My bad job interview went viral on LinkedIn, but I still don’t have a job

Within three days, the post had been shared on the official Middle East and Australian LinkedIn accounts. Before a week has passed, the post had been viewed by more than a million users and had close to 5000 reactions and 1800 comments. My personal profile received 25,000 visits. It’s clear many people related to how vulnerable and nervous you can feel in a job interview and how painful the feedback can be.

Being LinkedIn, 2500 of these profile views were by literal recruiters – so maybe they would see the #OpenToWork banner on my profile photo and put the dots together. Maybe this post going viral would land me another interview, or someone would offer me a job outright? If a million people were looking at what I was saying and feeling, and most of them liked it, then they would like me, right? Maybe someone would like me enough to offer me a job.

Of course not, don’t be silly. Absolutely nothing changed. I didn’t receive a single message from a recruiter inviting me to apply for a role. The viral experience petered out (and my attempt to follow up the original post met a relatively damp reception), leaving me no better off than I was the day I got rejected over the phone for “reading answers off a screen”.

For those of us seeking a foothold in modern media, the conventional wisdom is that viral = good. Being seen by more people means that you are popular, that you’re worth listening to. That you’re wanted. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, in my experience this was not the case.

LinkedIn users had apparently moved on to the next shiny, “popular” thing that pops up on their news feed. And that’s really the end of it.

Fortunately for me, the freelance world keeps turning. It’s my real work – articles, reviews, and interviews with my name on them – that, funnily enough, leads to new opportunities. Yes, it’s nice to go viral, but it’s clear to me that it’s your day-to-day work, and not a LinkedIn post, which keeps the lights on and rent paid.

Liam Heitmann-Ryce-LeMercier is a freelance writer and reviewer based in Melbourne.

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