Post by Open To Work Social

In the last year, I’ve seen more weird behavior on LinkedIn than in the previous 15 years combined. The moment you post that you’re #OpenToWork, the bots show up. Your DMs fill with scammer accounts. Your comments get hit with spam. Your inbox gets “executive headhunters” praising your skills in “[insert prompt]” — only to funnel you into a $600 resume rewrite (but don’t worry… for you it’s “only” $500 🙃). The scams are abundant. We all see them. We all feel them. But there’s another trend I’ve noticed that doesn’t feel like a scam. It feels… well-intentioned. And that’s what makes it more uncomfortable. Friends publicly posting about friends who are “desperate” for work. Sharing personal hardship. Talking about financial stress, family pressure, and how close someone is to breaking. I don’t question the heart behind these posts. I do question the impact. From a personal branding and hiring standpoint, are we actually helping our friends… or unintentionally hurting their marketability by leading with desperation instead of capability? I wrote about this because I think we need to pause and rethink how we advocate for people in a broken job market. Empathy matters. But so does positioning. You can support someone without turning their hardest moment into their headline. I unpack the pattern, why it’s happening, and what I think works better here: https://lnkd.in/gkdhZ5PG Curious if you’ve noticed this trend too. #OpenToWork #JobSearch #PersonalBranding #Hiring #LinkedInTrends #CareerStrategy #ModernHiring #StoryFirst #OpenToWorkSocial