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Comment by robot_friend | Hacker News Reader

I am female with a hybrid background in UI design and front-end dev. A while back I created a fake linkedin profile identical to mine except with a male name. Even though it has no profile picture and no contacts, the fake profile gets more recruiter messages than I do, and for more technical positions (I get ones for design, he gets ones for engineering).

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You know something.. In the past I used to do a lot tech interviews and phone screens. And I think I would actually give you bonus points if my company found you via your fake profile and we ended up chatting. After about 1.5 seconds of confusion, I'd be thinking, well, this lady has some resourcefulness...

Did you ever follow up on any of those offers via the fake profile? I'm curious to know the reaction. I know I'd look at it favorably. But I might be in the minority. Don't know.

That is incredibly depressing. Have you followed up to see if they reacted differently when they found out you were not a man?

You should write about this somewhere.

LinkedIn has a blog, doesn't it have guest writers? You should try for that, give them a chance first.

Perhaps the recruiters have some negative real-life information that discounts your actual profile but no such negative information against your fake one. Your evidence doesn't show sex discrimination.

Hm. I believe you're suggesting that they somehow recognize me from my photo or my name, neither of which is very likely as I am not at all well-known.

But that does bring up an interesting point - it could be they find me unattractive and thus having a photo is the negative factor (which is still gendered, but in a different way). If this were a true psych study and not one person's curiosity the fake profile should have a photo of a man of a similar age and attractiveness (as judged by a previous study)

You don't have to be well known to be traceable. Perhaps your Facebook gets updated a lot during the day. Perhaps someone with your name is listed as a felon. Perhaps you have a terrible credit rating. There are a ton of possibilities why using a pseudonym could be beneficial.

I don't understand how the recruiter potentially finding you unattractive makes it "gendered".

Perhaps it's because you're too attractive and so you're threatening to them.

You should make another "fake" account (this time, with a feminine name, but with the same wealth of information as the macho-fake one) and see which of the two fake ones gets more (professional) attention and compare them with each other, not your real account.

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