Sitting in a lecture hall at Queen’s, it’s impossible to miss the quiet buzz around you—screens lighting up with LinkedIn profiles, classmates typing-out posts or sending messages, all while the professor’s voice carries through the room.
From broadcasting achievements to rubbing virtual shoulders with industry giants, LinkedIn has become a spotlighted stage where students perform their professional personas. Years before arriving at Queen’s, Ahnaaf Khan, Sci ’27, tapped into the platform’s potential to build a professional identity.
But as profiles polished and connections multiplied, he began to notice something else rising with them: a wave of inauthenticity shaping how students present themselves online.
Infographic demonstrates increasing trend of LinkedIn s. IMAGE BY: 99Firms.
Khan explains that imposter syndrome and inauthenticity partly stem from the almost mythical goal of hitting 500+ connections on LinkedIn. Once you cross that threshold, LinkedIn stops showing the exact number and simply declares “500+,” turning 500 connections into a symbolic milestone.
For many students, this becomes less about meaningful networking and more about chasing a number—fueling a performative race where quantity outweighs quality and genuine connections get lost in the shuffle.
“[Many students are] just trying to get, like, that magical 500 number [which] I do understand to some degree, but authenticity matters,” said Khan in an interview with The Journal.
“In a lot of ways, [LinkedIn] can be more performative, but I don’t think that’s the fault of the , Khan said. “I think it’s just like, the fault of the incentives […] if you’re more performative on LinkedIn, you’re likely going to catch the eyes of some recruiter [and get an interview].”
While Khan says that LinkedIn can be a vital tool to make connections, the platform comes with serious consequences which many students could face with students needing to balance both the professional and personable aspects of themselves with the key to that being authenticity.
He warns that, while it is tempting to embellish job opportunities or internships when crafting posts, students should that it is a small world, especially in specific fields such as engineering. He says students can quickly go from exaggerating opportunities to being blacklisted from the sector.
“You can’t start your career off by cutting corners [and embellishing], which is what I noticed a lot of people do in engineering, specifically,” Khan said
Similar to other social medias such as Instagram and Facebook, Khan explains that LinkedIn is no different in how it contributes to a strong sense of imposter syndrome — a feeling of personal of professional fraudulence —with s only posting their best moments rather than their lived experiences. Only posting the highlights can often make students feel as if they are not living in their own reality, but rather an idealized version of it that they are not qualified for.
“Students often forget that people just share their highlights and not all the [stuff] that it took them to really get there,” Khan said. “It definitely does contribute to a lot of imposter syndrome.”
When students see their friends working for corporate giants, such as Tesla or Google , Khan says that it makes students such as himself feel as if they aren’t up to standard everyone else seems to be achieving. Yet despite feelings of inadequacy, he must remind himself that everyone is just on a different journey with comparison only being harmful.
“A little bit of competitive spirit is okay, and it can be a driving factor for some people, but I think for probably the vast majority of people, comparing yourself to somebody else can usually be harmful,” Khan said.
Leo Yang, ArtSci ’26, echoes Khan’s experience, reaffirming the challenges students face navigating LinkedIn’s pressures.
Yang notices students exaggerating their achievements on LinkedIn—claiming fake conversations with influential people and attendance at ‘prestigious events’—which leads him to limit his feed to close friends and mentors.
The reason for performance is not one of deceit but strategy: Yang explains how students in first and second year often have to emphasize the limited opportunities they have to gain more in the future calling the posts performative rather than inauthentic.
Though LinkedIn often feels like a stage, Yang notes it still opens doors—giving students a shot at global networks and industry connections that once felt out of reach.
Devin Clancy, Comm ’27, says LinkedIn isn’t just encouraged in Commerce—it’s practically baked into the curriculum. From day one in Comm101, students learn to craft their digital personas like résumés in motion. But it doesn’t stop at the classroom door; Clancy notes that elite Commerce clubs comb through your LinkedIn before you’ve even stepped into an interview, making the platform less a tool and more a silent gatekeeper.
