Keekzy Kiki

Trying to find a job in a competitive market, at my age, and with my experience feels like Halloween Trick or Treating at 14 years old – no one is opening up their doors!

There is one more bullet I have left to bite when it comes to selling myself to hiring managers and it’s becoming a cheugy LinkedIn professional. I’m thinking about those LinkedIn professionals who will not, cannot, and simply do not want to, stop using their platform to exercise their motivational speaker muscles.

Does having a platform as a LinkedIn influencer truly prove that they are good, modern-day, GenZ workers? Do I need to have a corporate online presence to get ahead too?

My mum used to tell me that sometimes people interview really well, but a couple of days into the job they would prove to be very useless, very quickly.

Charisma doesn’t necessarily indicate good work ethic or even brains, and her experience with terrible employees makes me think, “Hey, surely recruiters and hiring managers can see through me not having a LinkedIn presence?”

Coming back to reality, I think that my above frustration with the concept of LinkedIn influencers is more of a reflection of my frustration with modern-day job hunting.

Despite the performativity of it all it seems to me that those who put in time to cultivate their LinkedIn exposure really do come away with results.

Still, do I need to bite the bullet? At the end of the day, I know creating my own online branding is the smartest thing I could do to get ahead in the job market, and it’s free to do it too, but I still feel spiteful about it.

I’ll get around to it when desperation starts to seep in, but for now, I’ll keep my dignity, sit in the cheap seats, and leave the limelight for the rest.