Yes, posting on LinkedIn feels cringe. Do it anyway.
We get it. The last thing you want is to sound like every other person on LinkedIn broadcasting their wins. But here's the thing: the people who are getting promoted, getting recruited, and getting opportunities you're not — they're posting. Not because they love it. Because they understand what it does.
You're invisible to people who could change your career.
Think about the last time you got a new opportunity. Someone recommended you. Someone thought of you when a role opened up. Someone remembered a conversation you had at a conference two years ago.
Now think about how many people in your industry don't know you exist. Not because you're not good at your job — but because the only people who know what you're working on are the people sitting in your meetings.
LinkedIn is the only place where your professional reputation exists outside of your company. If you're not there, you're relying entirely on word of mouth from people who happen to already know you. That works — until it doesn't.
It's not about attention. It's about being findable.
People hire people they've heard of.
When a hiring manager is choosing between two equally qualified candidates, they go with the one they feel like they already know. A few good posts can be the difference between your resume getting read and getting skimmed.
Your work doesn't speak for itself.
You know the colleague who does good work but nobody outside the team knows about it? You might be that person to everyone outside your company. The work only speaks for itself if someone's in the room to hear it.
Opportunities don't go to the most qualified. They go to the most visible.
Speaking invitations, board seats, advisory roles, partnerships — these don't come from applications. They come from someone seeing your name and thinking, "I should talk to that person." You can't get pulled into a room if nobody knows you're in the building.
It builds leverage you can't get any other way.
When you have a professional reputation that exists outside of your current job, you negotiate from a different position. You're not just an employee — you're someone the industry knows by name. That's a kind of job security that no title can give you.
The cringe isn't about LinkedIn. It's about bad LinkedIn.
Most people don't hate posting. They hate the idea of posting something that sounds like what everyone else posts. The rocket emojis, the "I'm humbled to announce," the five-point listicle about leadership — that's what feels cringe. And they're right to avoid it.
But there's a massive gap between that and saying nothing. You can post about your work without performing. You can share what you learned without a numbered framework. You can announce something you're proud of without pretending you're humbled by it.
The reason posting feels awkward is because most examples of it are bad. When the only LinkedIn posts you see are cringeworthy, of course you don't want to be associated with that. But the answer isn't to stay silent. It's to write something better.
Just say what happened.
The best LinkedIn posts aren't polished. They're specific. They start with something that actually happened — a deal, a mistake, a conversation, a decision — and they tell you what the person actually thought and did, not what they think you want to hear.
You don't need a content strategy. You don't need to post every day. You don't need a personal brand playbook. You need to take something that happened at work this week and write about it the way you'd tell a friend at dinner.
That's it. A few times a month. In your own words. About things you actually care about. The people who need to find you will find you.
Nobody's going to tell you you're missing out.
That's the thing about visibility — you don't notice what you're not getting. You won't know about the recruiter who searched your industry and didn't find you. You won't know about the potential client who went with someone whose name they recognized. You won't know about the speaking invitation that went to someone with half your experience but twice your presence.
We're not going to tell you it's easy or fun. We wish we didn't have to post about our work either. But in a market where more people than ever are competing for the same opportunities, staying quiet is a choice you're making — whether you realize it or not.
Write one post. See how it feels.
Say Something was built for people who have something to say but don't know how to say it. It interviews you about your week, pulls out the details that matter, and writes three drafts that don't sound like LinkedIn slop.
No emojis. No hashtag stacking. No "I'm humbled to announce." Just your story, written properly.