The LinkedIn Help Post You Scrolled Past This Morning

by Laurie Ruettimann

You saw it. Someone you’re connected to in HR or recruiting, or someone you vaguely know from a conference or an old job, posted something raw on LinkedIn. They are looking for a referral. They need an intro. Or they went further than that and linked to a GoFundMe, a Venmo, a request for gift cards to cover groceries or utilities or rent.

You felt something. Then you kept scrolling.

I’m not here to shame you because I’ve scrolled past several of those myself, this week. I’m here to tell you there are three things you can actually do when you see these posts. Then I want to talk about the bigger thing underneath all of it.

Do the prayer part.

Most people thoughts-and-prayers it and skip the prayer. I get it. Prayer feels private, or weird, or like something you left behind at age seventeen.

But my friend Jennifer McClure talks about her mom’s prayers like they were a resource she could actually draw on. Her mom is gone now, and Jennifer still believes she is interceding somewhere. I think about that a lot. If you are going to send someone light or good energy or whatever language sits right with you, do it on purpose. Not because you are scared you might end up like them. Not out of relief that it isn’t you. Do it because that person’s situation is real and your attention, given intentionally, is not nothing.

Give money if you can.

You cannot give to everyone. You shouldn’t try. But sometimes a post finds you for a reason, and you know it when it happens. If you see a GoFundMe or a Venmo and you have twenty dollars you will not miss, there is no analysis required. Just send it.

The people posting these are not looking for career advice. They are not asking for a Calendly link to your coaching availability. They are asking for a bridge between this week and next week. Cash is the thing they need most, and it would be great if you could help.

Follow up on the referral requests.

This one is simple and almost no one does it. When someone posts that they are looking for work, they need you to text them a link to a job posting. Forward their resume to someone specific. Drop a comment that says “X company is hiring for this exact role, here is the contact.” That is it. Not career coaching. Not a pep talk. A door, slightly opened.

If you know someone doing interview prep for free or cheap, share that. If you know a company offering contract or temp work in their lane, say so. One concrete thing is worth more than ten encouraging sentences.

Now let’s talk about why this is happening.

These posts are not random. They are the output of a decade of decisions made by people who are now watching from a safe distance. And if you haven’t seen them in your feed yet, you will.

The AI transformation story has been sold hard, and the people buying it are cutting human headcount to fund it. What the pitch decks don’t say is that roughly one in fifty AI transformation projects actually delivers what it promised. One in fifty. The rest produce incremental improvements, expensive pivots, and a lot of consultants who move on before the results come in.

So if you still have a decision-making role that pays your bills, you have something to do. Pull up the numbers. Make the case for reinvesting in the people you have. You’re not doing this because AI is bad, but because the math on replacing humans with AI is being presented dishonestly. Someone in the room needs to say so. You were made for this moment.

Pitch better learning and development programs. Suggest AI tools that make work less exhausting rather than tools that justify headcount reduction. You’re not soft if you make the case that training your existing workforce to work alongside AI is better, and ultimately more transformative, than training an AI to do a mediocre version of their job. These are not radical ideas. They are the boring, correct ones.

Let’s bring this all home.

The people posting those LinkedIn help requests were not failures with “performance issues,” no matter what CEOs try to tell us. They were competent professionals who were in the wrong place when someone with a spreadsheet decided the numbers worked out better without them.

If you can’t give money and you don’t have a referral, do the prayer. If you can give money, give it. If you have a referral, make it.

And if you are still employed, use your position to push back on the story that human intelligence is a cost to be managed rather than an investment worth protecting.

This is what leadership looks like in 2026, and you’re the person for the job.