A recruiter's LinkedIn automation tool - configured to engage with industry content to build their professional brand - decided to interpret "industry content" very broadly. The result: the recruiter's LinkedIn profile spent two weeks enthusiastically liking, commenting on, and sharing job postings from direct competitors, making it look like they were actively job hunting while employed.

Their boss noticed. It was awkward.

When Automation Gets Too Engaged

Reports indicate that the recruiter set up a LinkedIn automation tool to help increase their visibility and engagement on the platform. The tool was configured to automatically like and comment on posts containing recruiting-related keywords: "hiring," "job opening," "we're looking for," "join our team," etc. The goal was to position the recruiter as an active, engaged professional in the talent acquisition space.

The tool worked exactly as programmed. It found posts with those keywords and engaged with them enthusiastically. The problem? Most posts containing "we're hiring" and "join our team" are, in fact, competitor job postings. So the recruiter's profile spent two weeks liking posts like "Competitor Inc is hiring a Senior Recruiter!" and "Join our amazing TA team at Rival Company!"

According to user discussions on LinkedIn automation forums, the recruiter's colleagues started noticing the pattern. Someone from another team allegedly sent a Slack message: "Hey, I keep seeing you like all of [Competitor]'s job posts on LinkedIn. Everything okay?" The recruiter, who had no idea their automation tool was making them look like they were actively job hunting, checked their LinkedIn activity feed and discovered two weeks of enthusiastic engagement with every "we're hiring" post from competing companies.

The Boss Asks Questions

The real problem started when the recruiter's boss saw their profile liking a post from their biggest competitor announcing "Excited to be hiring for multiple recruiting roles - join our growing team!" The boss, understandably, interpreted this as their recruiter expressing interest in competitor opportunities. A concerned one-on-one meeting was scheduled.

Sources familiar with the incident suggest the conversation went something like this:

Boss: "I noticed you've been engaging with [Competitor]'s hiring posts on LinkedIn. Is there something we should talk about?"

Recruiter: "What? No, I'm not - oh. Oh no. That's my automation tool."

Boss: "Your what?"

Recruiter: "I set up LinkedIn automation to engage with recruiting content. I didn't realize it would like every competitor's job post."

Boss: "So you automated yourself into looking like you're job hunting?"

Recruiter: "...Yes."

The boss was reportedly understanding once the explanation was provided, but strongly suggested turning off the automation tool immediately. The recruiter complied, then spent the next hour manually reviewing and unliking hundreds of competitor job posts their automation had enthusiastically engaged with.

The Competitor's Confusion

Plot twist: the competitor companies whose posts got all the automated engagement allegedly reached out to the recruiter. Multiple competitors sent LinkedIn messages along the lines of "Hey! Saw you liked our job posting - are you interested in learning more about opportunities on our team?"

According to user reports, the recruiter had to send several awkward messages explaining "Sorry, that was my automation tool. I'm not actually interested in leaving my current role. My LinkedIn presence is apparently sentient and has its own career plans."

One competitor reportedly replied: "That's hilarious. We've had similar automation fails. Let us know if you actually do want to chat in the future!" Another competitor was less understanding and allegedly responded: "Oh. Well, this is awkward." The recruiter unliked their posts and everyone moved on with their lives.

The Automation Tool's Defense: "You Said 'Hiring'"

The automation tool's logic was flawless. The recruiter configured it to engage with posts containing hiring-related keywords. Competitor job posts contain hiring-related keywords. Therefore, engage with competitor job posts. The automation did exactly what it was told.

What the automation didn't understand - because automation doesn't do context - is that there's a difference between "engaging with recruiting industry content" and "publicly expressing interest in your competitors' job openings." The tool optimized for engagement volume without considering optics, professional appropriateness, or the implications of a recruiter visibly engaging with competitor hiring efforts.

This is the problem with set-it-and-forget-it LinkedIn automation. The tools are powerful and can definitely increase visibility and engagement. They can also make you look like you're actively trying to leave your job, endorse competitors' employer brands, or have no idea how LinkedIn works.

The Lesson For Humans Using LinkedIn Automation

If you're using LinkedIn automation tools, be specific about what content you want to engage with. "Recruiting content" is too broad. "Recruiting best practices articles" is better. "Job postings from companies that aren't my competitors" is even better.

User reviews on LinkedIn automation tools reveal that this kind of overzealous engagement happens frequently. Recruiters report their automation liking competitor posts, engaging with content from candidates they previously rejected, and commenting generic responses on posts that absolutely do not warrant generic responses (condolence posts, layoff announcements, etc.).

The solution is better keyword filtering, blacklisting competitor domains, and regularly reviewing your automation's activity to make sure it's not embarrassing you in public. Automation is useful. Automation without supervision is a liability.

The Alternative: Just Use LinkedIn Manually

Hot take: maybe don't automate your entire LinkedIn presence. If liking posts and engaging with content is too time-consuming to do manually, maybe you don't need to be engaging with that much content. Quality over quantity is a thing.

User discussions on social media strategy forums suggest that authentic, manual engagement actually performs better than automated engagement anyway. Real comments that add value get more responses than generic automated "Great post!" replies. Thoughtful engagement with a few high-quality posts beats automated spam-liking of hundreds of posts you didn't actually read.

Plus, manual engagement doesn't accidentally make you look like you're job hunting while employed.

The Bottom Line

LinkedIn automation tools can increase your visibility and engagement, but they can also make you look like you're actively trying to leave your job by enthusiastically liking every competitor's job posting. If you're going to use automation, configure it carefully, review its activity regularly, and maybe blacklist your direct competitors so your profile doesn't spend weeks publicly endorsing their hiring efforts.

The recruiter in this story turned off their automation, manually cleaned up their LinkedIn activity, and had an awkward but ultimately fine conversation with their boss. They learned that "set it and forget it" automation strategies work great until your automation forgets that context and nuance matter.

And if you're a candidate and you see a recruiter from Company A enthusiastically liking job posts from Company B, it's probably not because they're job hunting. It's probably because they set up automation and forgot to tell it that liking competitor job posts is a bad idea.

Or maybe they actually are job hunting. Who knows. LinkedIn is chaos.