Workers on LinkedIn are finding themselves in a catch-22: They may cringe at the self-promotional, carefully polished posts that fill their feeds, but still believe they need to build a personal brand of their own.
Some companies are even stepping in to post for them.
Corporate ghostwriting firm Hat Tip creates LinkedIn posts for founders and, increasingly, their employees. Founder Christian Di Bratto calls it a sales and marketing strategy for a world where brands may be losing their appeal. He recently quoted a client $8,400 a month to write LinkedIn posts for three employees, three times a week.
“People want to buy from people,” Di Bratto said. “This employee portion of it is the next evolution of what founder-led content was.
With the rise of grindslop and the migration away from X, LinkedIn is now a hybrid of performative professional posting and personal sharing. Many workers view posting there as a necessary career investment, made easier by the rise of AI tools.
Even LinkedIn is rethinking all this posting. In July, the company started letting users flag posts that seem “like AI slop.” Pangram, an AI-detection firm, estimated that 41% of long-form LinkedIn posts and 30% of shorter posts it analyzed between April and June were likely AI-generated. LinkedIn says its recent changes have reduced the amount of AI slop on the platform.
Why workers feel like they need to post so much on LinkedIn
When a former Microsoft manager was laid off last year, he began regularly posting on LinkedIn about his field. After seeing recruiters and career coaches online emphasize the importance of building a personal brand on the platform, it felt like something he couldn’t afford not to try.
“We all have to be content creators on top of our actual jobs — or lack of jobs — and perform being a candidate,” he said.
It’s not just struggling job seekers who’ve come to view regular LinkedIn posting as a key part of managing their careers.
Muskan Agarwal, who is based in India and runs Cherry Media, a marketing agency that helps professionals and creators grow their online presence, said she’s seen a surge in tech workers looking to build personal brands on platforms like LinkedIn.
Her clients include current and former US-based employees of companies including Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Agarwal said some aren’t trying to become full-time creators, and that their goals include landing better jobs, speaking opportunities, or professional connections. Each client, she said, pays her agency for at least three months of services.
Does posting on LinkedIn actually help your career?
The million-dollar question for job seekers and workers alike is how much all that posting actually helps their careers. Matt Stabile, founder of the recruiting firm Stabile Search, believes LinkedIn posts have shifted toward engagement-driven content.
“The quality has skewed towards ‘AI slop’ rather than meaningful discussions,” he said.
Stabile believes posting and attracting engagement can increase someone’s visibility on LinkedIn and help establish them as a thought leader, but that posting too much could send the wrong signal to recruiters.
“I would say that overposting would be a red flag. If you are busy, in demand and talented, why would you spend your time posting on LinkedIn?”
Jason Baxter, the owner and operator of a boutique marketing agency, posts one to two times a week and comments on posts at least ten times a week. He’s gotten legitimate business and connections from the platform. Even so, he thinks that over half of the people on LinkedIn are just “out there shouting at the world and not reading what anyone else is saying.”
How to post without overdoing it
Jansel Murad, a vice president at Dukas Linden Public Relations, a financial PR firm, generally recommends clients share one to two posts a week.
“If you don’t have something authentic to say, hold back, it’s okay,” Murad said. “Because then you’ll probably get further engagement from your network when they see you really sharing updates that matter to you.”
And even if your authentic voice — which Murad said often seems to hit a sweet spot for the LinkedIn algorithm — wants to be out there five times a week, she would still say to hold back on that rapidity of posting. Instead, maybe bundle posts together.
Ultimately, then, the best practice might just be a balance — and, sometimes, leaning into the cringe.
Benjamin Chipman, a 25-year-old marketer and content creator who loves posting on LinkedIn, bristles at the concept of a performative poster. Chipman found posting on the platform life-changing during college, and says LinkedIn has been responsible for the majority of his career trajectory.
“I don’t care if you’re posting on Instagram, on LinkedIn, on Facebook, there’s a performance element to it all, but it doesn’t mean it’s inherently not productive,” Chipman said. “Those two things can be true at the same time.”
