This morning I woke up with a smile on my face because I had a good sleep last night. Then I heard my phone buzz, I checked and saw I had a LinkedIn notification. I've been getting a lot of those lately and I was wondering who had their life together, enough to want to connect with me at barely 7 in the morning.
One look at the person's profile and my day which was yet to begin was already ruined. From the person's profile, I could tell that they were my age group and they had a very bulky profile too. I went through it and I felt blood rush to my head. I was either jealous, intimidated, or just sad, possibly all at the same time.
It got me anxious to see all of their experiences and achievements, and I felt like a failure for a moment. I have dreams of becoming a professional in a field I've always wanted and I'm not close to achieving them yet. Also, I feel lost sometimes because I can do several things but I don't exactly know what to focus on.
My LinkedIn connections on the other hand look like they've always known what they were doing and they never have gap years. I'm not one to be pressured by social media but LinkedIn is a different ballgame. Everyone is either a CEO, manager, or team lead.
They all occupy a prestigious position and have done two times what I dream of in less than 5 years. They're avid volunteers or founders of NGOs and foundations. Even the ones yet to complete their university degrees have trained thousands of people in one business or the other.
There's no way they aren't superhumans! I don't know their tricks of being so successful in just a number of years. They write the longest motivational posts and I don't particularly see anything out of the ordinary. Luck, privilege or good ol' hard work? I don't know.
My husband swears everybody lies on LinkedIn and maybe there's some truth in that. A while ago, we met an acquaintance of his that works at a supermarket and then he connected with this person on LinkedIn only to see that he was a big boy CEO on LinkedIn. Well, no shade, but that's not what we saw when we ran into him.
I've had a notification about my friend starting a new position at work and I excitedly text him and he tells me he only moved to another desk and nothing changed.
Instances like these make me think that I'm not using LinkedIn effectively. The ability to be extra and glamorize your profile is what makes your LinkedIn fully optimized I guess 🤷♀ In Nigeria we call it 'packaging', presenting yourself bigger than you actually are to gain prestige.
Well, I took deep breaths afterward and continued with my day. I don't need that kind of pressure.
Do you lie on your LinkedIn profile or on your CV? Does it work in getting you the job? This is a safe space, talk to me.
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