All types of social media have been designed to fulfill one common human urge: networking. This networking can be for personal or professional reasons, but the big idea remains that it’s meant to connect everyone with everyone else. But then you think about it and wonder, how can building connections be so exhausting? Well, hyper-connectivity is draining. While we’re familiar with the toxicity that’s found on Instagram and X, then there comes LinkedIn, and the career-related exhaustion it offers is something else altogether.
You see, LinkedIn is that place you go to when you want to be grounded; when you sense this overwhelming desire boiling within you that makes you want to question your worth, because that’s what happens. Most people on LinkedIn live a dreamy life that is sorted. What GOALS is on Instagram is basically the reality people want you to see on LinkedIn, especially the influencers there.
LinkedIn influencers are those beings who will always have something to say, as pointless as it may be. There are people, not people, founders who tell you who’s an ideal candidate, and anybody who has no life fits their definition of a perfect potential employee. Once, a founder explained how to test somebody’s commitment to work. So, they would call them on Sundays and ask them to show up for an interview at odd hours the next day and that it didn’t matter if they lived out of the station where commuting to the job’s location was practically impossible because it would show their commitment to the new job.
Then, literally every second post is about somebody getting promoted, somebody getting hired and they’re all happy to let the LinkedIn universe know. But hey, no judgment there because we all do it, and as much as we hate the app, you cannot not be on LinkedIn in this day and age. It’s a necessary evil. Companies are there, recruiters are there, a big enormous network of people are there and you’d want to be connected to them for your own career’s growth.
But, here you are looking for a job, applying back to back and no company is hitting back and you’re wondering how on earth is rest of the world getting jobs through LinkedIn, but not you. Places that are mailing you either don’t value your skillset enough to compensate you fairly or they will ghost you after the first few calls with the HR, and the process in its entirety is very consuming.
LinkedIn, however, goes on. There’s someone killing there every day and you’re left with self-doubts. But like all social media, there are spaces where it does what it’s meant to, and you find good people and read insightful content. Every bad also has a good, and hence, there are people striking important conversations, like hustle culture being nauseating and Indian corporate life being a big-ass joke.
When someone complains about how a company wronged them, a community of people emerges to support them. Like, you can really get back to that toxic organization on LinkedIn because there will be so many people who’d relate to your experience and they will want to support you.
In short, LinkedIn sucks but it’s important and occasionally very helpful, which is why it’s also very exhausting.