Office Steve Updated His LinkedIn. Did You?
How to beat the bias and earn like the Steves
TL;DR: Women's LinkedIn profiles typically undersell our capabilities compared to men's—featuring fewer skills, shorter summaries, fewer leadership terms, and less quantified impact. This isn't just a digital housekeeping issue; it's limiting our visibility, connections, and career opportunities. The gender gap is real: recruiters are 13% more likely to click on men's profiles, and women executives connect with less influential networks. This issue gives you AI-powered strategies to upgrade your profile while maintaining authenticity, along with practical ways to start expanding your network's impact right now.
Hey there 👋
Office Steve spent his lunch hour optimizing his LinkedIn profile with AI. You're still using the same summary from three years ago.
You're not alone.
When I first set up my LinkedIn, I thought it was a digital resume. I literally just recreated my resume. As my professional life shifted into EdTech, I added some links.
But eventually, I realized that LinkedIn is the professional picture you want to portray to other professionals in your field. And that's challenging for women, because we tend to under-promote ourselves (conditioning: be small and face societal backlash when we play big).
📊 The research is clear: women executives are 14.9% less likely than men to have connections on LinkedIn. When we do connect, we gravitate toward less influential contacts. While men connect with popular executives, boosting their visibility and status, women connect with less prominent individuals, limiting their professional reach.
An underpowered LinkedIn profile isn't simply a minor oversight—it’s a missed opportunity.
The Problem Pattern
Recruiters are 13% more likely to click on a man's profile than a woman's, even with comparable qualifications. And this isn't just about external bias—it's about how we present ourselves online:
Women list 11% fewer skills on their profiles & shorter profile summaries, underselling their expertise
Women are less likely to include leadership skills in their LinkedIn profiles—even when they're already in leadership positions
Women are significantly less likely to quantify their achievements with metrics and hard numbers
This pattern creates a disturbing ripple effect. While men are busy promoting their leadership potential and connecting with influential figures, women executives are networking themselves into invisibility.
When it comes to LinkedIn, consistency isn’t just about posting. It’s about keeping your profile fresh.
I’m not the best at posting everywhere, all the time. (If you’ve ever tried to keep up with more than one platform, you get it.)
But even when I’m not posting on LinkedIn, I always update my profile when I publish a new article or hit a work milestone. That way, when people do find me—which they often do now, thanks to the visibility I’ve built elsewhere—they’re seeing a full, up-to-date version of who I am.
If your career has evolved, or if you wear a few different hats, it’s even more important to show it. Your profile should tell the story of where you are now, not just where you started.
How Most People Try to Solve It (And Why It Fails)
The standard advice sounds familiar:
Update your profile
Add a professional photo
Join a few groups
Post occasionally
It’s not bad advice—but it doesn’t fix the real problem: women face real barriers that simple tips can’t solve:
The modesty trap: We’re conditioned to downplay ourselves—and penalized when we don’t.
The connection gap: We build smaller, trusted networks, but miss out on high-visibility contacts.
The bridging burden: We work harder to prove belonging, emphasizing shared schools or jobs.
The algorithm echo chamber: LinkedIn recommends similar (less influential) connections, keeping us stuck.
The numbers gap: We avoid quantifying achievements, while men flaunt theirs—making their impact easier to see.
Without a strategic reset, small tweaks just leave us running in place.
A Strategic Approach: Practical AI Implementation
Instead of just beautifying your profile, you need a strategic approach that works with (rather than against) the realities of gendered networking dynamics. And here's where AI can become your secret weapon:
1. Use AI to craft a compelling profile that sounds like YOU
Headline upgrade: Use AI to transform basic descriptions into standout ones. Instead of "Marketing Professional," try "Award-Winning Marketing Strategist | Driving Brand Growth through Innovative Social Media Campaigns"
Example prompt: "Help me create a compelling headline for my LinkedIn profile that accurately represents my professional identity and expertise. Make it concise, keyword-optimized, and tailored to appeal to my target audience in [your industry]."
Achievement enhancement: Let AI transform job descriptions into achievement-driven statements. Turn "Managed social media accounts" into "Spearheaded high-impact social media campaigns, boosting engagement by 35% and acquiring 10,000+ new followers within 6 months"
2. Make your impact measurable
Research shows profiles with quantified achievements receive 30% more profile views. Here's how to leverage this:
Numbers speak louder than words: For every role, identify at least one metric you can highlight—percentage improvements, budget managed, team size, revenue generated, time saved, or customer satisfaction scores. Even approximate figures significantly boost credibility.
