“I preferred getting ghosted,” said one LinkedIn Cogs user. “At least I could be righteously angry about that.”
Photo by Maria Dhilla
Last week, in response to the many complaints from LinkedIn Jobs users who repeatedly struggled to get a job offer despite submitting “hundreds of applications,” LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky released a new LinkedIn Jobs feature called “LinkedIn Cogs.” This new update notifies job seekers on who actually received the job they applied for, allowing them to “compare themselves until they become a shell of a human being. Then, real change and improvement can begin,” explained Roslansky.
One employee explained that LinkedIn Cogs highlights all the qualifications of the selected individual that each rejected applicant doesn’t have. “For example, it points out how much younger the selected applicant is than you, how much more relevant experience they have — and how much better they are than you in every way — so those job seekers can feel horrible about how behind they are in life.”
“The best way to motivate college students who have been rejected by 200 internships and jobs already is through unadulterated dread,” said Rolansky. “People think that I only became the LinkedIn CEO because my father was the previous CEO and so was my grandfather before him. But the truth is, I got this position because I learned that LinkedIn was considering hiring Steven Jackfruit over me. Jackfruit only has one famous family member. Are you kidding?! There was no way I was letting him get it.”
Another aspect of LinkedIn Cogs is that it notifies all of your contacts when you don’t receive a job or internship to “allow your friends and family to send you messages
of motivation.”
“My mom got notified for every digital marketing internship that I didn’t get picked for,” said LinkedIn Cogs user Penelope Ackee. “She couldn’t believe I wasn’t able to land a job where I ‘play on Instagram all day.’ Her outrage was just the humiliation I needed to get back out there. She told me I was ‘worth nothing,’ so I started applying for unpaid jobs. I’m happy to announce that I’ve finally been selected for an unpaid 60 hr/week social media internship with this really underground start-up company. No, it’s literally underground,” she said as she descended into the sewer with her laptop in hand.
According to Roslansky, LinkedIn has seen “tremendous improvement” in the number of users hired since implementing this new feature. Following this success, Instagram is considering incorporating a similar feature to its website. Instagram’s proposed update would compare your account to your partner’s ex, highlighting data such as “number of European vacations” and “amount of college friends.”
