My women clients get more replies on LinkedIn

I have known for quite a while that when I help clients with outreach on LinkedIn, I generally get a slightly better response for the women I do outreach for than for the men.

I attributed that mostly to the fact that I think women are very supportive of other women in business.

Right now I have one client who is really killing it. She happens to be a woman, and she happens to be younger than the average LinkedIn user. I am definitely seeing some interesting numbers in that area.

Then I read an article in The Wall Street Journal on August 19, 2026, by Celia Bernhardt, about people using LinkedIn as a dating app. I knew this was going on already. It made me wonder how much it connects to what I am seeing.

The article cites a survey by Zety, a resume template company, of 1,023 U.S. employees. Twenty-six percent said they thought it was acceptable to use LinkedIn as a dating tool, and 22 percent said they had reached out to or responded to someone on LinkedIn with romantic intent.

LinkedIn is clear that this is not allowed. Its Professional Community Policies say, “Do not use LinkedIn to pursue romantic connections, ask for romantic dates, or provide sexual commentary on someone’s appearance or perceived attractiveness.” Plenty of people do it anyway.

My women clients are getting a business response. It is definitely a lot stronger for women, or younger women, though, and I wonder how much of that extra is not about business.

The other side of this is what women put up with on the platform. In a May 2023 survey of 1,049 U.S. women who use LinkedIn at least weekly, Passport Photo Online found that 91 percent had received romantic advances or inappropriate messages on LinkedIn at least once. About 24 percent of those said it happens daily or every other day, and nearly 74 percent said they had pulled back on their activity at least once because of someone’s improper conduct.

It is not only LinkedIn. Pew Research Center’s 2021 report on online harassment, based on a survey of 10,093 U.S. adults, found that women were more likely than men to say they had been sexually harassed online, 16 percent compared with 5 percent. Among people under 35, it was 33 percent of women compared with 11 percent of men, and the share of women reporting it had doubled since 2017.

A reply rate tells you how many people answered. It does not tell you why, or what the person on the other end puts up with in the same inbox.

I would really like input from the women out there. Does this seem like an obvious connection to you? Is the extra response you get on LinkedIn about business, or is some of it something else?

If you are a woman doing outreach on LinkedIn, I am curious what you are seeing. For more on how I approach outreach, read about LinkedIn business development, or book a networking chat.