Five LinkedIn humble-brags, and the feeling that comes before the news
Five real LinkedIn announcements from the past two weeks all open with a feeling and leave the news behind, the same fortnight the feed started arguing about the format in public — plus a plain rewrite of the same post with the facts put back in.
Five announcements went up on LinkedIn between September 30 and October 8, 2026, inside the window this issue covers. One reported a promotion to professor at Johns Hopkins. One reported a seat on a conservation nonprofit's board. One reported a new job running an animal-welfare organization. One reported a promotion to principal at the firm where he has spent his career. One reported a first job out of school.
Between them the five posts collected 2,116 reactions and 264 comments.
All five open the same way: a feeling the writer claims, then the word "announce" or "share," then the news. Two of the five are small posts, at 97 and 79 reactions, kept here because they run the template more completely than the larger ones do.
Dates below come from the posts themselves. Engagement counts are snapshots taken on October 11, 2026, and have moved since.
The five specimens at a glance
| Posted | Author and public context | What was announced | Engagement | Opening words |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sept 30 | Benji Backer, who works in conservation and lists United by Nature as his current company 1 | A seat on the Children & Nature Network board of directors | 204 reactions, 19 comments | "I'm very proud & humbled to announce that…" |
| Oct 1 | Stephanie Hicks, professor in the Johns Hopkins Department of Biostatistics 2 | Her promotion to Professor | 1,521 reactions, 143 comments | "I'm excited to share that…" |
| Oct 5 | Bethany Auck, who sold her presentation-design studio SlideRabbit last summer 3 | Her appointment as Executive Director of PawsCo | 97 reactions, 29 comments | "I'm thrilled, honored, AND humbled to announce…" |
| Oct 6 | Sean Miller, in audit and advisory at CLA (CliftonLarsonAllen) since 2015 4 | His advancement to Principal at CLA on November 1 | 215 reactions, 51 comments | "I'm honored to announce that…" |
| Oct 8 | Jacob Mikolajczyk, starting his first job out of school 5 | An Assurance Associate role at PwC | 79 reactions, 22 comments | "I'm honored to announce that…" |
Specimen 1: the acceptance speech
Stephanie Hicks announced her promotion to Professor in twelve words and then stopped reporting. "I'm excited to share that I've been promoted to Professor at Johns Hopkins Dept. of Biostatistics!" she wrote on October 1 2.
What follows is an acceptance speech. Mentors are thanked for support "in ways I didn't realize I needed." Colleagues and collaborators are called the best people. Students and postdocs are told their success is part of Hicks's own. Family and friends get a line, and the post closes on "excited for what comes next" 2.
The tone is warm, and every sentence in it is true. A colleague still finishes the post holding the one fact they began with, the promotion, and no idea what changed in the job: which courses, which doctoral students, which grants.
It took 1,521 reactions and 143 comments, the largest audience of the five 2. A thank-you note for a promotion reaches further than the promotion does.
Specimen 2: the same post at two firms
Sean Miller's post of October 6 announces that on November 1 he becomes a Principal at CLA (CliftonLarsonAllen), the firm where he has worked in audit and advisory since he joined as a graduate in 2015 4. It runs four paragraphs: the announcement, a passage on the firm's virtues, a short career summary, and three mentors named at the end 4. Attached is a graphic the firm made for the occasion, a teal card with "I ADVANCED!" set in large type 4.
The day before, John T A Miller published his own promotion post, about becoming a Shareholder at Kimley-Horn, an engineering and design consultancy 67. Different firm, different sector, different city. Same three moves in the same order: open with "I'm honored to announce," spend a paragraph on the firm's culture and people, close by thanking colleagues, mentors and clients 7.
Swap the firm names and either post reads as the other one. Two strangers at two firms in the same week reached for the same opening clause and the same three moves. Miller's version drew 161 reactions and 23 comments 7.
One difference inside the sameness is worth copying: Sean Miller gives a start year and names three mentors for the guidance they gave him 4. Those two details are the only places where a colleague learns something they could act on — who to ask about that office, and how long the climb took. Everything else is the same sentences with different names in them.
Specimen 3: proud and humbled at once
Benji Backer's first sentence argues with itself. "I'm very proud & humbled to announce that I have joined the Children & Nature Network Board of Directors!" he wrote on September 30 1. Pride and humility arrive in the same clause, both asserted, neither demonstrated.
The post then spends its length on a belief rather than a job. A connection to nature equals a connection to life and family; his own came from falling in love with the outdoors as a child; passing it on matters more than anything 1. "Very, very excited to get to work!" ends it 1.
A board seat carries a calendar and a set of duties: committee work, fundraising, the programs a director is expected to defend. None of that is in the post, and the double "very" sits where the first commitment would go. The post drew 204 reactions and 19 comments 1.
Specimen 4: all the emotions, by name
Bethany Auck said the quiet part in her first line. "I'm thrilled, honored, AND humbled to announce that I've accepted the role of Executive Director at PawsCo," she wrote on October 5. "Whew. It's been a while since I've used all my LinkedIn emotions." 3
She had the template in her hands, named it, and ran it anyway. The caption has to be written, and the caption has a shape. Her own joke is the clearest evidence this fortnight that the shape arrives before the news does.
Her post is also the most informative of the five. She sold her previous company, took a year away from work, volunteered and fostered at PawsCo until the organization became the thing she wanted to do, and by the weekend of the gala it had raised more than $135,000 3. The template is the wrapper; there is something inside it. It took 97 reactions and 29 comments 3.
