Incognito Mode: Let LinkedIn Recruiters Know You’re Looking 

LinkedIn just announced a new feature called Open Candidates, helping active job seekers go incognito.  This feature lets LinkedIn recruiters know that you’re looking, without your boss finding out.  In the past, we told clients not to publicize they’re looking for a new position unless they’ve conversation with their leader first.  There are a lot of reasons why you might not want your employer to know you’re looking for a job. You might be worried they’ll treat you differently once they know you are looking or believe it would affect your work assignments.

Now, it might not be perfect yet, but it’s a start.  LinkedIn says they’ll do their best not to let recruiters who work at your company know that you’re looking.  There might be a few situations you’re current employer could find out you’re looking.  If your business recruiters haven’t updated their current employer in their profile, or if your company goes by multiple names, they still might be able to see you.  They assign companies ID’s, and if your company’s ID matches the recruiters, you’re not visible to them. If your business uses agency recruiters to fill positions, there might be a chance the agency recruiter comes across your profile.

How to Update your Settings for LinkedIn Recruiters

If you’re ready to open the floodgates of InMails from recruiters, here’s how you can get started.  First, make sure your profile is up to date and recruiter ready.  If you’re set on your employer not finding out that you’re looking, turn off your update notifications in your profile.   This way your connections don’t see your profile changes in their LinkedIn newsfeed.

Once your profile is ready to go, it’s pretty easy to turn on this new feature. From your LinkedIn home page, click on Jobs.  Here you can search for jobs, explore suggested jobs and update preferences.  The Open Candidates feature is located under the preferences menu. LinkedIn has set your preference to off as a standard, so you’ll need to turn the feature on.  From there, you can narrow down your choices.  Decide the types of jobs, start availability and set an introduction to recruiters. Then you choose your interests, including industries, experience level, company size, and locations.  Hopefully, providing this information will help you get in front of the right people.  Recruiters will be able to see the date you flagged yourself, your interests and the types of jobs you like.

I want to hear your thoughts on this new tool; do you think that it’s going to be helpful in your job search?  If you’re not planning on using it, tell me why.  If you found this article helpful, please share it! Sound Interview Professionals is on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and I’d love to connect with you.