat's ass about Diversity or Inclusion - he was simply taking advantage of the sudden trend following the murder of George Floyd as a way to simply build brand engagement.

A lot of these posts are built to capitalize on the emotional elements of job hunting and career development. It's to build on of the angst of unease, the fear of being unemployed, the desire for development and progression or the drive to make more money. They make an impassioned post that resonates with people and they leave it to people who do have something to lose to do the work for them. This is why these posts ask for engagement "Comment below with your story" or "What do You Think?" or "I can't wait to read your opinion" are trying to trigger our desire to share our story and opinion - but the truth is, these posts are simply designed to get as much engagement as possible. There is likely no actual intent to have a meaningful discussion or try to make a positive change - and the moment you do engage with that post - it becomes a data point your current or potential employer can see.

Part 6: My Advice

I do not want to take anything away from people who are good at building engagement and use social media like Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram as a way to promote their brand by posting content that people engage with. I have seen a few high engagement posts that were actually quite positive and meaningful. I just want those who are choosing to engage to be mindful of the consequences. Your one comment on someone's empty engagement post helps them sell their online course or marketing plan and potentially gets you kicked out of the running to be considered for a role. That doesn't sound like a good trade.

When you see one of these posts - look for the telltale signs before engaging:

• Is it a "personal hero" story (you can just imagine the 'and then everyone clapped' at the end)?
• Does it have the meaningful spaces and bolded buzzwords?
• Does it mention "link in the comments"? (Since LI doesn't want to promote content that drives traffic away from their site) so they are likely trying to drive you to their website or product.
• Is it just a generic or high level "Dear xxx" on a controversial issue with filled the hashtags?
• Do they include a poll, or ask a question?
• Does it have an infamous 'call to action'?
• What does their career title say about them?
• What does their profile indicate in terms of their history and experience? Are they really an expert or knowledgable in this topic? Naturally people can post about things they aren't experts in - but if they are passing themselves off as an expert or change agent - they should be able to qualify that with their experience.

By all means engage if you'd like to - there can be some fun discussions had - but realize the motive for the original post and then ask yourself: "If a hiring manager sees me engaging with this post - will it potentially paint me in a negative light? Does my engagement with this post really help anything? Or am I just venting?"

You can also do what I did when I started noticing the addicting and destructive cycle and began to tell LinkedIn "I do not want to see posts like this" - leaving me with much fewer of those and much more on topics I actually want to see on LinkedIn. Hopefully this also disrupts this business model to allow LinkedIn to cater more towards those who are looking for work and career development.

You should also use this knowledge to your advantage. Imagine a recruiter who is looking over 20 applicants, and after viewing 10 of them that have all been baited into "companies need to..." or "recruiters have to be better..." posts - they come across one that actually radiates positivity. They comment on posts that are inspirational or interesting. They share stories that are amusing and deprecating. They make posts that highlight their favorite former co-workers or managers. They talk about topics they are really passionate about. Even if the topic is a negative, they paint in a positive way. Instead of "Was ghosted after 3 weeks of waiting - what a horrible candidate experience" it comes across as "Was really excited to interview with this company and haven't received a response yet - I'm disappointed. I wonder how communication between candidates and companies can improve in case things are in flux?"

You will make a vastly different first impression and will appear far more valuable to potential employers.

Good Luck!

Daniel Space

The HR Vault (www.TheHRVault.org)

Daniel has been working in HR since 2003 - primarily as Business Partner for video game and tech companies. He is trying to help drive the value of HR while conquering his fear of drowning.