🔗 Share this article Professional Network Engagement Boost: Women Discover Better Results When Pretending as Men Are your LinkedIn followers recognizing you as a thought leader? Do numerous respondents applauding your insights on growing your venture? Do recruiters reaching out to discuss opportunities? Should that not be the case, the reason could be your gender. The Test: Changing Profile Gender to achieve Increased Reach Dozens of female professionals joined an organized LinkedIn experiment recently following popular discussions indicated that switching their profile gender to "male" boosted their platform visibility. Other testers modified their professional summaries to incorporate what they called "masculine-oriented" terminology - inserting results-driven professional jargon like "propel", "revolutionize" and "accelerate". Anecdotally, their visibility also improved. Algorithmic Bias Questions Brought Up The engagement increase has caused some to wonder whether a built-in gender bias in the platform's system prioritizes men who use professional networking terminology. Like most major social media platforms, LinkedIn employs a computerized system to decide which posts appear to which users - boosting some while reducing others. Platform Response In a recent blog post, LinkedIn recognized the phenomenon but stated it does not factor in "personal characteristics" when deciding content distribution. Rather, the company mentioned that "hundreds of signals" influence how content perform. Changing gender in your settings does not influence how your content appears in search or feed. Personal Experiences A social media consultant, who modified her pronouns to "he/him" and her profile name to "a masculine version", described remarkable results. "The statistics I'm seeing indicate a sixteen-fold rise in visitor traffic and a 1,300% increase in content views," she commented. Another professional, a communications strategist, began experimenting after noticing her audience decline significantly. The Method Initially, she modified her profile gender to "male" Then, she used artificial intelligence to rewrite her professional summary using "masculine-oriented" language Finally, she recycled previous content with similar "assertive" style The result was instantaneous: a more than fourfold rise in visibility within one week. The Negative Aspect Despite the success, Cornish expressed dissatisfaction with the approach. "Before, my content were more personal - concise and insightful, but also friendly and human," she explained. "Currently, the masculine version was assertive and self-assured - similar to a Caucasian man swaggering around." She abandoned the test after one week, saying "Each day I continued, and results improved, I became angrier." Mixed Results Some participants encountered favorable results. One writer who changed both her profile gender to "male" and her race to "white" reported a reduction in reach and engagement. "We understand there's algorithmic bias, but it's very challenging to understand how it operates in specific cases or the reasons behind it," she remarked. Wider Consequences These experiments occur alongside continuing conversations about LinkedIn's unique position as both a professional network and social space. Platform modifications in the past few months have reportedly resulted in women professionals experiencing markedly lower exposure, leading to unofficial tests where identical posts by male and female users received vastly different reach. Technical Explanation According to LinkedIn, the platform uses artificial intelligence to classify and distribute posts based on multiple factors, including what's shared and the member's career profile. The company states it frequently assesses its algorithms, including "checks for gender-related disparities." A spokesperson suggested that recent declines in some users' reach might stem from increased competition due to additional posts on the platform. Evolving Environment According to a tester observed, "bro-coding" appears to be increasing on the network. "Users typically consider LinkedIn as more professional and polished," she remarked. "That's changing. It's becoming increasingly competitive and less controlled."