Social media has long been a part of our lives, serving as a space where we can reflect our identities and personal lives. While we often think we show only what we want to whomever we choose, could it be that our social media profiles reveal more than we intend? For example, could our LinkedIn profiles — where we meticulously craft our résumés and present our achievements with elaborate language — convey messages beyond what we consciously choose to share with potential employers?
Research on this topic actually began with Facebook. Many have argued that a person’s job performance can be predicted through their Facebook profile. However, the fact that approximately 80% of profiles are private, and that Facebook is primarily used for social purposes, has reduced the popularity of this approach (Kluemper & Rosen, 2009; Kluemper et al., 2012). All these studies show that the evaluation of individuals’ social media profiles as digital résumés dates back to the early 2000s.
Today, LinkedIn has become the most prominent platform serving this purpose. While it acts as a lifeline for students seeking internships, it also functions as a search engine for connecting with experts in niche fields. A post you share can create a snowball effect as it spreads through the profiles of those who react to it. For some, this offers an opportunity to amplify their voice and showcase their achievements; for others, it becomes a source for feeding their egos from various angles. So, to what extent do all these posts reflect our personalities?
A study by Van de Ven and colleagues in 2017 explored whether personality traits could be inferred from LinkedIn profiles. A sample of 97 employees was evaluated according to the Big Five Personality Model through their LinkedIn profiles. When these evaluations were compared with self-reported personality scales, the trait most consistently reflected on LinkedIn was extraversion. More extroverted individuals could be identified with 60.2% accuracy based on profile-based predictions. However, predictions regarding other personality traits (agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience, emotional stability) were found to be inconsistent. Although it may not have a direct and meaningful impact on professional life, the study suggests that extraversion as reflected on LinkedIn profiles can increase the success rate of pre-selection processes by up to 51%. With this influence of LinkedIn, many users have begun to deliberately distort the truth about themselves.
Why do people distort the truth on LinkedIn?
It is known that individuals occasionally share distorted or exaggerated content on professional platforms like LinkedIn. Seonmin Lee’s (2024) study examined how such deceptive behaviors are linked to psychological factors such as the need for approval, impression management, and self-esteem. It was hypothesized that individuals with a high need for approval would engage in more deceptive behaviors; however, this relationship was not statistically significant. Interestingly, a negative correlation was found between impression management and deceptive behavior — meaning that individuals with a high tendency for impression management were less likely to share deceptive content.
Impression management can be defined as the effort to control and influence how others perceive us. This unexpected finding may be explained by the professional nature of LinkedIn, which prompts users to act more cautiously and honestly to avoid damaging their reputations. On the other hand, self-esteem was found to have no significant effect on deceptive behavior. This study reveals that deceptive behaviors are influenced not only by individual psychological motivations but also by contextual factors and social norms.
LinkedIn posts not only influence people but also affect learning models. A study by Härtel and colleagues examined the potential of LinkedIn profile information to predict narcissism and intelligence. Using Brunswik’s lens model framework, they investigated to what extent LinkedIn profiles reflect individual characteristics such as narcissism and intelligence. Analyses conducted with machine learning algorithms showed that valid cues in profiles could predict these personality traits with high accuracy. These findings highlight LinkedIn’s potential to support not only human evaluations but also automated candidate analyses in recruitment processes.
In conclusion, both the way individuals present themselves on social media and the subtle cues they unconsciously reveal can influence recruitment processes and even machine learning models. Moreover, traits such as extraversion, agreeableness, and openness to new experiences, which align with the Big Five Personality Model, can enhance an evaluator’s perception during hiring. From this perspective, it’s clear that LinkedIn posts can have both positive and negative consequences. However, constantly feeling the need to post on LinkedIn may create pressure — especially on students just entering the job market. For individuals who prefer to avoid frequent interaction with social media, feeling obligated to portray an extroverted persona can be psychologically challenging. Considering all these factors, the use of such profiles should be approached with greater awareness, balance, and mental well-being.
Resources
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Kluemper, D.H., Rosen, P.A. and Mossholder, K.W. (2012), “Social networking websites, personality ratings, and the organizational context: more than meets the eye?”, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 42 No. 5, pp. 1143-1172, doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2011.00881.x.
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Härtel, T. M., Schuler, B. A., & Back, M. D. (2024). ‘LinkedIn, LinkedIn on the screen, who is the greatest and smartest ever seen?’: A machine learning approach using valid LinkedIn cues to predict narcissism and intelligence. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 97(4), 1572–1602. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12531
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Lee, S. (2024). Understanding Deceptive Behavior on LinkedIn: The Influence of Psychological Factors and LinkedIn Usage Patterns. University of Twente Student Theses.
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Van de Ven, N., Bogaert, A., Serlie, A., Brandt, M. J., & Denissen, J. J. A. (2017). Personality perception based on LinkedIn Profiles. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 32(6), 418–429. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmp-07-2016-0220