Professional Network Visibility Boost: Women Discover Better Results When Pretending to be Men
Are your LinkedIn followers recognizing you as a thought leader? Are hordes of respondents applauding your insights on expanding your business? Are headhunters making contact to discuss collaborations?
Should that not be the case, the reason could be your gender.
The Test: Modifying Profile Gender for Better Visibility
Dozens of female professionals participated in a collective professional network test recently following popular discussions suggested that changing their profile gender to "man" boosted their platform visibility.
Other testers modified their profiles to incorporate what they called "masculine-oriented" terminology - adding results-driven professional jargon like "propel", "revolutionize" and "accelerate". Anecdotally, their exposure also improved.
Algorithmic Bias Questions Raised
The engagement increase has caused some to wonder whether a built-in gender bias in LinkedIn's algorithm prioritizes male users who use online business jargon.
Like many large networking sites, LinkedIn employs a computerized system to determine which content are shown to which users - boosting some while suppressing others.
Company Statement
Through a company announcement, LinkedIn acknowledged the phenomenon but stated it does not consider "demographic information" when determining content distribution. Rather, the company mentioned that "hundreds of signals" affect how posts perform.
Changing gender in your settings does not affect how your posts appears in results or timelines.
Individual Results
A social media consultant, who changed her gender identifiers to "he/him" and her name to "a masculine version", reported extraordinary results.
"The numbers I'm seeing show a sixteen-fold rise in visitor traffic and a thirteen-fold jump in content views," she commented.
Another professional, a marketing expert, began experimenting after noticing her reach decline significantly.
The Method
- First, she changed her profile gender to "male"
- Then, she used AI tools to rewrite her professional summary using "male-coded" language
- Finally, she recycled previous content with similar "agentic" language
The outcome was immediate: a more than fourfold rise in reach within seven days.
The Downside
Although the positive results, Cornish voiced dissatisfaction with the method.
"Before, my posts were more personal - concise and insightful, but also friendly and human," she explained. "Now, the masculine version was assertive and confident - similar to a Caucasian man being overly confident."
She abandoned the experiment after one week, stating "Every day I persisted, and outcomes got better, I became more frustrated."
Mixed Results
Some participants encountered positive results. Cass Cooper who changed both her gender to "man" and her race to "white" described a decrease in visibility and interaction.
"We know there's algorithmic bias, but it's extremely difficult to comprehend how it operates in specific cases or why," she commented.
Wider Consequences
These experiments occur alongside continuing discussions about LinkedIn's unique role as both a business platform and community site.
Recent changes in recent months have reportedly resulted in women professionals experiencing markedly lower exposure, resulting in informal experiments where the same posts by male and female users received vastly different audience engagement.
System Details
Per LinkedIn, the network uses artificial intelligence to classify and spread posts based on various elements, including post content and the member's career profile.
The company states it regularly evaluates its algorithms, including "checks for inequalities based on gender."
A spokesperson proposed that current reductions in certain members' visibility might originate from increased competition due to additional posts on the network.
Changing Landscape
As one participant noted, "bro-coding" appears to be growing on the platform.
"Users typically consider LinkedIn as more businesslike and polished," she remarked. "That's changing. It's becoming increasingly aggressive and less controlled."