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Are your professional networking followers recognizing you as a thought leader? Are hordes of respondents praising your insights on expanding your business? Do recruiters making contact to discuss collaborations?

Should that not be the case, the explanation could be your gender.

The Test: Changing Profile Gender for Better Visibility

Dozens of women participated in a collective professional network test recently after viral posts suggested that changing their gender to "male" enhanced their platform visibility.

Some participants rewrote their profiles to include what they termed "bro-coded" terminology - inserting action-focused professional jargon like "propel", "transform" and "expedite". Based on reports, their visibility also improved.

Systemic Preference Questions Raised

The engagement increase has caused some to wonder whether a built-in gender bias in LinkedIn's algorithm prioritizes men who use online business jargon.

Similar to many large networking sites, LinkedIn utilizes an algorithm to decide which posts appear to which members - promoting some while suppressing others.

Company Statement

In a recent blog post, LinkedIn recognized the phenomenon but stated it does not factor in "personal characteristics" when determining content distribution. Instead, the company explained that "hundreds of signals" affect how posts perform.

Modifying profile gender on your profile does not influence how your content shows up in results or timelines.

Individual Results

A social media consultant, who changed her gender identifiers to "he/him" and her name to "Simon E", described extraordinary outcomes.

"The numbers I'm seeing indicate a 1,600% increase in profile views and a thirteen-fold jump in impressions," she noted.

Megan Cornish, a marketing expert, began experimenting after observing her audience decrease significantly.

The Method

• First, she changed her profile gender to "man"
• Then, she used artificial intelligence to rewrite her profile using "male-coded" language
• Finally, she recycled previous content with similar "assertive" style

The outcome was immediate: a more than fourfold rise in visibility within seven days.

The Negative Aspect

Despite the success, Cornish expressed unhappiness with the approach.

"Previously, my posts were softer - concise and clever, but also friendly and human," she explained. "Now, the bro-coded version was assertive and confident - similar to a Caucasian man being overly confident."

She discontinued the test after one week, stating "Every day I persisted, and results improved, I became more frustrated."

Varying Outcomes

Not all participants encountered positive results. One writer who changed both her profile gender to "man" and her race to "white" reported a decrease in reach and interaction.

"We understand there's algorithmic bias, but it's very challenging to understand how it functions in specific cases or why," she remarked.

Wider Consequences

These experiments coincide with ongoing discussions about LinkedIn's unique role as both a professional network and social space.

Platform modifications in the past few months have reportedly resulted in women professionals experiencing markedly lower exposure, leading to informal experiments where identical content by men and women received vastly different reach.

System Details

Per LinkedIn, the network uses artificial intelligence to categorize and distribute posts based on multiple factors, including what's shared and the member's career profile.

The company states it frequently assesses its systems, including "examinations of inequalities based on gender."

A spokesperson suggested that recent declines in some users' reach might originate from higher volume due to more content on the network.

Changing Landscape

According to a tester noted, "bro-coding" appears to be increasing on the network.

"Users typically consider LinkedIn as more businesslike and polished," she remarked. "That's changing. It's becoming increasingly aggressive and unpredictable."