September doesn't just mean traffic jams, school buses, and offices creaking back to life after a summer of "working from the beach." It is also, quietly, one of the busiest hiring seasons of the year. (No panic — people get hired in every month. But autumn is autumn.)

So if you have been half-thinking about a new job, a promotion, or just what is next: this is your sign. Dust off the CV. Poke around at what is out there. And yes — open LinkedIn for the first time since your last profile photo update.

That last one matters even if you aren’t job hunting. Being visible in your industry can bring new connections, opportunities and recognition long before you actually need them. But knowing you should probably be on LinkedIn is the easy part. Knowing what to actually do once you are there is where things get slightly less obvious.

Forget another “10 steps to LinkedIn success” listicle. We want to know what is actually worth doing there, what on earth you should post, and why any of it might be worth your time in the first place.

LinkedIn has a rather strange reputation. Everyone seems to have a profile; no one seems to be there. We know the login and password to get in, sure, but hardly anyone opens LinkedIn first thing in the morning and closes it last thing at night the way we do with Instagram or TikTok. So, do we actually use it — or is LinkedIn the social network quietly, steadily dying in the background?

I will hardly surprise you with LinkedIn’s favourite answer to that question: more than 1.3 billion members globally. Big number. But users are users — and registered members aren't necessarily people who are actually using the platform. We asked whether anyone is there, not whether they once created an account.

But let’s put that number into perspective. If you created a LinkedIn account in 2022 and haven’t opened it since, you still count towards those 1.3 billion members. Growth tells us something more interesting. In the UAE alone, LinkedIn’s advertising data indicated around 10 million registered members in late 2025 — roughly one million more than just a year earlier. That is an increase of about 11% in a single year. So whatever we are doing once we get there, people are certainly still signing up.

Perhaps what matters more, though, is not simply how many people are there, but who is there. Recruiters certainly are — and they aren't just waiting for applications. LinkedIn gives them dedicated tools to actively search for candidates, including people who aren't looking for a new job at all. For a sense of scale, LinkedIn showed more than 4.07 million jobs in the United States alone in 2025.

But — and this matters for those of us who actually like our jobs — LinkedIn has grown into something much broader than one enormous job hunt. Because no matter how good your job is, there is always something you are looking for beyond it. If you are in sales, that might be a new client; if you are in PR, the right journalist; if you are a journalist, a good story or a new voice to speak to.

In other words, people are there to find people — for work, certainly, but not necessarily for a new job.

Once we stop thinking about LinkedIn as simply a place to find your next job, the profile itself starts to serve a different purpose. Not everyone who arrives on your page is holding a vacancy. They might be looking for an expert, a collaborator, a useful connection — or simply putting a face to a name. And suddenly, treating LinkedIn as a slightly more public version of your CV doesn’t quite work. The two certainly share some DNA, but there are two differences worth paying attention to:

Is that good or bad? Nobody will really tell you straight. It does create some tension, yes — you are never fully off the clock. But it also gives you something surprisingly difficult to find anywhere else: a place to simply exist as a professional.

Think about the alternatives. Your CV only really comes alive when you send it somewhere — and even then, fingers crossed someone opens it. Instagram is very good at showing who you are, but between the memes, holidays and Reels, it was never really built to establish who you are at work. LinkedIn occupies that rather useful space in between. You don't have to be actively job hunting or selling anything to have a reason to show up. You can simply leave a trail of what you know, what you are doing and what you have to say.

I know what you are about to say: “If I suddenly start posting on LinkedIn, my boss is going to get suspicious.” And fair enough. Why now? Are you looking for another job? Don't you like it here anymore? Is there something we should know?

And, depending on your boss, those questions may very well come. Luckily, you have a rather good answer: Dear Mr or Mrs Boss, you might actually need my active LinkedIn page more than I do.

And, conveniently, there are numbers to back that up.

LinkedIn's own employee-advocacy research found that, collectively, employees' networks can be around 10 times larger than their company's follower base.

Let's do the imaginary maths. Your company page has 10,000 followers; the people working there might collectively have access to something closer to 100,000 connections. Of course, those audiences overlap, and potential reach isn't the same as actual reach. But the point remains: the people inside a company can form a distribution network far larger than the company's own page.

And reach isn't even the most interesting part. What matters is how the story gets told.

Think of it this way. A company posts: “Last week, we were delighted to open our new exhibition.” Nice. Noted. Scroll.

Now imagine someone who actually worked on it posts: “Three days before opening, this room was practically empty. We spent the next 72 hours getting 40 works onto the walls, changed the layout twice and somehow opened the doors on time. Here is what it looked like at midnight on Tuesday — and what it became by Friday.”

Same exhibition. Same company. Completely different story. Except now you aren't only interested in the person telling it — you are also paying attention to the company behind it. And there are numbers behind that effect too: LinkedIn found that employee-shared content generated roughly twice the click-through rate of the same content shared by the company itself.

So yes, your LinkedIn might build your name. But every time you make your work interesting, you make the company behind that work a little more interesting too.

And here we are at the part you can actually go and try on your own profile. I have pulled together a few rules from all the research above — and plenty more besides. Don't attempt all of them tomorrow morning. Try things. Experiment. See what feels natural, what absolutely doesn't, and build from there.

1. Start with what feels boring to you

One of the problems with becoming good at something is that you eventually forget what other people don't know.

You work in PR, so you assume everyone understands why journalists ignore certain pitches. They don't. You work in HR, so you assume everyone knows what makes a recruiter reject a CV within 20 seconds. They don't either.

So try this: open your Notes app and write down ten things about your job that feel almost too obvious to explain. There is a good chance at least a few of them aren't obvious at all. Start there.

2. Share the process, not just the result

Results belong on a CV. LinkedIn gives you room for everything that happened before them.

Don't just tell us the exhibition opened. Tell us what the room looked like three days earlier. Don't simply announce that your book has been published. Tell us about the version that was rejected, the chapter you rewrote six times or the moment you thought it might never happen.

3. Don't outsource your personality to ChatGPT (please)

Yes, AI is the obvious shortcut. “Write me a LinkedIn post about…” — and seconds later you are apparently thrilled to announce, honoured to share and humbled by the journey.

The problem isn't using AI: you can use it to check your grammar, sharpen a sentence or structure your thoughts. The problem is letting it tell the story for you. By now, most of us know the formula: the polished opening, the perfectly balanced paragraphs, the inevitable lesson at the end. People are tired of scrolling past different names telling stories in exactly the same voice. So give them yours.

4. Post personal stories too

LinkedIn is professional, but that doesn't mean you need to leave your personality at the door.

Your first marathon? A brilliant trip? Diving with sharks? If it tells us something interesting about the person behind the job title, there can be room for it.

Just don't force every human experience into a business lesson. Your marathon doesn’t necessarily need to teach us five things about leadership. Sometimes you simply ran a marathon. Congratulations.

5. And if you aren't ready to post, don't

Being active on LinkedIn doesn't necessarily mean broadcasting your thoughts to the world.

Read people you genuinely find interesting. Leave a comment when you actually have something to add. Ask a question. Join a conversation. Connect with someone whose work caught your attention.

After all, we have spent this entire article establishing that LinkedIn isn't only about getting hired. It is about finding people — and giving the right people a chance to find you too.