Wait, People Are Finding Love Through LinkedIn?

In the spring of 2024, Paige Goldstein was "digital nomading" in South Africa when she got a fateful LinkedIn notification. A mutual connection had tagged her in the comments of a post by Grayson Harris, who was also digital nomading in Cape Town at the time. Goldstein clicked "connect" and direct-messaged Harris, asking to meet up for coffee.

"I was just open to connection — especially as nomads, when you see someone who's similar to you, it's about that deeper connection first," she says. "But when I saw him, it felt more like a date."

Goldstein and Harris have been together ever since. He ended up following her to Spain, her next stop after South Africa, and they now live together in Maine. As the founder of The Ripple Effect, a coaching program and community that helps women leaders build their brands on LinkedIn, Goldstein naturally spends a lot of time on the professional networking platform. But she didn't expect to fall in love there.

Hers isn't the only love story coming out of LinkedIn, though. In recent years, the professional networking site has become more than just a résumé repository; it's a place to follow industry leaders, cultivate your own professional persona, and sometimes even get personal. Maybe you use it to look up someone you matched with on a dating app before meeting up in person, or you stalk whose posts your ex is liking. Or maybe, just maybe, you fall in love with someone after clicking connect.

Cherie Brooke Luo, cohost of the business podcast "Tiger Sisters Podcast," worked at LinkedIn for almost five years as a product manager before becoming a full-time content creator. She definitely knows the site is being used to pursue romantic interests, she says: Luo remembers hearing about the more extreme cases at all-hands meetings.

"The issue that they were dealing with the most was harassment through unwanted advancements through LinkedIn DMs, people sliding into LinkedIn DMs in a very strange way, especially because LinkedIn is a very professional platform first and foremost," she says. "When people are in that mindset of it being a professional networking platform, it can be very jarring to receive unsolicited advancements through LinkedIn DMs."

Many folks share that perspective — that romance doesn't have a place in a professional setting like LinkedIn. But Luo does see the value of using the platform when it comes to other aspects of dating. "I think the overt sliding into LinkedIn DMs is completely inappropriate, but I do think LinkedIn is a place to do the background checks," she says. "It's not so much learning about the pedigree of a person before getting to meet them, because that can remove some of the fun and romance, but in terms of doing a background check of, it's a real person, they're verified with their photo, that can be really helpful."

As a headhunter, Katie Ortman Doble is on the platform constantly — "all day, every day" for her job, she says. And, like Luo, she sees the site as a great tool to "get a glimpse" of who someone is.

Such was the case with her now-husband, Nick — although, she clarifies, "I don't want to be painted as someone who was purposefully going on LinkedIn to find her husband, and I never encourage anyone to use the site in that way."

Ortman Doble ended up posting her LinkedIn love story in 2015, and it went viral. The story goes like this: in the mid-2010s, Ortman Doble was in her early 30s and looking "anywhere and everywhere" for a long-term partner. But on the apps and in real life, she was running into "horrendous" date after horrendous date.

Enter: Nick's LinkedIn profile. His company was looking to fill a position, and once she stumbled upon his photo, "I melted," she wrote in her original post. She sent him a connection request and eventually a message, igniting a back-and-forth. After a few weeks, the duo met up for a "networking meeting" — aka, grabbing a drink.

The couple is celebrating their 10-year wedding anniversary in February. "Thank god for LinkedIn," Ortman Doble says. "You can meet someone anywhere. In a time when everybody is so on their phones, it's nice to have something that's an option, beyond the swiping."

When Ortman Doble was single, that's the mindset she had for every encounter. ("If you were cute and we were in the produce aisle at the supermarket, I was going to be checking you out," she laughs.) It's an attitude that can open you up to love, on LinkedIn or anywhere else.

Goldstein agrees: "I believe in divine connections — that who you're supposed to meet, you'll meet. I think when you open yourself up to any possibility, it can happen."

Lena Felton (she/her) is a senior content director at Popsugar, where she oversees special projects. Previously, she was an editor at The Washington Post, where she led a team covering issues of gender and identity. She has been working in journalism since 2017, during which time her focus has been feature writing and editing and elevating historically underrepresented voices. Lena has worked for The Atlantic, InStyle, So It Goes, and more.