Why LinkedIn Rewards Pretenders Over Professionals

The Rise of the Professional Imposter

Spend five minutes on LinkedIn and you’ll see it everywhere: glossy headshots, inflated job titles, and endless streams of “thought leadership” that dissolve into air the moment you try to pin them down. Everyone’s a “visionary,” a “strategist,” a “coach.”

Scratch the surface and half of it crumbles. Some of these so-called experts have never led a team, built a product, or solved a hard problem in their lives. But on LinkedIn, that doesn’t matter. The platform doesn’t just allow this, it amplifies it.

LinkedIn has built an ecosystem where credibility isn’t earned, it’s performed. And the actors are winning.

The Optics Economy

On LinkedIn, looking credible matters more than being credible.

• A slick profile banner and a keyword-stuffed headline can outrank a decade of real expertise.
• Engagement pods, groups of users liking and commenting on each other’s content, trick the algorithm into promoting mediocrity.
• Motivational fluff dressed up with emojis spreads faster than deep insights or real-world case studies.

It’s an optics economy: the ones who win are those who master appearances, not those who master their craft.

And the consequences are clear. Instead of thoughtful conversations, we get a feed dominated by “I failed, I learned, I succeeded” posts and vague “10 lessons from my morning walk” slideshows. It's a professional theater, and the curtain never comes down.

When “Expertise” Becomes a Costume

On LinkedIn, expertise has become a costume anyone can wear.

All it takes is a handful of buzzwords lifted from the latest industry trend, a Canva-designed carousel post, and a “hot take” designed to trigger just enough outrage to spark comments. Suddenly, you look like a thought leader.

No one checks the receipts. The algorithm doesn’t care if your insight is plagiarized, shallow, or flat-out wrong. If people engage, you win. And because engagement is the only currency that counts, the fakers thrive while the genuine voices sink beneath the noise.

Real professionals, the ones actually building, researching, solving, rarely have time to dress up their knowledge in clickbait packaging. And so they lose the game.

The Cost of Fake Credibility

This isn’t just irritating, it’s harmful.

• Hiring managers waste time interviewing candidates with inflated profiles while overlooking quiet experts who actually know their craft.
• Young professionals get duped into following “gurus” who sell inspiration instead of skills.
• Companies invest in influencers who can write a viral post but can’t deliver real results.

In the long run, the entire professional ecosystem suffers. Trust erodes. Signals blur. And “expert” becomes a meaningless word.br>
When everyone is an expert, no one is.br>

What Real Credibility Should Look Like

Credibility shouldn’t be about who can game the algorithm best. It should be about proof.

• Work that speaks louder than words.
• Contributions that peers respect and validate.
• Knowledge that helps others advance in their field, not just pump up your personal brand.

But LinkedIn isn’t designed to reward proof. It’s designed to reward performance. It doesn’t surface substance; it surfaces spectacle. Because spectacle keeps you scrolling. And scrolling sells ads.

Time to Starve the Pretenders

LinkedIn won’t change because fakery fuels its engagement engine. As long as likes and comments on empty content keep pouring in, pretenders will thrive and real professionals will stay hidden.

So the choice is ours: keep feeding the circus, or start building the arena. Imagine a network where credibility isn’t cosplay but currency. Where your expertise is visible, searchable, and undeniable. Where your work speaks louder than your branding tricks.

That’s the future professionals deserve. And it’s a future LinkedIn will never deliver.

Your move.