How to set your LinkedIn privacy settings and why you should

Maintain a strong LinkedIn
presence when you are employed.

Locating where and how to make LinkedIn privacy setting changes can be challenging. For example, the settings to make aspects of your profile public are so well hidden, I didn’t find them for years … and I teach LinkedIn classes!

To make your profile (or parts of your profile) more or less public, visit this article.



To make other important privacy setting changes (which can keep you from making career-damaging mistakes), log onto LinkedIn and then click the triangle next to your name in the far upper right corner. (Note: You will need to re-enter your password to access your Settings page.)

In the Privacy Controls section of your Setting page, you can elect to:

 

Turn on/off your activity broadcasts –

Place a check mark in the box to make your activities public. 

Turn this option on if you are comfortable with your network receiving LinkedIn Updates when you:

• Update your profile’s headline
• Add a new current job position
• Add a new current school
• Add a new link to a website
• Recommend someone
• Add a connection
• Follow a LinkedIn company page
• Follow news

Note: Joining a group, adding an application or updating your photo generates an update even if you turn off your activity broadcast notifications. To keep people from viewing updates about recent groups you’ve joined, manually remove the group update from your activity feed. You can do so by locating the update on your Activity Feed on your Edit Profile page (under the headline “YOUR NAME’s Activity” on the right navigation bar). Click the specific update until an “X” appears, then click the “X” to remove the update.

Make sure you are in Edit Profile mode
before trying to remove an update.

Turn your activity broadcasts off if there is a chance your current employer could see that you are making major profile updates or are following companies (since both efforts could infer you are job seeking). Switch your activity broadcasts on after making such modifications so that your network can see you are active on LinkedIn.

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Select the Everyone option to allow your network
to see your activity feed.

Select who can see your activity feed – This setting lets you determine who sees your activity broadcasts (mentioned above) and any information you include in your “Share Your Update” box on your home page. Your activity feed is displayed on the right navigation panel of your profile when visitors are logged onto LinkedIn. Your activity feed does not show on your public profile. 

To make your activity feed viewable to all visitors, select the “Everyone” option so even recruiters who are not in your network can view your activities. The other options allow only “Your Network” (1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd degree connections), “Your Connections” (1^st degree connections), or “Only You” to see your activity feed.

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If you elect one of the anonymous options, you will be
prevented from seeing who viewed your profile.

Select what others see when you've viewed their profile

Choose from these options:

- Your name and headline (Recommended)

- Anonymous profile characteristics such as your industry and title. (Not recommended*)

- Totally anonymous (Not recommended*)

* These last two options are not recommended because they prevent you from seeing who has visited your profile (such as recruiters and hiring managers). NOTE: Even if you elect to show your full name and headline, you won’t see the names of people who chose to visit your profile anonymously.

TIP: Want to stealthily check out an old flame’s profile without them knowing? Simply change your setting to be totally anonymous, visit his/her page and then change your settings back to your name and headline.

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Select who can see your connections – Be a pal and choose to let your connections view your connections list so that they can build their network and find friends that you have in common – that’s what social networking is all about.

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Change your profile photo and visibility – Make your profile photo available to “Everyone” so even people not in your network (such as recruiters and hiring managers) can see who you are. Also, (according to a LinkedIn study) by including your photo in your profile, you will be seven times more likely to get visits to your profile and six times more likely to be invited to connect.

What questions or comments do you have about changing your privacy settings? Share them here! Thanks, Kathy

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