LinkedIn Is Everything WRONG With Society

The Illusion of Opportunity: Ghost Jobs and Performative Hiring [0:00]

• Less than 0.1% of job applications on LinkedIn result in a hire.
• An estimated quarter of all job listings on the platform are "ghost jobs."
• 54% of LinkedIn posts are AI-generated, raising questions about authenticity.
• Historical practices, as early as 2007, reveal advice on using job applications to fulfill legal minimums to avoid hiring domestic workers.
• Strategies include disqualifying candidates based on salary, location, or job preference to find a "legal basis to disqualify them."
• This performative hiring behavior has been automated and scaled by online job platforms.

"keeping in mind our goal and our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested US worker."

The Scale of Deception: Unfilled Roles and Employer Silence [0:47]

• 30% of job openings analyzed from June 2025 data never resulted in a hire, amounting to over 2.2 million unmaterialized roles.
• LinkedIn alone may host as many as 1.7 million ghost job listings.
• Despite 75% of employers claiming difficulty filling vacancies, a study of over 300 intern-submitted applications found only 12% received a response, 5% expressed interest, and not a single one resulted in a hire.
• Employers were more likely to "ghost" candidates who met over 90% of the listed requirements.

"The reality is that even without those incentives, LinkedIn has become the host of an immense amount of additional fraud."

Data Exploitation and AI Recruitment Scams [3:34]

• Virtually anyone can post a job under a company's LinkedIn account, creating fake listings indistinguishable from official ones without company awareness.
• In tests, fake job postings routed applications to a test email, bypassing LinkedIn's security.
• A personal anecdote details how new hires were scammed through fake LinkedIn communications, forcing the business owner to delete their profile.
• LinkedIn's privacy policy allows data sharing with Microsoft, its owner, who then shares personal information with third parties for personalized advertising.
• Data brokers are accumulating vast amounts of personal information from various institutions, with LinkedIn's primary product shifting from job access to personal information.
• AI-generated recruiters with fabricated histories are used to extract personal data from candidates.

"LinkedIn's real product is no longer access to jobs or networking. It's your personal information."

The "Open to Work" Red Flag and Algorithmic Bias [7:30]

• Approximately 75% of qualified applications are never seen by a human, and those that are receive only 6-8 seconds of attention.
• 40% of recruiters admit to hiring solely based on LinkedIn profiles, prioritizing perception over qualifications.
• The "Open to Work" banner is seen as a "red flag" by recruiters, signaling desperation rather than availability.
• Recruiters increasingly view employment gaps as indicators of the need for additional training, outdated skills, or lower productivity.
• LinkedIn's system suppresses profiles without present listed employment, disadvantaging early-career workers and encouraging misrepresentation.

"LinkedIn's datadriven system reinforces these biases by suppressing profiles without present listed, placing early career workers at an even greater disadvantage while quietly encouraging misrepresentation for formative gratitude and a comparison culture that narrows the definition of what it even means to be qualified."

The K-Shaped Economy and the Incentive to Worsen [10:29]

• LinkedIn represents the "K-shaped economy," benefiting those who can afford premium services or already possess strong qualifications.
• Individuals trying to enter the market, pivot careers, or with resume gaps are algorithmically suppressed.
• LinkedIn has no incentive to improve the system, as its goal is to keep users engaged and dependent on the platform.
• A comparison of LinkedIn data from a year prior shows a decrease in reported hires despite an increase in applications.
• The platform has made it harder to find data on application success rates.

"No, they they want things to actively keep getting worse. for a fact."

A Nation of "Posers" and the Collapse of Infrastructure [13:14]

• Society is participating in a "nation of posers" where individuals in power lack practical skills.
• The definition of a "hard day's work" has shifted from tangible tasks to meetings and digital communication.
• Those actively working are burdened by the communication overhead, while leaders offer ambitious plans that are never implemented.
• Despite widespread calls for infrastructure rebuilding and manufacturing revival, emails reveal inaction and a lack of readiness from those in power.
• There is a lack of incentive for those with the ability to enact change to do so, leading to stagnation.

"They have faked it so much. They faked it till they make it so much that the people that are now in power that have the ability to do the, you know, write the check, green light, go. We can start building. They don't actually know what to do."

Reclaiming Agency: Networking Beyond the Platform and Legislative Hope [17:39]

• The post-WWII societal construct no longer exists for the majority.
• Young people must overcome job market deficits, cost of living crises, and develop skills for future leadership.
• The "Truth and Job Advertising and Accountability Act" is a landmark legislative effort to eliminate fake jobs and protect privacy.
• This act has progressed from a grassroots petition to bipartisan policy discussions on Capitol Hill.
• Engaging in real-life networking, local groups, or even digital communities can combat LinkedIn's limitations.
• Participating strategically on LinkedIn, while recognizing its flaws, is also a proposed approach.

"The reality is is that we as a society were participating in a nation of posers."