LinkedIn is a professional networking platform with over 500 million users. It’s known as the “Facebook of work” and is a place to include relevant professional information, such as a resume, work experience, skills, and education.
However, constantly updating your profile while job hunting can be uncomfortable as it sends notifications to all your connections every time you make a change. Here’s how to keep your LinkedIn updates without notifying your contacts.
Update LinkedIn without Notifying
You can easily hide the changes you make to your profile. This is especially useful when starting to apply for a new job or simply not wanting to spam your connections with random updates. To hide profile activity on LinkedIn without notifying, follow these steps:
- Open LinkedIn and sign in if necessary.
- Click on your profile in the top right corner and select Settings and Privacy.
- Now, in the left-hand menu, click on Visibility.
- Next, select Visibility of your LinkedIn activity.
- Navigate to the section Share profile updates with your network.
- Click on the toggle to select No.
Disabling these activity updates only includes some of the possible activities. Fortunately, there’s another way to disable activity:
- Start updating a section, like your work history, education, or similar.
- Before clicking Save, turn off the Notify network toggle. If you want to keep your activities private, this toggle ensures success.
The Importance of Keeping Your Profile Updated
As more companies join LinkedIn, it’s important to keep your current jobs, skills, and certifications updated on the site. Even if you love your job, keeping your profile updated means you can get new positions or promotions within your company.
Updating your LinkedIn profile is straightforward and doesn’t take much time:
- Open LinkedIn in your web browser – You can do it using the mobile app, follow the same instructions.
- Tap your profile in the top right corner and select View profile.
- Tap the pencil icons to update your information for each section.
- Tap Add section if you want to add something new.
- Tap Save when you’re done editing that section.
Keeping your LinkedIn profile, resume, and cover letter updated will save you a lot of stress and prevent you from forgetting your achievements in case you start job hunting again.
Excessively Notifying Your Contacts
Many LinkedIn users aren’t aware that most of the significant changes to their profile are broadcasted to all their connections.
At best, this is annoying: if you’re in the middle of a significant LinkedIn overhaul, but editing piece by piece, your contacts will receive notifications continuously. While visibility is generally good for networking, there can be too much of a good thing.
Nobody wants to read the seventeen successive one-word changes you’ve made to your work history or watch you audition various profile pictures unsuccessfully.
In the worst-case scenario, this could be problematic. Suppose you’re unsatisfied with your current position and want to discreetly approach some recruiters or contacts to see your options. The first thing you should do is make sure your LinkedIn profile is updated and in top shape for your job search.
In particular, you’ll want to update your work history. If you’re connected on LinkedIn with your boss and all your coworkers, they’ll receive notifications of these updates. The moment they see you tinkering with your work history, their immediate assumption will be that you’re planning a move. Even if you’re just updating your information to be current, it’s best to keep these changes discreet and not disturb your contacts.
Which Notifications Are Sent
Your connections will receive notifications for almost anything you change on your profile, including changes to your job title, education, and profile picture. However, your contacts will also get notifications if you follow a company on LinkedIn or make recommendations. Fortunately, all this sharing can be turned on and off with a simple change in settings.
It’s essential to note that the following instructions won’t prevent your connections from seeing your endorsements or your connections with other people. If you want to keep these things private, you’ll have to do it separately.
Strategic Notifications
But, what if you really don’t mind broadcasting that you’re looking for a new job? As mentioned before, some notifications are perfectly fine, but the continuous pinging of updates is what quickly becomes tiresome.
One way to let people know you’re on the hunt for an ideal job is to turn off notifications until you’ve finished updating your profile 99% and are ready to start job hunting.
Then, turn the profile updates back on. Make one or two final significant changes that notify your contacts not only that you’ve changed your LinkedIn profile but indeed let them know you’re job hunting.
This way, your contacts and potential employers will visit not an “under construction” profile, but a new, polished profile that will likely help you land a new job.
LinkedIn’s Popularity
Creating a LinkedIn profile is a fantastic way to keep up with former and current coworkers, key contacts in your sector, archive and showcase your skill set, join industry interest groups to stay on top of trends, and find both freelance and permanent employment. It’s the number one professional networking tool on the Internet, and almost everyone actively working in any field keeps their LinkedIn profile updated.
In fact, a 2014 Jobvite survey reported that 94% of surveyed recruiters on social media used LinkedIn to vet potential candidates. This number grows each year.
2023 showed that LinkedIn is increasingly popular for recruiters, as the site reached over 20 million online job postings.
There are plenty of settings you can manage on LinkedIn; you’ll want to take a few minutes to explore the menu and familiarize yourself with it. But for now, you can at least minimize the number of notifications you send with every profile change you make.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens if I left my job and don’t want anyone to know where I work now?
Fortunately, LinkedIn acts like most other social networking sites when it comes to blocking someone.
- Simply visit that person’s profile and click on Block or Report. Once done, this person won’t be able to view any of your information.
Where can I view the most updated information on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn has a constantly changing interface. If you have issues with the new version, visit the same privacy settings mentioned above. LinkedIn will regularly update this information and offer you tutorials to change the settings on the site.
What happens if I don’t want my account to be public?
If you’re job hunting, it’s best to leave your account public and limit what you add to your profile. However, LinkedIn’s privacy settings go deeper, meaning you can configure your account for more privacy while still promoting yourself to recruiters.
How can I get more followers on LinkedIn?
Keeping your education and the companies you’ve worked for up-to-date is a good start because you’ll appear in others’ suggested contacts. Also, posting, following hashtags, and commenting (ensure your comments are helpful) is another way to gain critical contacts.
How can I update my LinkedIn profile without sending notifications to my contacts?
To update your LinkedIn profile without notifying your contacts, follow these steps:
- Sign in to LinkedIn and click on your profile in the top right corner.
- Select “Settings and Privacy”.
- Click on “Visibility” in the left-hand menu.
- Select “Visibility of your LinkedIn activity”.
- Navigate to the “Share profile
