LinkedIn Job Seeker Premium - worth the money?

January 21, 2013 10:42 AM

Has anyone used LinkedIn premium for finding jobs? Did it expose you to more recruiters/hiring managers? And most importantly, can people besides recruiters see that you are using it (like...current coworkers)?

I'll usually get contacted by a recruiter once every other month or so, sometimes with a formulaic message from some bunk text-crawl of my profile, but sometimes with legit opportunities from people who clearly read about my experience.

Does LinkedIn Premium attract more of the former or latter? Or does it attract anyone at all? Looking for people who have used it and what their experience is like. Other major concerns:

- Privacy regarding current coworkers being able to see whether I'm in the market or not.
- Whether using the service will actually *damage* my reputation to recruiters and employers ("Oh he's using premium, he must be having a rough time finding a job and therefore not actually marketable")

Looking for thoughts and experiences from people have used it, from your side and from the hiring/recruiting side. I have the 30 bucks to spare to try it for a month, easily, but is it being proactive or is it potentially harmful - or just a waste?

posted by windbox to work & money (7 answers total)

Answering privacy point only: Perhaps you have an option to hide this, but I have seen LinkedIn messages to the effect of "[Contact Name] has upgraded to Premium!" It's advertising for LinkedIn. So keep an eye out for that.
posted by girlhacker at 10:49 AM on January 21 [1 favorite]

Recruiters buy a very expensive and comprehensive tier of service and won't bias their efforts in favor of candidates who are, or are not, Premium members. Your being Premium or not doesn't affect what they can see about you -- but what does affect that is your privacy settings; you might consider moderating your privacy settings if you're not satisfied with quantity or quality of recruiter contacts.

However, Premium in general (not sure about "Job Seeker") can be useful for your outbound efforts. You can see far more details about your non-connections' career history, etc., and get more "InMails" with which to contact them if you don't have a better means of doing so. (Being introduced off-line by a mutual contact being far better than an in-mail, IMHO.)

If you're nervous about seeming desperate with a Premium status, you can actually suppress the Premium ("In") badge in your privacy settings. I don't think that really should be a concern: the vast majority of people who buy Premium do so because they are looking for talent and relationships to help with their current job, not to find another job. (I use my Premium tools for that nearly every day for the past half-dozen years, and don't think I've ever used them in support of a job search.)
posted by MattD at 11:03 AM on January 21

Does LinkedIn Premium attract more of the former or latter

All premium really buys you of value as a seeker is unmasking who is looking at your profile, which (depending on your career) you can convert into leads. This assumes you are high enough profile that you actually get a lot of profile hits.

Given your previous questions, Premium is almost certainly a waste of your money.
posted by rr at 12:00 PM on January 21

I wouldn't worry too much about your employer finding out you're using the service - employees are supposed to be looking for new opportunities. It actually works in your advantage, because if you provide a valuable service for your employer you have more to negotiate with if they know you have other options.

As for the LinkedIn premium products, the only people I know who use this are HR managers and recruiters who rely on LinkedIn as one place to do research. Some high-powered people like CEO's get the premium service because they are CEO's who like to get premium everything, no matter what its actual practical value (that's capitalism at work for you!)

If you're worried about missing opportunities from people who arrive at your LI page but cannot contact you, add your email address to your LinkedIn username (append your email address to your last name in the last name field).

The best (and cheapest) way to leverage LinkedIn for career opportunities is to participate in Group discussions.

Participating in group discussions is a great way to demonstrate your knowledge and ability (in a variety of different aspects) while developing relationships with other participants.

And, ultimately, it's relationships with a network of contacts that help us find meaningful career opportunities without having to rely on an HR manager or recruiter.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:23 PM on January 21

LinkedIn Premium might be useful, but Job Seeker Premium is probably actively harmful. It puts a big "I need a job" sign on your profile. Here's Forbes' take on it.

I've had plenty of interest from potential employers just by having a condensed version of my resume with plenty of tempting keywords in my LinkedIn profile. Save your money!
posted by monotreme at 3:11 PM on January 21 [1 favorite]

If you are actively applying for jobs it might be useful because Job Seeker Premium keeps your resume on top when the hiring manager checks respones. I just upgraded on Friday as I'm newly unemployed. Feel free to Memail me in a couple of weeks to ask if seems like it is worth the extra expense.
posted by COD at 3:57 PM on January 21

I'm paying for Jobseeker Premium and it's so-so in terms of benefit. I'm not using it to it's maximum benefit, but I have been contacted by a few recruiters.

First, you have the opportunity to hide the Jobseeker badge so that it doesn't show up on your profile. You also have the ability to limit what shows up in your status updates so it doesn't say "[x] has signed up for Premium!" I find the privacy settings on LinkedIn to be pretty good.

You also have access to InMail, which allows you to message people you wouldn't normally be able to contact. There are rules, though--if a certain number of your InMails are rejected or unopened, they'll restrict your InMail privileges. I'm not entirely sure on the details, but it's basically trying to prevent spam.

For any jobs you apply to through LinkedIn, I think your profile gets put on the top of the pile.

As for appearing desperate, I don't think one little symbol at the top of your profile will do that. I don't think there's anything wrong with making it clear that you're looking for a job. People need jobs. Being proactive in trying to find a job is not something to be ashamed of. If you're cold-contacting people like a drowning man flailing for a lifesaver, then you will appear desperate. But if your profile and messages make you seem like a competent professional who is letting people know he's available for hire, then I don't think it should be a concern.
posted by Colonel_Chappy at 9:30 AM on January 22