After Weinberg junior Mia Zhang joined Northwestern’s business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi fall of her freshman year, she sat in her dorm room connecting with people on LinkedIn for hours.
Zhang started with about 150 connections. But, she said, AKPsi fraternity members told new pledges they needed to reach 500 — as soon as possible.
Any greater amount appears as “500+ connections” on a profile rather than a user’s exact number of connections.
In two days, Zhang reached that coveted threshold by requesting to connect with anyone she remotely knew, from high school peers and alumni to people from NU.
“It sounds so stupid now, but I was stressed,” Zhang said. “All these scary upperclassmen were telling you, ‘You need to have it.’ Being the drama queen I am, I was like, if I don’t have 500 plus, I’m not getting an internship.”
The summer after her freshman year, Zhang landed an internship at a startup founded by an NU alum. She did not find the internship through LinkedIn. Instead, she learned about it through an NU student organization, the Institute for Student Business Education.
About 70% to 80% of NU undergraduates have LinkedIn accounts, estimated Tracie Thomas, director of career development at Northwestern Career Advancement.
That’s higher than the national average, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center study, which reported about 40% of American adults between ages 18 and 29 use the platform.
Thomas said she suggests freshmen and sophomores use LinkedIn to browse career options. But many already use the platform to search for jobs, she said.
Some industries, like investment banking and consulting, have strict recruitment cycles that can begin as early as sophomore year.
To break into investment banking, Weinberg freshman Udo Elleh said he must land an internship the summer before sophomore year. He said he uses LinkedIn to network with NU alumni and potential employers.
Elleh boasts over 750 connections — up from the 253 he said he had when he arrived at NU.
In his business fraternity, Delta Sigma Pi, Elleh said pledges unofficially raced each other to 500 connections.
“I thought that it meant everything — having met 500 plus,” Elleh said. “Honestly, it doesn’t mean a crazy amount, but it definitely changes how your profile looks.”
Elleh said he started with users affiliated with NU or DSP, and that more people requested him after he reached that milestone.
Anything less than 500 connections, Elleh said, is a “bad look” to recruiters.
“In finance, everything is appearances,” he said. “You haven’t accomplished a basic, easy thing, and you haven’t been networking.”
Thomas said NCA does not tell students they need to reach a specific number. Rather, she said she promotes fostering relationships with people who share professional interests.
“We’re not even sure where that (number) came from,” Thomas said. “We heard it out there. We’re like, ‘What is that?’ I don’t think that there is any significance to having 500 connections.”
LinkedIn Editor in Chief Dan Roth (Medill ’95) said users cannot view the number of connections beyond 500 because the company did not want to emphasize follower count, unlike other social platforms.
Having more connections often just indicates “being in the workforce for longer,” Roth said.
But limited professional experience does not stop college students from expanding their LinkedIn networks — even at social functions unrelated to work.
Weinberg sophomore Rohan Badani said a fellow student asked for his LinkedIn profile, rather than his phone number or other social media, at a fraternity party last fall. While he accepted her request, he said he would never do something similar.
“But you’ve got to respect the hustle,” Badani said.
Badani said someone with more connections seems proactive with their outreach and thus appears more driven, a trait that appeals to employers.
Like Elleh and Zhang, Badani’s LinkedIn usage increased during his first quarter on campus. Since then, he said he’s gained about 1,250 connections.
“It’s an ‘aura’ thing,” Badani said. “People treat it a little bit like a game.”
SESP Prof. Claudia Haase, who studies the psychology of relationships, said interactions that lack sincerity can lead to a sense of disingenuousness.
She said it can be unclear whether people want to genuinely connect or just compete with fellow users.
“The irritation might come from confusion around the roles the relationships play,” Haase said. “We want to be valued and have an aversion to being used as a tool to get something else.”
When Elleh sees a connection post a job update, he said he congratulates them — as many users do — by clicking the suggested message rather than writing one himself. Then, if he knows the connection personally, he said he congratulates them in person.
He said his comment serves as public proof for employers that he’s active on the app.
Roth said “interesting and interested” candidates stand out to recruiters, so he recommends users ask questions in comment sections to signal curiosity and a willingness to improve.
A similar concept applies to posts. Roth said students can describe experiences from college as long as they explain unique lessons learned.
“You want to be someone who other people want to work with,” Roth said. “It isn’t being a suck-up or saying something super bland.”
Zhang said she avoids posting on LinkedIn because it reminds her of the pressure she felt as a freshman reading others’ accomplishments, even in industries that did not interest her.
Two years later, she said she is witnessing a pattern. AKPsi freshmen interested in consulting told her they felt behind students who received finance internship offers, even though consulting recruitment often begins as the finance cycle ends.
“It’s easy to lose yourself in the LinkedIn rabbit hole,” Zhang said. “I don’t know if jealousy is the right word, but I just wanted to be successful.”
Weinberg junior Duru Genc said she started her account sophomore year. Seeing others’ connections made her nervous about building a profile from scratch as a freshman, she said, so she avoided making one until she joined AKPsi.
During recruitment, peers’ posts overwhelmed her, she said. The feeling only lessened after she landed a consulting internship for this summer.
“You’re happy for your friends, but it feels like, am I running behind?” Genc said.
Both Roth and Thomas said students should create their profiles early in college. Even roles in student organizations can demonstrate experience to employers, Roth said.
He said as a user builds their voice through posts and comments, others will request to connect with them.
“You’re leaving constant breadcrumbs of who you are,” Roth said.
But Zhang said she spent more time browsing profiles, especially those of upperclassmen she admired, than networking and applying for jobs.
As for Zhang’s freshman summer internship, she said she quit after day one to prioritize her job at the clothing store Aritzia. Since then, she’s interned at firms like PwC and UBS, and she has an internship lined up this summer — though there’s no mention of it on her LinkedIn.
Previously fixated on 500 connections, she said she’s developed respect for people who have fewer.
“They might be more intentional and genuine with the connection process,” Zhang said. “I was just doing mass requests, and it didn’t feel very authentic at all.”
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