I recently stumbled across a LinkedIn meme that perfectly captures how students today inflate even the smallest accomplishments with corporate jargon. In it, a young man proudly announces he’s gotten his driver’s license—but on LinkedIn, of course, he rebrands it as the most respected exam evaluating one’s operational mastery of “fuel-based transportation systems.” It’s a joke, but it lands because so many of us have seen (or posted) announcements that sound just like it.
The pressure to succeed—if not outshine our peers—often leads us to brag about coveted professional experiences or embellish on our accomplishments. Much like on other more publicly vilified toxic social media platforms, such as Instagram or X, how we are perceived tends to matter more than who we actually are.
LinkedIn, in its own way, can foster the same behavior. We assume that the more awards we showcase or the more flowery language we use to describe our internship experiences, the more clout we’ll earn among our peers and prospective employers.
Instead of forming genuine connections, some college students judge others solely by the strength of their LinkedIn profiles. How do I know? I’ve been to networking events where conversations last about 30 seconds—beginning with “What’s your name?” and ending with “Can I get your LinkedIn?” There’s no real discussion about our experiences in particular fields, our academic interests, or—even for those of us entering the political world—our thoughts on the current state of politics.
Meeting fellow students and professionals only to exchange profiles and say I have “this many” connections on LinkedIn is not valuable to me. Networking should not feel like a dating app, where one swipes right or left without a second thought. How meaningful is a connection if you share nothing in common and will never speak again?
Of course, LinkedIn isn’t useless. It’s helped me stay connected with classmates, professors, and early professional contacts, land interviews, and receive advice I needed. The platform works—just not as a personality test or a measure of human worth. When a résumé turns into a self-esteem barometer, that’s when things go off the rails.
So here’s my plea to fellow students: rethink how you use LinkedIn. Stop treating other people’s internship lists like holy scripture. And when you’re networking, try having an actual conversation before lunging for someone’s QR code.
And lastly, enough with the over-the-top announcements. If you got your driver’s license, just say that!
If you graduate, just say you graduated—you don’t need to declare that you’ve “successfully completed a multi-year capstone in interdisciplinary human-capacity development.”
And if you land a summer internship, congratulations—but please resist the urge to describe your couple of weeks of filing paperwork as “spearheading cross-departmental strategic initiatives at a Fortune 500 firm.”
Your future employers—and your future self—will appreciate honesty far more than another exaggerated LinkedIn epic.
Image: “LinkedIn logo on company website displayed on computer screen with ripple effect” by Ivan Radic on Flickr
