🔗 Share this article Professional Network Visibility Boost: Women Discover Success When Presenting as Male Users Do your LinkedIn connections viewing you as a thought leader? Are hordes of commenters applauding your advice on growing your venture? Are headhunters making contact to explore opportunities? Should that not be the case, the reason might be your gender. The Experiment: Changing Profile Gender to achieve Increased Reach Dozens of female professionals joined a collective professional network test this week following popular discussions suggested that changing their gender to "man" boosted their platform visibility. Some participants rewrote their profiles to incorporate what they termed "masculine-oriented" terminology - adding results-driven business buzzwords like "drive", "transform" and "accelerate". Anecdotally, their exposure similarly increased. Systemic Preference Concerns Raised The engagement increase has led some to speculate whether a built-in sexism in the platform's system favors men who employ professional networking terminology. Similar to many large social media platforms, LinkedIn utilizes an algorithm to determine which posts are shown to which members - promoting some while reducing others. Company Statement Through a company announcement, LinkedIn recognized the trend but stated it does not factor in "demographic information" when determining post visibility. Instead, the company explained that "numerous factors" affect how content perform. Modifying profile gender in your settings does not affect how your posts shows up in search or feed. Personal Experiences A social media consultant, who changed her pronouns to "he/him" and her name to "a masculine version", reported extraordinary results. "The statistics I'm seeing show a 1,600% increase in visitor traffic and a 1,300% increase in impressions," she commented. Another professional, a communications strategist, started testing after observing her reach decline significantly. The Method Initially, she changed her profile gender to "man" Then, she used artificial intelligence to rephrase her professional summary using "male-coded" language Lastly, she repurposed old posts with comparable "agentic" style The outcome was immediate: a more than fourfold rise in reach within seven days. The Downside Although the positive results, Cornish expressed unhappiness with the approach. "Before, my content were softer - brief and clever, but also friendly and human," she explained. "Currently, the bro-coded version was forceful and self-assured - like a Caucasian man swaggering around." She abandoned the test after one week, saying "Every day I persisted, and results improved, I became more frustrated." Mixed Results Some testers experienced positive outcomes. Cass Cooper who modified both her gender to "man" and her ethnicity to "white" reported a decrease in reach and engagement. "We understand there's algorithmic bias, but it's extremely difficult to understand how it functions in specific cases or why," she remarked. Wider Consequences These tests coincide with ongoing discussions about LinkedIn's distinctive role as both a professional network and social space. Platform modifications in the past few months have reportedly caused women professionals experiencing significantly reduced exposure, leading to informal experiments where identical posts by men and women received dramatically unequal audience engagement. System Details According to LinkedIn, the platform uses artificial intelligence to classify and spread content based on multiple factors, including post content and the member's career profile. The company states it frequently assesses its algorithms, including "examinations of gender-related disparities." A spokesperson proposed that current reductions in some users' reach might originate from higher volume due to more content on the platform. Evolving Environment As one participant noted, "bro-coding" appears to be increasing on the platform. "Users typically consider LinkedIn as more businesslike and refined," she remarked. "That's changing. It's becoming increasingly aggressive and less controlled."