Edit Your Linkedin Profile Settings
But even if you are connected to your employer on LinkedIn, you can limit what she can see, which is especially useful if you have been updating your profile in order to explore job opportunities outside the company and you don’t want your employer to know about it. From your LinkedIn Settings menu, you can opt to turn off updates about your LinkedIn activity as well as notifications about what LinkedIn groups you join.
References
Can An Employer Make You Change Your Linkedin Profile
Can An Employer Make You Change Your Linkedin Profile. With linkedin, this includes having a living resume for. In todayâs world of social media, we know that employees live online.
However, if your employer suddenly and dramatically alters your job, itâs not the same thing. By porter wright on may 17, 2013. Over time, job roles can naturally change.
Enable The #opentowork Work Feature
The second way to let recruiters you are open to new opportunities and provide them with specific details regarding the types of opportunities you would consider is located right on your home page.
To enable it, simply click Add profile section and select Intro.
You’ll then see the edit job preferences options shown below.
When looking for potential candidates, recruiters typically filter by both location and job title.
To maximize your chances of appearing in their searches, be sure to fill this section out with as much detail as possible.
Most importantly, make sure to select under the choose who sees you’re open tab as shown below if you want to keep your search private.
Otherwise, all of your connections will be able to see that you are looking for a new role, and LinkedIn will automatically add a banner to your profile picture.
If you don’t make your #OpenToWork preferences visible to all LinkedIn members, LinkedIn will only share your information with relevant recruiters.
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How To Keep Your Linkedin Connections More Private
Who you are connected with can be valuable information. Beyond snoopy bosses, there are also snoopy recruiters, and maybe you dont want someone mining your network for potential hires without going through you first. If you want to keep your connections private for either reason, go to your LinkedIn account:
Maybe you dont want your current employer to know youve been polishing up your LinkedIn bio. If you want to keep your activity notifications more private from curious employers on LinkedIn:
Check Your Profile Picture

Take a look at the picture you’re using and decide if it reflects the professional you. If not, consider updating the image you’re using. Your picture is the first thing networking contacts and employers who are sourcing candidates are going to notice, so make sure it’s a good one.
Consider using the same professional image on all of your work-related social accounts. Being consistent across platforms is a way to boost your personal brand.
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Attention Silicon Valley: Trying To Keep Headhunters At Bay By Suppressing News Of A Takeover Is Likely To Backfire
Rumor has it that the demand for Silicon Valley engineers is so great that sometimes, when a company gets bought out, the new owners want to keep only the engineers–everybody else gets “laid off.” However, they also don’t want anyone to know they’ve bought the company, because they don’t want recruiters pouncing on their newly-acquired engineers. So the acquiring company prohibits its engineers from updating their LinkedIn profiles, and also tells the people who are being laid off that, if they want their severance, they can’t update their LinkedIn profiles either.
This is, assuredly, dumb on the part of the acquiring company. We know that engineers are in demand in the Valley. But if you have so little to offer your employees that you have to manipulate their LinkedIn profiles in order to keep them, it’s a sign that you are the problem. When you make a rule like this, it’s like announcing, “We know we stink! And we’re going to treat you worse than our competitors will treat you!” This will make your engineers more likely to look for a job than they would otherwise.
And headhunters? They are smart. Do you really think they won’t find out that Company A bought out company B, even without anybody changing their LinkedIn profile? Of course they will. You may be able to delay it for a few days, but word travels quickly.
Leaving Activity Broadcasts On
Activity broadcasts are exactly that: broadcasts of your activity. Every time you do something on LinkedIn, it tells your entire network what you did. While there are some advantages to this , in general, you should turn your activity broadcasts off.
When you update your LinkedIn profile, your entire network is notified. And after a while, that gets annoying. And annoying people may find they have a hard time maintaining their network. If nothing else, updating your LinkedIn profile could signal to your employer youre looking for a job even when youre not.
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A Few Quick Tips On Keeping Your Network Informedwhen The Time Is Right
LinkedIn is one of the best resources for job seekers as well as those working to build their careers. But, since almost every update you make is shared with your network, its important to think about the best times to make changes to your profile. Here are a few tips on when to update your LinkedIn profile during the job search, and after you land that new job.
How To Improve Your Linkedin Profile
You might be applying for jobs with your resume on BCJobs, but your potential employer would still be checking your LinkedIn profile. The interviewer gets more detailed information about you and can check if your profile matches the job description. Therefore, improving your LinkedIn profile significantly raises your chances of getting that interview call.
