LinkedIn is Broken

What happens when a niche product becomes successful? It inevitably tries to diversify by adding product lines or services to appease shareholders, impress investors, or simply stave off the boredom that comes with dominance. LinkedIn is no different. What started as a simple online résumé tool has grown into the mess we know today. Social/community networking and influencers. Articles and commentary. Job listings. Hell, there are even games!

The LinkedIn feed is chaos rivaling Facebook’s in its current state of disarray. I (and millions of others) visit LinkedIn daily, not because we want to, but because we have to. We long for the day when we no longer need to type those eight letters of doom into the browser and click “Jobs.” We’re not trying to be gurus, we’re not selling courses (I feel like Lloyd Dobler here), we just want to find a job that helps us feel fulfilled and secure.

But to get there, I have to wade through a feed filled with doom and gloom: “AI is here for your job.” “Product/Design/UX is dead.” “Stop writing cover letters; we don’t read them.” “Why your cover letter will get you the job.” And then I reach a Jobs section that’s barely a step above a college bulletin board. I’ve seen more “You’d be a top applicant” suggestions with disqualifying requirements (that LinkedIn knows I don’t meet) than I can count.

LinkedIn had a chance to chart a different path. It used to be the place for your professional life. A current résumé accessible to recruiters and hiring managers. A way to find and message those people. And yes, a feed where you could actually engage with others in your industry. But LinkedIn has followed the well-worn path of bloated platforms, diversifying out of its sweet spot into a Swiss Army knife that’s not really good at anything.

Let’s look at a three specific UX choices that lead me to call LinkedIn bad product.

Old Content Amid Clutter and Ads

There’s a lot going on in LinkedIn’s feed. The left rail shows snippets about me and my on-site actions (pages I admin, etc.), while the center column hosts a traditional social feed. The right rail? News, games, and ads. The “News” section is somewhat relevant, but why games? My guess: engagement data showed that users who played games stayed on the site longer (and saw more ads), leading to a product directive to promote games more prominently. Likely a classic case of correlation not equaling causation.

That would already be bad - just another tired, overused layout every Facebook user knows - but the content compounds it. Algorithmic sorting should weed out old posts after a reasonable time. Instead, I still see the same content I ignored weeks ago, shaking any confidence I might have had in the feed.

Then there’s the lack of vertical space in the center column. LinkedIn’s preferred 1:1 image ratio means only a few posts appear on screen at a time, further amplifying the importance of quality content, as well as the irritation at seeing stale posts. Simply put, LinkedIn isn’t good at community - and maybe it never was.

Missing Experience

Originally, LinkedIn was designed to be your résumé online, a place to direct recruiters and hiring managers in the digital era. You could keep it updated easily and add more nuance than on paper. It’s become so ubiquitous that nearly every online job application asks for a LinkedIn link (mine’s here).

But for those with extensive experience, profiles truncate your work history unless the viewer clicks “Show all Experience.” That small UX choice can cost you: a recruiter or HR exec may never see critical roles. It happened to me recently - a recruiter screened out my application, assuming I had no direct marketing experience. Had they expanded the section, they’d have seen my roles as SVP, Digital Marketing and Director of Digital Marketing.

While we’re thinking about it - why is Experience, the thing LinkedIn was built around, buried so far down the page? A brief “About” header makes sense, but surely my online résumé should come next, no? Instead, we get Services, Activity, and Articles before Experience even appears. No wonder hiring managers can miss it and the nuance it encourages.

So LinkedIn isn’t doing a great job as an online résumé, either.

Not-So-Smart Job Searches

LinkedIn has my full work history and education. It knows my degrees, qualifications, and previous titles. So it should be able to match me to relevant openings, right? That’s what the “You’d be a Top Applicant” banner promises.

The reality is that there appears to be nothing more than a match between your previous employment and the job description title. Take for example this listing, for which I’m a Top Applicant:

I was previously the Head of Product Design so sure this makes sense based on the title. But looking further:

I’m betting my MA in Communications won’t work. This kind of mismatch should be an easy fix. Parse the job description, identify hard requirements, and score candidates accordingly. Instead, the problem appears to be baked into LinkedIn’s UX philosophy. When posting a job, employers fill out a title and a single job description box (which LinkedIn’s AI is happy to auto-fill). There’s no structured field for education or core requirements.

Meanwhile, job seekers fill out separate fields for Education, Experience, and Skills. Mirroring that structure for employers could vastly improve matching accuracy, enhancing both job discovery and hiring utility.

Can LinkedIn be Saved?

LinkedIn needs to refocus before smaller, more agile competitors eat its lunch. Workweek is already outpacing it on the community front: their professional network platform fosters real engagement, and their discovery tools keep improving. (Full disclosure: they’re a two-time client, but I’m not saying this out of loyalty; it’s simply a better product experience that knows what it’s made for.)

There’s room for another player to emerge in the résumé and job-matching space, too. Indeed already outperforms LinkedIn on utility, though LinkedIn still has the social capital to remain the “official” link employers request.

In my view, LinkedIn should lean back into its core purpose, résumés and jobs. Spend research time studying users who go from #LookingForWork to Hired and make that your key metric. Improve the job-matching engine. Companies would happily pay a premium to shorten the hiring cycle.

There’s even room to integrate vertically: become a screening platform, add AI-powered video interviews like Wellfound. The sky’s the limit.

But first, please figure out what you’re best at. Then double down on it.