I have been wanting to write about that for a while now, but could never really find the right words to do it. As it turns out, my fellow compatriots did the hard work for me. In the brazilian IT community, we have a nickname for LinkedIn: “Linkedisney”, a portmanteau of the network itself and Disney, known for its fabulous fictional worlds and stories about castles and princesses and “happy ever after”. The originality of this naming is not missed on anyone who has scrolled through their feed for more than a few minutes – to appear successful, people feel pressured to present a polished, inhuman version of themselves, thus becoming products instead of beings, in order to look appealing to potential hirers and clients.
The thing is – no one believes that.
Everyone on LinkedIn knows that the image they project doesn’t reflect their day-to-day selves. They are selling themselves as products. And any hirers, potential partners or other parties looking to do business worth their salt are aware that they should have at least some skepticism with anyone they don’t know that well but are entering in a business relationship with. So a more cynical me would beg the question: why is everyone lying to everyone?
So – why?
It is understandable that being a social network with a professional focus would cause many to err on the side of caution when talking about controversial topics, or even adopting a certain professional tone when they are confronted with something that might somehow offend them. This is, after all, what you do in a professional setting: be professional. This is not what I’m talking about. I am talking about, for example, the now-famous case of the person who said something among the lines of “I proposed to my girlfriend this weekend, here’s what it taught me about B2B sales” followed by a completely generic text about exactly that.
In that case, the person has not even intertwined this potentially once-in-a-lifetime experience with actual work matters, which I believe could be an intriguing read to say the least. However as good of a personal marketing strategy that was (I am talking about that post here, after all), I would not feel comfortable presenting myself to potential partners and hirers as someone who sees work and business in every thing I do. Even from a colder managerial perspective, I would much rather work with people who are imaginative and bring in (potentially lucrative) ideas from their life experiences than someone who sees everything as B2B sales or whatever.
And it’s not just the boring, salesman-pitch-ridden timeline which has driven my decision either. I did see a good post from an ex-boss saying that there is no difference between “professional you” and “personal you”. I was very intrigued about this for a while – I did grow up with most adults around me having this very clear distinction between “work me” and “me me”. But I figured my ex-boss was right. There is indeed no difference; you don’t switch to a super-hero identity the moment you open up Slack and Jira, like you’re Bruce Wayne getting ready to save Gotham City.
This is precisely why I have never felt comfortable with this common-sense idea of personal marketing as selling yourself as a product. I am looking into ways to make things differently – this blog, in which I express somewhat controversial opinions like this one is part of that exact chase.
A Dark Knight
If I am going to spend 8 hours a day working with a team, it’s unavoidable we will all get to know eachother at more than simply “this is Steven and he is a web developer”. As a very introverted person, I am certainly not advocating for you to be open about every little thing in your life, but putting up a plastic, carefully calculated image of yourself is bound to cause problems in the long run. Keeping up a lie for a long time takes a huge mental toll, and if you get caught up, people are going to be disappointed and could even lose trust in you. Because as old wisdom says, a lie has no legs. I would rather be very reserved but truthful in the few things I feel comfortable sharing about myself than put up a completely fabricated lie.
Now, will I ever go back? That is tough to answer. I don’t have anything against the platform itself, and I did profit off many opportunities which arose from there. From my end this is a very market-oriented decision: for a long time, the plus sides (abundant job offers, connections etc) did weigh in heavier than the downsides (culture, as stated above). But this has not been the case for at least a year now. This I believe is part of a major trend in how IT is hiring now with the help of AI from both the side of hirers and job seekers – but this would be an entire new blog entry in itself and I do not wish to prolong this further.
All in all, this is why I’m keeping my LinkedIn disabled for now. I have other places and methods to contact hirers and connect with business opportunities which don’t involve me diving into the professional Barbie World. To rephrase Gosling – I am just Steven.