Specimen 5: the first one
Jacob Mikolajczyk wrote his whole post in thirty words. "I'm honored to announce that I've officially started my career as an Assurance Associate at PwC!" he wrote on October 8. "Thank you to everyone who has shaped my schooling, character, and career. I'm thrilled to see where this path takes me!" 5
Every part of the format is in place, in order, at the smallest possible size: the honored-to-announce opening, thanks to a group instead of a person, the forward-looking close. The classmates reading it would want the office, the start date, or one line about what an assurance associate does all day. The post offers the shape of the announcement and none of the announcement.
It drew 79 reactions and 22 comments, which is a lot for a first post 5, and this is where the habit gets installed — on the first milestone, before there is any career to summarize and while the congratulations are still generous.
The feed's counter-signal
The audience around these posts spent the same fortnight saying so out loud.
Richard van der Blom, who has 275,256 followers and writes about LinkedIn for a living, posted on October 5: "If I see one more 'I'm thrilled to announce' Celebration Post that has nothing to celebrate I swear…. I hit myself with a hammer on my little toe! Stop the madness. It's not the algorithm. It's us making our feed look stupid." 8 It took 273 reactions and 137 comments, and the top comment immediately rewrote the rant in the format it was mocking 8.
Tyler Nowlan, DBA, compressed the same complaint into nine words on October 3: "I'm humbled to announce... Just kidding. Nobody 'humbled' has ever announced anything." 9 That drew 183 reactions and 149 comments, more discussion than any of the five specimens collected 9.
The format is not only being mocked, it is being taught. Marina Panova, with 86,053 followers, published the mechanics on October 1: "The 'Thrilled to announce' format is bringing me 500 new followers and I get 50-70k impressions per post. Let me explain: Corporate LinkedIn expects a boring promotion or corporate announcement. They prepare themselves for corporate buzzwords and self-congratulations. So I flipped it with misdirection." Her "exact formula" is three lines long, and the post ends with one client spot still open for the final quarter of 2026 10. It took 285 reactions and 198 comments, the busiest thread of anything in this issue 10.
Marie Olivie put the same observation in plainer words on October 9, after asking people elsewhere why they dislike the platform: "We literally turned this app into a non-stop award ceremony! Everyone is 'humbled and honored' just for opening their laptop." 11 179 reactions and 101 comments 11.
Said Saddouk asked for a ceasefire on October 10: "We were all thrilled to announce that ... we changed a lightbulb. ... fed the cats. ... put out the trash. ... Now someone actually celebrating something on LinkedIn goes totally unnoticed. Because of all the noise." 12 It took 25 reactions and 7 comments, a small audience for a fair point 12.
Off-platform, r/LinkedInLunatics, with 1,091,481 members, worked the same seam. Its most-upvoted item on October 11 was a screenshot of a founder's post that opens "6 years ago I took a 100% pay cut" and closes "I'd been fired"; the subreddit item drew 13,264 upvotes and 71 comments 13. Another item that day collected a post about a stranger at a Tesco checkout who was £1.37 short, under the caption "Because we should all be silent philanthropists like Samantha…" 14
The sincere rewrite
Here is Mikolajczyk's news written the way you would tell a friend, with the brackets filled in by the person who has the facts.
I started at PwC this week as an Assurance Associate in the [city] office.What the job is, for anyone who asked: I'll be on audit engagements for [industry] clients, starting with the January busy season.Thank you to [name] and [name], who read three drafts of my applications and told me when the second one was worse than the first.I'll write again once I have been through a busy season.
The rewrite keeps the job, adds a sentence a classmate can picture, thanks two people for something specific, and ends on the news. It drops the word "honored," the thanks to everyone who shaped his character, and the promise that the path is thrilling.
Both versions of this exist in the same fortnight's feed. Lars Schmidt announced a move inside Anthropic in about 130 words: the new focus, why recruiting is changing, and the fact that his old job is now open, with a link for anyone who wants it 15. It took 594 reactions and 62 comments, and it reads like a colleague talking 15. Austin Newman's post marking a decade at SeisWare before becoming its General Manager is long and grateful in the usual way, and it contains one line no template can produce: he joined the geoscience support team in 2014, he writes, thinking a synthetic was the type of oil in his car 16.
For your next announcement:
- Put the news in the first sentence. Name the role, the organization, and the date it starts.
- Add one detail of the work. A team size, a system you will own, a problem you were hired to solve.
- Thank two or three people for something specific. A named person and their contribution beats a group.
- Let the official version stay official. When your employer publishes the ceremonial announcement and its graphic, repeating them adds nothing to your page.
- End on the news. A closing instruction to the reader turns your milestone into a favor you are asking of them.
References
- 1Benji Backer, board announcement\
linkedin.com
- 2Stephanie Hicks, promotion post\
linkedin.com
- 3Bethany Auck, appointment post\
linkedin.com
- 4Sean Miller, promotion post\
linkedin.com
- 5Jacob Mikolajczyk, first-job post\
linkedin.com
- 6Kimley-Horn, company site
kimley-horn.com
- 7John T A Miller, promotion post
linkedin.com
- 8
- 9Tyler Nowlan, parody post
linkedin.com
- 10Marina Panova, post about the announce format
linkedin.com
- 11
- 12Said Saddouk, post about fake celebration posts
linkedin.com
- 13
- 14
- 15Lars Schmidt, move announcement
linkedin.com
- 16Austin Newman, promotion post
linkedin.com
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