Because LinkedIn is built from announcements. You see hundreds of people's single best moments, all at once, and compare them with your ordinary days. Use LinkedIn deliberately, for learning and outreach, limit passive scrolling, and track your own progress in a place where you can see it.
What people tell me
Every time I open LinkedIn someone my age has a new job, an internship at a big company, a certificate or a post about a project with hundreds of likes. I close the app feeling like I am the only one not moving. It makes me anxious and sometimes I cannot study afterwards. I know I should not compare, but it keeps happening and I do not know how to stop it.
A composite of the messages behind this question, with personal details left out.
Key takeaways
- LinkedIn shows announcements, not journeys. You see one moment from hundreds of people at once.
- Nobody posts rejections, gaps or months of slow progress, so the feed is not a fair sample.
- Use LinkedIn with a purpose and a time limit, not as a feed to scroll.
- Keep a private progress log so your own growth is visible to you.
- Turn envy into information: what exactly do you want from that post, and what is the next step toward it?
The feed is not a fair sample
Imagine a room with five hundred people from your year. Over a month, each of them has one good piece of news. On LinkedIn, you see all five hundred good moments in the same scroll. It feels like everyone is winning all the time, when in fact each person had one good day in thirty.
Nobody posts "applied to forty companies, heard nothing", "spent three weeks stuck on a bug" or "not sure what I am doing with my life". I talk to many people privately, including some whose posts look very impressive. Their messages to me are full of the same doubts you have.
So the first thing to say is simple: you are not comparing yourself with their lives. You are comparing yourself with their press releases.
What the feed hides
| What you see | What you usually do not see |
|---|---|
| "Excited to join a big company" | The months of applications and rejections before it |
| A certificate announcement | That it took a weekend and does not reflect deep skill |
| A viral project post | That the project was a tutorial with a new theme |
| "Promoted to senior" | The years of work and the colleagues who were not |
| Someone younger doing more | The different starting point, resources or luck |
Some of those posts reflect real, impressive work. Many do not. From the outside, you cannot tell which is which, and that is exactly why the comparison is unfair to you.
Use LinkedIn on purpose
LinkedIn is useful for engineers. It is a good place to find roles, reach people at companies and share what you build. The problem is passive scrolling, which gives you all of the comparison and none of the benefit. Try this:
- Open it with a task. Reply to messages, send two outreach notes, look at one company's engineers, then close it.
- Set a limit, for example fifteen minutes a day, and use a timer.
- Mute or unfollow accounts that consistently make you feel worse without teaching you anything. That is allowed.
- Follow people who share how they work, not just what they won.
Keep your own progress visible
Comparison thrives when your own progress is invisible. Fix that with a simple weekly log. Every Friday, write three lines:
- What I finished this week.
- What I understand now that I did not before.
- What I will do next week.
After a month, read it back. You will see progress you had forgotten. When the feed makes you feel stuck, open the log instead.
Turn envy into a next step
Envy is not only painful, it is informative. When a post stings, ask yourself what exactly you want from it. Is it the role? The skill? The confidence to share work publicly? Then write the single next step toward that thing. If it is an internship at a product company, maybe the step is to message two engineers there this week. If it is a skill, maybe it is one small project. That turns an anxious moment into a plan.
Post your own work, when you are ready
You do not have to post. But if you do, post honestly: what you built, what was hard and what you learned. Those posts tend to get real engagement from people who are in the same place, and they help you connect with them instead of competing with them.
A self-check after you scroll
Next time you close LinkedIn feeling worse, spend one minute on these questions:
- Did I open it with a task, or out of habit?
- Which specific post bothered me, and what exactly did I want from it?
- Do I know what that person went through to get there, or am I guessing?
- What is one thing I can do in the next hour that moves me forward?
Doing this a few times usually shows a pattern. For many people it is the same two or three accounts, or the same time of day, often late at night. That tells you what to mute and when not to open the app.
An example of turning a post into a plan
Say a classmate announces an internship at a product company and it stings. Write down what you actually want: probably an internship at a product company. Then the plan: find five engineers at similar companies, send two short messages this week with a link to your best project, and apply to three listings on Sefism internships. An hour later, you have done more toward the goal than a week of scrolling would.
If you are still stuck
Read LinkedIn for engineers: what actually works, and what is folklore and How do I deal with feeling I am not good enough for a tech career?. If LinkedIn itself is the question, see Does posting on LinkedIn actually help software engineers get work?. If you want someone to look at your specific situation, join Sefism and, as a member, book a 1:1 session.
Was this answer helpful?
Read next
Your situation is not quite this one?
Members get written answers to their own questions, a roadmap built for them and feedback on their projects. Early access is open to X and Instagram followers and university students. Prefer to talk? A free call works too.