Is LinkedIn Becoming The Place To Find Dates?

Dating is a hard thing to do, learning about someone, their interests, the whole lengthy, complicated process. Lately, a new tactic has been emerging: using LinkedIn to get a better idea of the person they’re interested in. 

According to Forbes, people aren’t just using the social media site to learn general information about someone; they’re becoming more like private investigators or detectives. 

LinkedIn isn’t meant for dating, as its rules are clearly stated on the page detailing its policies. Its function is for serious professionals looking to find employment or for companies to reach out to potential employees to discuss their desire to find workers. This hasn’t stopped some users from doing some “partner shopping” on the site. 

The Times recently reported that research found one-in-four US LinkedIn users actually believed that the business-driven website being used as a dating tool was acceptable, claiming “no generation is benefiting more from modern dating’s most recent update than Gen Z.”

“I sort of expected him to ask for my number,” says Sarah, 24, who was recently asked out by a guy via LinkedIn told the news outlet. “But instead he said, ‘What’s your LinkedIn?’”

Despite this, users continue using it to get to know their potential partner. Unlike other dating apps like Tinder, the platform offers more solid information. There are real pictures, and job history. 

This can help with avoiding the issue of  “kitten fishing,” which is when people “soften” their image on profiles to such a degree that it is essentially lying to those trying to determine how compatible a person is based on their given attributes. 

LinkedIn’s safety detector does the best that it can in screening rule-breaking content. 80,806 comments were removed for containing adult imagery. While that is only about 12% of the reported problems, according to their own reporting, explicitly stated adult content, abuse, and harassment constituted roughly 71.5% in July of 2025, although the umbrella terms of abuse and harassment make it far less clear.

“Our focus is on making sure that people are safe from unwanted romantic advances, which do go against our professional community policies,” a LinkedIn spokesperson told Fortune.

As someone on dating sites, I can personally attest to dating-site fatigue, which stems from the level of catfishing that makes it hard to rely on profiles alone, so the appeal of using LinkedIn makes some degree of sense.

Rather than hoping the person says or does what they claim, the realness of LinkedIn adds another layer of vetting to the process. This is not necessarily for finding a partner, but more to get to know them better.