“LinkedIn Catfish” Aliyah Jones Created a Fake Profile to Expose Racial Inequity in Hiring [Video]

May 7, 2024 is a day that will remain etched in Aliyah Jones‘s memory. While sifting through her LinkedIn messages, she remembers the unexpected voice memo that she received from a stranger as if it happened yesterday.

Jones had been facing unemployment for months, searching for opportunities in marketing and social media on the career development platform. As she searched, Jones also launched an unemployment series on her LinkedIn page, detailing the ebbs and flows of her life between jobs in a comedic fashion. The series quickly gained traction on the network, attracting users who shared similar experiences, flooding Jones’ DMs and comment section with personal stories and praise for her ingenuity. That is, until one user voiced a differing perspective via that voice note.

“I was basically told that I wasn’t ‘corporateenough,’” Jones says about the stranger’s explanation about why she wasn’t getting hired. The comment struck her deeply, especially coming from someone …