Can LinkedIn Help You Find "The One" In Today's Digital Age?

It happened well into the fourth semester of my undergrad. It was a regular August evening in Delhi (with unbearable heat waves and no traces of rainy respites). I was lounging in bed with my best friend (dreaming of extensions for our end-term papers on the dramaturgy of Tennessee Williams). Suddenly, I got a text from a boy I had matched with on Bumble two weeks ago (and had mentally gotten engaged to).

It was no declaration of undying love. Instead, it was six lines from an article in a suspiciously familiar tone. “It’s from that Taylor Swift piece you wrote for the college newspaper last week,” my friend caught on.

Earlier in the summer, Evermore had dropped, prompting me to pen a heartfelt essay arguing that Champagne Problems captured our generation’s aversion to romantic commitment.

But how did this man, who hadn’t even graduated from Bumble chat to Instagram DMs, know about it? Five minutes later, the answer to Instagram DMs, know about it? Five minutes later, the answer appeared: “I stalked your LinkedIn and ended up reading everything you’ve ever written.”

Throughout college, I was surrounded by peers and seniors who insisted on curating a catchy LinkedIn feed. It was necessary, they argued, for professional growth. But on that evening, in a single-bed, one-window undergrad room of my own, I learned that the modern-day navigation of dating apps also involved getting ratified through your professional dashboards.

Who needs those swipe-right horrors of dating apps with LinkedIn swooping in as the unexpected Cupid? Career moves to meet-cutes — who would’ve thought! Bewildered, I reached out to others to uncover LinkedIn’s role in modern love stories, scouring the depths of LinkedIn timelines to verify, validate, and interrogate everything from a potential date’s ‘endorsement’ section to where they’ve interned, is de rigueur in dating life.

Aashna Dubey (name changed to maintain anonymity), a 25-year-old consultant and graduate from Lady Shri Ram College, wrote in my Instagram poll. “Coming from a city as seemingly small as Delhi (when it comes to the dating pool), it helps to stalk your date on LinkedIn. Men often get dodgy when you ask them questions like, where did you go to school?. What internships did you do? It can quickly start sounding like an interrogation.

On LinkedIn, you have no choice but to be honest,” says Dubey. For another recent graduate, a Hinge match eventually led him to bag a much-coveted internship.

“I looked up my date’s LinkedIn before our first date and discovered he had interned with a publishing house I was very keen on working with. That is what we discussed on our first date,” he says. Another reason to give good old LinkedIn a scan is to check whether any academic rivalries could spill over into dating life. Think Pitch Perfect, but swap the cappella rivalries for Delhi University’s North and South Campus drama. 

Much like the Bellas in the film turned their noses up at Jesse and Becca’s romance, cross-campus dating ventures at DU are met with raised eyebrows and judgmental whispers. 

An ex-situationship of mine (we are good friends now), sheds light on this situation and explains, “There is this idea that people from a certain college hold a certain personality.” Crosschecking profiles on LinkedIn and verifying legitimacy can eradicate potential swipe-right heartaches, he explains.

As much as this revelation twitches my Disney-fuelled heart today, I cannot help but acknowledge my complicity in this game of online verification. And as much as such practices go against the mysterious aura of getting to know your date slowly, and steadily, one can’t help but accept its merits. It helps settle essential pre-dating questions, without resorting to Instagram stalking through finsta accounts — yes, that’s right, we’ve all done it.

So, to that end, I endorse and encourage my generation’s sleuthing behaviour to anyone navigating the minefield that is modern dating.

Picture this: it is Saturday night with your girlfriends. Peroni in hand and thin-crust margheritas on the floor, you scroll through the LinkedIn pages of potential romantic interests. And you ask: is he smart (at least, on paper)? Does he come from a rival institution? Can you introduce him to your parents? Or, as my best friend wisely adds, what does his profile picture say about his Windsor-knot-tying skills? After all, today’s affairs of the heart are as much about romance as

they are about resumes.

This has been adapted for the web from an article published in Manifest’s December 2024-January 2025 issue that is now on stands. For more stories like this, subscribe here!