Look out: your third weekly dive into the LinkedIn milieu. Is LinkedIn’s “announce your new position” feature a net positive or negative?
Hmmm. We’re torn. For the record, we’re LinkedIn admirers. List building, brand building, job searching – it’s really good at all that. Stay up to date with your peeps. But is it networking or just the business version of social media (which can lead to posturing)?
Uh…gee. Let’s see. If you, dear reader, have made any “connections” that resulted in a real, trusting relationship recently, maybe. It’s definitely possible to achieve, but increasingly rare.
You know where we stand: your network is who you can call (right now) to either help or get help – and they’re excited to see your name pop up on their phone.
In sharp contrast, every day we see this same kind of post on LinkedIn, for better or worse:
Major note: we’re well aware Reddit can attract the most vocal critics out there. We also know it can attract some really sweet, helpful, and funny people (we’re trying to be one of those, check us out).
Either way, this meme has validity. Coming in at 286 upvotes and 28 comments as of this writing, you have this funny insight:
As fans of anything comedic, this gave us a good chuckle. We’re objective like that. But how YOU feel about all these “new position” posts has a lot to do with where you’re at in your career:
Generally speaking, we think it’s best to encourage, celebrate, and support the folks around us progressing in their career (because we’re awesome, wow!). But seriously, comparison is a thief of joy and their advancement isn’t our/your loss. Send the kudos their way!
However, does it create a weird, hyperconcentrated environment where one might perceive some sort of deficiency in his/her own career? Maybe. It’s up to you to live your story and make your own career decisions.
We still maintain it’s not doing much in the realm of actual networking.
Regardless, Reddit did what Reddit does: comment.
These are always fun, sardonic, cynical, and often insightful. User bobjoylove sheds light on LinkedIn’s [alleged] incentives:
There may be something to that. Conspiracy?!? Broad psyop?!? Who knows, but following the money rarely disappoints.
User GDWtrash really came in hot with this zinger:
Dripping with sarcasm. But gosh if there isn’t a lot of what he describes on LinkedIn. Some of it good, some of it trash…we take our usual position: posts stand on their own merit. If it helps, great. **shrug**
Here’s a good insight from EternalTharonja. It’s human, real, common, understanding, and totally normal:
PinkPrincess-2001 above makes a good point but it’s a bad faith response. It’s totally normal to ask yourself questions about your position in life. Feel it, overcome it, and be excited for the people around you until your day comes.
We’ve all been there, and it isn’t jealousy, unprofessional, or unhelpful to understand a natural feeling like this (as long as you progress through it productively).
Lastly, we love a good shot at AI-generated content, and George_W_Bushido didn’t disappoint:
Funny enough, our last post was all about how people are now using AI to write their posts…and others are using AI to auto-reply.
We’re not sure what these folks think they’re achieving (beyond algo hacking), but it doesn’t ring true with our networking definition.
Maybe it’s in poor taste, but it’s definitely the funniest comment (content redacted to protect the innocent):
Ok ok ok…we got preachy on this one. We couldn’t let this thread go and we think our response speaks for itself:
EternalTharonja was just so dang real with what they said. We had to acknowledge it. Agree? Disagree?
All of this is a bunch of nonsense, we know. But that’s where the world’s gone. We’re not developing real networking relationships nearly as much as we used to, and we think it’s hurting us.
If networking is something you’re working on, give Tripally a try. It’s the only app where people expect to network in person, one on one. This is how you do 20 years of networking in six months – bypass digital networking (whatever that is) and just start meeting people. Seriously, you can just do that.
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