You can also make your LinkedIn profile stand out with a couple of small tricks.
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Don’t Bother To Hide It Say You Wanted Access To Linkedin Learning If Asked
LinkedIn isn’t just a way for professionals to find employment. It also offers other services, such as LinkedIn Learning, which allows you to enroll in educational courses on things such as specific technologies and frameworks. Naturally, accessing such courses requires you to have a LinkedIn account.
So, if you don’t already have a LinkedIn account for whatever reason, you can simply create one, and if anyone at your organization asks you about it, you can just say that you heard about LinkedIn Learning and you wanted to take a look at the courses they had available and whether or not they had anything relevant to you.
You wouldn’t even be lying! It’s entirely possible that if you take a look at it, you might well find out that they do have courses that are relevant enough to you for you to pay the fee to actually access the course material – or, at least, to ask your employer about paying the fee for you, for work-related training.
Linkedin Account Ownership Faqs
How do I change the owner of my LinkedIn page?
Changing the owner of a LinkedIn Page can be done on LinkedIn Page super admin. Simply go through your Super admin view, and choose the Admin tools dropdown located at the top of the page, and hit Manage admins. You will then see the Page Admins or Page media admins tab, choose Add admin button and on the Search for a member box field, type the name of the new admin you want to add along with his/her admin role.
Can your employer control your LinkedIn?
Somehow, your employer can control your LinkedIn once you tag the company as your employer. Not necessarily to the point that they can access and make changes on your LinkedIn, but whatever you say, post, or do that is relevant to your company can be curated by them. For example, if you post something regarding work ethic or workaround inside the company, they can legally ask you to take them down.
How do I find out who owns a LinkedIn page?
To find out who owns a LinkedIn page, simply go to the company page and scroll down to the bottom part and click the Want to help manage this page link located on the right-hand side. Then choose See admins and it will give you the list of the current admins of your LinkedIn company page. You can only make changes to the administration list like add or remove an admin if you have administration rights.
How do I make my LinkedIn account completely private?How do I take ownership of my LinkedIn Company Page?
Neal Schaffer
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Using An Incognito Browser May Not Help You Stay Private
If you are job hunting on work equipment, incognito web browsers can help you keep your search under wraps. You dont want your browser history to reveal your LinkedIn searches, after all. On an incognito web browser, you can run LinkedIn searches of people you want to work for without using your LinkedIn account.
Nick Guillory
But here is an important caveat. Although going incognito prevents your web browser from saving your search history, the websites you visit are still collecting your activity like normal. If you dont want people to know you viewed them, you must be logged out of your LinkedIn account, even in an incognito browser. Trust me: I tried snooping on two of my colleagues accounts in a private browser window and both of them saw that I had viewed their profiles because I was still logged in on LinkedIn.Now lets take the scenario in which youre opening a private tab on your mobile phone browser to search for a persons LinkedIn page. If you have the LinkedIn app installed on your phone, you will get a prompt that asks, Open in LinkedIn? Maybe you are too quick to click affirmatively, like I was, and suddenly you are on the LinkedIn app with whatever default settings you have. For me, the default setting is public, so my work to stay incognito was all for naught.
TFW u search someone’s LinkedIn in incognito mode, tap on link, and it opens the LinkedIn appNow they know #networking
Jared Erondu
Linkedin Is Not A Traditional Social Network

While its true that LinkedIn is a form of social media, LinkedIn is a professional networking tool. That means that everything you do on LinkedIn is friendly, cordial, and professional.
So, as much as you might want to share that Mondays. Am I right? meme or a picture of your toes at the beach, dont. Save the sandy vacation pics for Facebook and Instagram, and keep LinkedIn strictly for professional, work-related content.
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Should You Update Your Linkedin Profileor Not
A simple option is to put an end date on your last position and not add a new one. That way, your profile is technically correct, and you’re not highlighting your unemployed status.
You could also consider updating your status field in your profile, so your network knows that you’re looking for a job.
You could post a status update with, “Currently looking for a finance position. Do you know anyone who’s hiring?” or “I am interested in freelance opportunities. Let me know if someone in your network needs help writing or editing.” It’s a quick and easy way to let folks you’re connected with know that you could use their help.
Another option is to update your current position to make it clear you’re hunting. For instance, you could change it to “Open to opportunities.”