AI-powered metric extraction: Try this prompt: "Based on my experience as [your role], suggest 5-7 metrics I could highlight that would quantify my impact. For each suggestion, provide a template sentence showing how to incorporate the metric naturally."
Past-present-future framing: Structure achievements to show the situation before, your action, and the measurable result: "Inherited underperforming team → Implemented new training program → Increased productivity by 27% and reduced turnover from 40% to 15% within 8 months."
3. Conduct a leadership audit with AI assistance
Men are 45% more likely to list skills like "negotiation" and "leadership" on their profiles. Review your profile specifically for these power terms:
Skills gap analysis: Use this AI prompt: "Analyze my current LinkedIn summary and suggest leadership-oriented skills that are missing but appropriate for my role as a [your title]. Focus on skills like strategic thinking, leadership, and decision-making that might be undersold in my current profile."
Experience reframing: Ask AI to help you view your achievements through a leadership lens: "Help me identify the leadership aspects of my role as [your title] that I might be overlooking. What leadership skills and accomplishments should I be highlighting?"
4. Adopt strategic connection practices
Use these approaches to expand your network's impact:
Leverage the "influencer advantage"
Research shows LinkedIn profiles with more followers receive dramatically more profile visits. Instead of only focusing on direct connections, build your follower base through strategic engagement. Follow industry leaders and thoughtfully comment on their posts to increase your visibility.
Connect with purpose
Women executives are more likely to connect with people who attended the same university and with former colleagues. Use this natural tendency deliberately by highlighting these shared affiliations in connection requests, making it easier for others to see you as part of their professional circle.
Use AI to request recommendations
Craft recommendation requests that strengthen your profile's credibility with this prompt: "Draft a brief, professional message requesting a LinkedIn recommendation from [name], emphasizing specific projects we worked on together and the skills I demonstrated. Keep it warm but not overly personal."
5. Break through the self-promotion barrier
To counter the modesty trap:
Draft your accomplishments externally
Create descriptions of your achievements in a separate document where you can focus on accuracy rather than tone. It's often easier to write objectively about yourself when you're not staring at your actual profile.
Use the third-person test
Ask yourself: "If this were the profile of someone I admire, would I think it was too boastful?" The answer is almost always no. Apply the same standard to yourself.
Leverage AI as your hype person
Try this: "Based on these achievements [list your accomplishments], draft three different LinkedIn summary paragraphs that showcase my expertise without sounding arrogant. Use confident but authentic language that highlights the value I bring."
Remember: what you're fighting isn't just individual choices or unconscious bias—it's a system where women are systematically under-connected, with connections to less popular individuals, in a platform where visibility directly correlates with opportunity.
*This article from Forbes & this one from LinkedIn were my inspiration for this section.
👉 Power Practice for the Week
Monday: Use AI to identify three leadership-oriented skills that are missing from your profile and add them.
Tuesday: Transform one achievement in your profile by adding a specific metric or percentage that quantifies your impact.
Wednesday: Connect with two women in your industry who have larger networks than yours.
Thursday: Identify one former colleague in an influential position and reconnect with a specific, value-added message.
Friday: Use AI to draft a recommendation request for someone who can vouch for your skills.
The Short of It ⚡
LinkedIn isn't just a digital resume—it's a crucial currency in today's professional landscape.
Women, even at executive levels, connect less, connect with less influential people, and undersell their leadership capabilities and quantifiable achievements compared to men.
The gap isn't about competence—it's about confidence, conditioning, and complex networking dynamics that AI can help navigate.
By adding metrics that quantify your impact, conducting a leadership audit, leveraging strategic connections, and using AI to overcome self-promotion barriers, you can begin to close the digital networking gap that's holding too many women back.
And a note: AI is problematic in lots of ways — I want to acknowledge that. I’m advocating for specific, strategic use that helps level the professional playing field for women.
With you all the way,
Kara
P.S. Next week: A Smarter Way to Think About Personal Branding (That Won't Make You Cringe). I'll share how to build a compelling professional identity without feeling like you're constantly selling yourself. Forget the "guru" advice—this is about clarity, consistency, and confidence built on what you actually care about, not what you think you're supposed to say.
What a delight! Thanks for this thoughtful plan; it's right on time. Xx
I need to look at my LinkedIn. I never look at it!