Judging People Based On Credentials

Have you ever been to a tech talk presented by someone or read an article about a successful person and find yourself looking up for his/her name on LinkedIn?

I do that. A lot. No wait.

Every single time.

I think it is a habit that I pick up ever since I went to one of the first tech talks I went with Ricky (my boyfriend, btw). He did the LinkedIn stalk to every single speaker that presented that night. He usually also did it even before we went as if confirming whether the talk would be worth coming to. To sum up quite bluntly, knowing where a person is working or has worked at, more or less determines whether we want to listen to them talk, sometimes even more than what they will be talking about. When I’m talking about ‘we’ it is mostly Ricky and I or in a sense, us in my opinion.

I realized nowadays I don’t only do that to speakers or popular figures, I look up someone on LinkedIn whenever I’m curious about that person. It is almost like I stalk people I’ve never met on LinkedIn on a daily basis. It feels crazy knowing that some people only open LinkedIn because they have to not because they want to.

I remember that I used to look up people I’ve never met on Instagram or Twitter when I was younger, I almost never do it again nowadays. I used to be curious on how people I’ve never met are like. Whether they are the popular type or the geeky type. Whether they are from a well off family or not. You can kind of judge people that way through what they post on their Instagram and Twitter. I believe not everyone is like me, but I’m pretty sure a lot of people are. You might not even realize that you judge people that way. That is the very reason people share what they share on social media. They judge, or in a softer word, have an opinion about other people and feel that other people will do the same to them.

On that note, do I judge people based on the credentials on their LinkedIn?

Simply, bluntly, frankly, yes.

But what does that mean?

This is not in any way a ‘dos and don’ts of LinkedIn profile’ that I’m proposing. This is purely and egoistically what comes up to my mind when seeing someone’s LinkedIn profile (specifically people from tech), and this will illustrate better what I’m trying to say next.

• Worked/Interned at companies like Palantir, Dropbox, Quora, Memsql, Two Sigma, etc if-you-know-what-I-mean companies - “Damn this person’s a genius” - Credibility: Highest

• Worked/Interned at Big Four/big tech companies in general - “This person probably comes from competitive programming, or really good at interviews, or is a very hardworking person, or a combination of all” - Credibility: High

• Worked/Interned at local companies that are popular as having strong teams in their role (not necessarily all unicorns) - “Whoa, this person’s quite good. Maybe I want to meet her sometime and talk” - Credibility: High - Medium

• List a lot of a achievements in competitions that I’m familiar with - “This person must have focused their time on joining competitions, probably a very smart person” - Credibility: High - Medium

• List a lot of achievements in competitions that I’m not familiar with - “Um okay this person is probably academically ambitious and competitive” - Credibility: Medium

• List a lot of experiences and achievements that seem to be exaggerated - “Um okay” Credibility: ??

• List experiences that might be quite shady and not real (something like listing “Contributor at Quora” when actually answering questions as a user on Quora - “wut” - Credibility: ???

… and many more. I guess you should be able to guess what the rest look like.

Now you kind of know what kind of person I am. My opinions about people’s LinkedIn profile are not the most objective and respectable. If this is Facebook, I’m probably getting angery reactions by now. I’ve been wanting to share about this since quite sometime because I’m torn apart between the feeling that this is the wrong way to have opinions about other people and by the feeling that it is actually true that the most objective way to judge people’s credibility (jago ga sih ni orang, ato cuma gayanya doang) is by their credentials.

The thing that also bugs me is the recent addition to my credentials. Very recently, I did my software engineering internship at Facebook. As I put that ‘Software Engineer Intern at Facebook’ title on my LinkedIn page, I felt like a different person (please imagine me saying this in very dramatic way, or if you happen to be one of my closest friends, please imagine me saying this in “Irene’s accent” when she’s exaggerating). I felt like I’ve moved to the other side of the judgment game. Now I am the person whose LinkedIn profile will attract instant opinions from people. And I actually feel this happens, in a sense.

I got way more LinkedIn invites from random people and more messages from recruiters, random people follow me on Instagram, old school friends that I haven’t got in touch with since forever suddenly send me DMs, people I barely talk with calling me by my first name (even my recruiter calls me Irene).

Yet, I am actually still the same person. Probably a bit different because I now have a lot of free time in hand and decided to learn how to play PUBG. ANYWAYS, I am still Irene that searches for her phone in her backpack when she’s video calling her mom in the airport (this actually happened). Having interned at Facebook does not instantly mean that I am smarter or more capable than people that don’t, or failed to. It just makes me have more experience about working at Facebook than people who never have the chance to.

I don’t really feel that I am the kind of person that I’d think about when I see people with a Facebook experience on LinkedIn. And that is also one of the reasons I’m torn apart between these two contrasting feelings that I have.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe I just think too much.

But hey, cheers to another attempt to write.

I create this little space on the internet to write my thoughts and reflections on being a human, a woman, and a software developer. I don't have Instagram/Twitter but I can be found on LinkedIn. Feel free to contact/give feedback/tell me your story through my email: ivanaairenee@gmail.com