On the flip side, you may not want to advertise the fact that you’re unemployed. Instead, you can present yourself as a professional without mentioning the fact that you’re out of work. There are options you can use that will show you’re job searching, without stating publicly why you’re seeking employment.
Tips To Protect And Maintain Your Personal Linkedin Account:
1. Never give your password out
2. Register multiple email addresses on your account, this may include your work email address. However, if you are let go lets say without notice and have a work email address on your account, you can continue to login to your LinkedIn account.
3. If you are self employed it is always a good idea to have two different email addresses on your account, you never know when you may have an issue with one of them.
What happens if you created an account on LinkedIn for you place of work like millions of individuals do and then change companies that you work for? These and many more valid questions come up around LinkedIn account ownership.
LinkedIn is a great way to build business acumen, trust, and to stay in touch with valued, trusted colleagues for potential business relationships. You dont want to lose touch with business connection who have worked successfully for you or with you in the past. One great way to use LinkedIn is to read and reply to questions in the Answers part of LinkedIn. As an employee you can valuable research for your place of work or business. Responding can increase your business profile in the LinkedIn community.
HR manuals and employment contracts may also be changed to included specific provisions that negate ownership questions. ~ lawyer.com
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How Long Should I Wait Before Adding My New Job To My Linkedin Profile
Shutterstock
Dear Liz,
I started a new job a week ago Monday. I’m excited but cautious. Over the last five years I’ve had three jobs. One of them was great but the job disappeared after twenty months. The other two jobs were wretched.
I’ve been consulting off and on during this time period, too. I don’t want to drastically change my LinkedIn profile and alarm my consulting clients. I intend to keep consulting alongside my new job, and my manager is fine with it.
I’m in no rush to update my LinkedIn profile to show my new job, but my co-worker “Gail” has asked me about it twice.
Watch on Forbes:
Gail is not my manager. I don’t know why she cares about my LinkedIn profile. On my first day at work Gail said “How exciting — you get to update your LinkedIn profile to show that you work here!” and I just smiled.
Then she said it again a few days later: “You should update your LinkedIn profile!” and I didn’t react at all. How long should I wait before adding this job to my profile? I don’t want to let all my contacts know that I’m working here if for some reason it doesn’t work out. Everything seems fine so far but I am gun shy.
Thanks Liz!
Dear Dori,
You are wise to be cautious. The first thing I recommend is that you go to your LinkedIn settings page and turn off the outgoing notifications that would otherwise go out to your first-degree connections when you update your profile.
All the best to you in your new job,
Adjust Your Privacy Settings
You can let recruiters know you are open to new opportunities by adjusting your privacy settings.
To do so, click on Me next to your photo in the top ribbon and select Settings & Privacy, as shown below.
On the privacy tab, select job seeking preferences.
Toggle the button under let recruiters know you’re open to opportunities to yes, and you’re all set!
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Create And Share Content
Most LinkedIn content is business and industry-focused. So, share or even create industry-relevant content that your network will value. It doesnt have to be long-form. It can be simple things that your networks or groups might be interested in. Or you can create and share content about you or your company, as long as it helps others in a meaningful way.
For example, instead of talking about how you just landed a new client, talk about the struggles and challenges you faced while selling to this client. Explain how you overcame their objections, what you learned from the experience, and how others can learn from your mistakes.
Court Rules Employer Cannot Force A Former Employee To Update Linkedin Profile
In todays world of social media, we know that employees live online. With LinkedIn, this includes having a living resume for anyone with a LinkedIn account to see. The up-to-date part, or rather how up-to-date someones LinkedIn profile is, has become somewhat of a concern. The recent case of Jefferson Audio Video Sys. Inc. v. Light demonstrates how the updating of a LinkedIn profile can become a concern for employers, particularly as it pertains to an employers former employees.
Here is the situation: An employee leaves a company for whatever reason yet fails to update his or her LinkedIn profile. To anyone who views the individuals profile or searches the companys name, the individual appears to be a current employee.
In Jefferson, the employer Jefferson Audio Video Systems, Inc. sued former employee Gunnar Light in part because he said some pretty awful things about the company to a customer while employed and, in part, because he would not update his LinkedIn profile. So, how did that turn out for the employer? Not so well.
Jefferson sued Light alleging numerous state law claims including: defamation, tortious interference, breach of fiduciary duty, trade, disparagement, fraudulent misrepresentation, and breach of contract. Light moved to throw out Jeffersons lawsuit, and the court did.
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