Clancy says he doesn’t fall into the comparison trap—until hiring season hits. Then, as his feed floods with polished internship announcements, the pressure creeps in, especially when your own “excited to announce” post is nowhere in sight.
“There is definitely a pressure to share and update LinkedIn every time you have a career update,” Clancy said in an interview with The Journal. “With how competitive hiring is at the moment [for summer jobs and internships], keeping your LinkedIn updated is really important.”
According to the Senior Director of Student Experience and Career Development , Meg Ferriman, students are having an increasingly hard time finding summer jobs.
“This summer’s job market is more competitive than in recent years. Statistics Canada’s April 2025 Labour Force Surveyreports a youth 15-24 unemployment rate of 14.1 per cent, higher than pre-2024 levels,” Ferrimen said in a statement to The Journal. “Although it varies by sector, the overall increase means students are competing for fewer jobs amid high peer demand.”
Employment by age-group, April 2025. IMAGE FROM: Statistics Canada.
Ferrimen explains that an increasing number of students are using the career services that Queen’s provides to understand how they can stand out in a competitive labour market. She further explains how students are also increasingly using alumni connections to get jobs, potentially making LinkedIn less impactful for finding new opportunities.
LinkedIn and the use of artificial intelligence
In a digital job market where standing out feels like shouting into the void, Clancy sees Artificial Intelligence (AI) not as a threat, but as a secret weapon. On LinkedIn, where every post is polished and every résumé a masterpiece, AI becomes the behind-the-scenes assistant—helping students sharpen their edge in a race that only seems to speed up.
Clancy argues that knowing how to use AI to craft LinkedIn posts isn’t just helpful—it’s essential. In a world where every second counts and the race for internships is relentless, he says many students he knows are turning to AI to save time and stay ahead, even if it’s just shaving off 30 seconds to polish a post that could open a door.
Online plagiarism checker, Originality, claims that over 50 per cent of long-form English LinkedIn posts are written by ChatGPT or other AI tools. LinkedIn also has a feature where it allows subscribers to use AI writing tools to rewrite posts and direct messages.
According to Khan, more and more students are using generative AI, such as ChatGPT, to write their LinkedIn posts adding to the inauthenticity of the platform.
“A lot of people just use ChatGPT because they’re just trying to get, more clicks or more buttons, [through putting out content faster]” Khan said. “You see this trend as well, when it comes to students just kind of connecting with each other, with actually knowing each other.”
As the internship race grows fiercer, students like Clancy see AI not as a shortcut, but as a smart strategy—one more tool in a digital arsenal where efficiency, polish, and presence can make all the difference. In the high-stakes world of online professional branding, knowing how to wield AI may be just as crucial as knowing how to network.
The bright side of the feed
For Khan, LinkedIn wasn’t just a profile—it was a gateway. With a few clicks and messages, he bridged the gap between classroom dreams and real-world doors, turning digital handshakes into coffee chats and career opportunities in engineering and tech.
“Students should be taking advantage of the idea that you, yourself as a person can have your own brand if you build it up,” said Khan. “If someone searches your name and you’re the first result, that’s something really powerful in a professional sense.”
“A lot of people who are coming to university, they get LinkedIn, and then they start kind posting, [which] is great, they should be broadcasting themselves and building their personal brand,” Khan said.
Yang wields LinkedIn like a networking com, charting courses to influential corners of Queen’s alumni and student leaders. What started as conversations with campus trailblazers soon opened doors to high-profile CEOs and CFOs, transforming casual chats into powerful connections.
Khan believes LinkedIn holds immense power to build personal brands and open doors—if wielded wisely. Yet, he insists the platform’s pitfalls aren’t the fault of individual s but symptoms of a broader societal pressure. Calling on future leaders, Khan challenges them to transform LinkedIn itself, championing a culture where authenticity is the true currency of success.
Ultimately, students demonstrate that navigating LinkedIn’s complex landscape demands both savvy and courage—encouraging others not just to play the game, but to change the rules for a more genuine professional future.
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