These Jobs Will Get You More Matches On Dating Apps. But Should They?

So, knowing that your job does make a difference with matches, should you share your job and exact employer on a profile? There are clear advantages and disadvantages to either choice. 

Not mentioning your job at all can create questions about what you’re hiding if everyone else is sharing their job. By prompting people to share their profession in a bio, Sharabi said dating apps are creating a norm on the platform and sending a message to users that, “This is something that should be important to you.”

But being extremely specific about your job has consequences, too.

Bradford said she is of the camp to be more specific about your job when it’s safe for you, because your title can be impressive to other potential matches. “I want to know, like, ‘Is this person an SVP at JP Morgan? Are they an analyst at JPMorgan?’ Those are very different roles,” she said. Because The League is also purposefully “kind of like a LinkedIn community,” she said sharing more helps people on the app network professionally, too.

But the big con to being specific about what you do is that it can make you more visible to strangers, and that can create safety issues, particularly for women. 

Jackson said she used to have her employer and title listed in her dating app profile, but she now chooses not to. 

“The reason I made that change is because I actually got several LinkedIn messages from men who would see me on a dating app and find me based on my title and company,” Jackson said. “And obviously, I didn’t match with these men. They just saw my profile, and they reached out like that was an appropriate thing to do. And it made me feel so violated.”

Even after taking out her company, men would still find her on LinkedIn only knowing her common first name and job title of “Vice President at Retail.” Now her profession is listed more vaguely as “E-comm strategy,” Jackson said. 

“I don’t think that what you do signals enough that it’s worth that risk,” Jackson said about why she recommends against sharing your employer on a dating profile, particularly for women. 

“If you are really into your career, and that’s like a front and center thing in your life, then finding people who are aligned with that is awesome. In my opinion, you can do that without sharing exactly where you work,” Jackson said. “Like there are ways in your profile to speak to your passion for your work.“

When I asked Bradford, who uses the League, about how she discloses on her dating profile, she said she has gone back and forth on her approach. She noted that if she were on Hinge or Tinder, she would mention The League specifically, but on her own app, she mentions only “Tech Founder.”

She’s aware that it’s different from the advice she is giving to her community on the app. Bradford said she was torn at first with this choice because “I’m asking everyone else to say what they do. And then look at me giving myself special treatment by saying I’m just a tech founder,” she said. 

But when she was open about being the head of The League, “A lot of people just wanted to ask me a bunch of questions. And they weren’t actually there to date me. They almost wanted to find out how The League worked,” she said. “And I think maybe tell their friends they went on a date with The League founder.”

Bradford said she now keeps out her exact title because she doesn’t want the first questions to be all about, “What do you do for work?” and about how The League algorithm works. 

“I’m like, let’s talk about this on our second date, because it can end up dominating the whole conversation,” she said. 

It’s a reminder of how careers indeed matter, but on a dating app, too much talk of your job in a first interaction can feel transactional ― even when your job is leading a dating app. We want to be seen for who we are, not simply for what our job can do for someone. 

This post originally appeared on HuffPost.