What You See on LinkedIn Is Not What Happens Inside the Job

You have seen the titles, the polished bios, the steady list of roles that make it look like someone’s career is perfectly on track. From the outside, it all seems solid. But what most people will never say out loud is this: what you see on LinkedIn is not what happens inside the job.

I have worked for some of the biggest names. Accor. Salter Brothers. DC Strategy. On paper, it looks like a steady climb. Each job added another title. Each one had more responsibility. But behind the scenes, each role chipped away at me. And none of that showed up on my profile.

At Accor, I was a Portfolio Marketing Executive across eleven hotels. It looked like a step forward, and technically it was. But in reality, it meant being pulled in every direction, stuck in internal politics, and expected to keep things moving without ever being seen as someone who could lead. I delivered the work. I made things happen. But that did not matter. The people who got ahead were the ones who were louder or better connected. I resigned because I saw clearly that effort alone would never change anything there. I was tired of feeling invisible, tired of staying late and being stretched thin without ever being considered for more. It was not sustainable, and it was never going to be.

After that, I moved into a Marketing Manager role at Accor Sydney Olympic Park. I thought it would be different. More structure. More clarity. More respect. I was managing three hotels, and once again, I did what needed to be done. But the culture was no different. Behind the job title was the same broken system. You were expected to go above and beyond, but asking for anything in return was seen as ungrateful. What made it worse was the team I was placed in. My manager micromanaged every move I made. I was excluded, spoken down to, and made to feel like I did not belong. It was subtle sometimes, but it was racism. And over time, it wore me down. I was emotionally drained, second-guessing everything I did, and constantly walking on eggshells in a role I had earned. I resigned because staying meant losing more of myself every day. It became clear that no matter how much I gave, nothing would ever change.

At Salter Brothers, I had already learned to lower my expectations, but I still showed up. I was part of the pre-opening team, there from day one, building the marketing foundation as a one-person team. I handled everything. Brand setup, strategy, campaigns, execution. I trained a junior executive who had no prior experience while carrying the weight of the entire department alone. When the manager role opened up, I applied. I had already been doing that work. But they gave it to someone else. She had less experience but knew the right people. That was enough. I stayed a little longer, trying to stay optimistic. But how do you keep working in a place that expects you to train others for jobs you were denied? I resigned when I realised that no one was ever going to respect what I had already done. I did not want to keep justifying why I belonged there.

Then came DC Strategy. Group Marketing Manager across three brands. On paper, it looked like a proper step forward. Full ownership. Room to lead. Multiple brands under my direction. But from the beginning, the structure was unclear. Expectations shifted constantly. I started to see a pattern. They wanted execution without input. They wanted someone to do the work but never challenge anything. I raised one issue. Calmly and professionally. In a meeting. That was it. I was made redundant. It was not about performance. It was about not staying quiet. That was the final confirmation I needed that these places were never built for people like me.

I did not leave these roles because I could not handle the pressure. I left because I refused to keep accepting cultures that drain people, hide behind branding, and reward silence over skill. I left because staying would have meant teaching myself to expect less, and I was done doing that.

Since then, I have done things differently. I joined a smaller company. I looked past job descriptions and asked real questions in interviews. I paid attention to the managers, not just the brand names. I stopped chasing titles that sounded good on a resume but felt hollow in real life. I started trusting what I saw and what I felt, not what was written in an offer letter.

If you are sitting in a job that looked right but feels wrong, you are not imagining it. If you are constantly over-performing without reward or recognition, it is not because you are not enough. If you are quietly burning out in a workplace that talks about opportunity but never shows it, it is not you. It is the way these systems are built.

What you see on LinkedIn is not the full story. Behind the titles and tidy bios are people who have been overlooked, undervalued, or pushed out of jobs they were good at simply because they refused to play along with systems that were never built to support them.

You do not have to stay where you are not respected. You do not have to wait for someone to notice what you have already done. You definitely do not owe any company your silence just to keep things tidy.

This is the part no one writes in their bio. But it matters.

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If it made you pause, good. That means it matters.

-Ami