So many times, professors told me to create a LinkedIn profile. “It’s a great way to connect with industry professionals or classmates,” they say.
However, after creating my LinkedIn account, I realized how addicting the website was. You can search for your classmates’ names, look at their accomplishments, and see their experiences. The platform lets you know more about your peers on a personal and professional level.
However, just like any social media platform, scrolling through LinkedIn can be damaging. Since so many people continuously list their past jobs and experiences, you’ll often compare your experiences to theirs.
Then, the self-doubting questions come in. You may wonder, “Am I where I want to be?” or “How does my LinkedIn profile look compared to others?” Looking at people who graduated with you, or who are the same age as you, makes you wonder if your accomplishments match theirs.
But, like other social networks, LinkedIn isn’t an accurate reflection of someone’s life.
For example, if you look at your classmate’s profile and see they have an internship at a huge company, you may feel less accomplished. Then you start comparing yourself to them, thinking that they’ve accomplished so much more and gained more skills than you have to offer.
But you don’t have the full story. Maybe your classmate got their job through connections with close family or friends–that always puts someone at leverage above other applicants. However, you won’t know that from scrolling through their profile, as people rarely share how they’ve gotten jobs.
Often, people curate what they want others to see on their LinkedIn. They may exaggerate the timelines of certain jobs, change job titles, or reward their work experience to cater to certain employers. But you can’t tell this unless they tell you they did it.
So, is it worth comparing your own experiences to someone else’s? And what if this person designed their profile for their industry? If you both work in different industries and have different goals, it’s not fair to compare. After all, you don’t know what the other person’s experience entails, nor the responsibilities and duties they’ve learned from the job.
For many people, just use LinkedIn to curate a resume filled with multiple career experiences. Even if some appear ahead in their careers, you can’t assess their experiences and skills accurately. Just like many social networks, you can’t truly evaluate what’s true or what’s not.
In the end, social media is an illusion.
Platforms like LinkedIn encourage people to present the best of themselves. So why don’t scroll to compare your everyday daily life to someone’s highlighted accomplishments?
Photo by Bastian Riccardi on Unsplash
