You may have times when you want to limit your visibility on LinkedIn for personal or professional reasons. LinkedIn gives you several options to control how visible your profile and activity are to others on the platform. In this article, we’ll explore the different ways you can hide or limit your presence on LinkedIn if needed.
Why Would You Want to Be Hidden on LinkedIn?
There are a few common reasons people want to limit their visibility on LinkedIn:
- Job searching – If you’re actively looking for a new job, you may not want your current employer or connections to know. Keeping your profile private allows you to network and apply to jobs confidentially.
- Avoiding unwanted contact – By hiding your profile and activity, you can avoid being contacted by certain people like recruiters or sales professionals.
- Limiting distractions – Keeping your profile hidden can help reduce notifications and unnecessary social engagement when you need to focus.
- Personal privacy – Some people simply prefer to keep their professional life more private and share minimal details publicly.
The key is balancing your need for privacy with LinkedIn’s benefits for networking and career advancement. You don’t necessarily need to be completely hidden, but can use LinkedIn’s settings selectively.
Can You Completely Hide Your LinkedIn Profile?
Unlike some other social networks, LinkedIn does not allow you to fully hide your profile from everyone. Even with the strictest privacy settings, your basic profile information like your name, headline, current position, and profile photo will still be visible to all LinkedIn members.
However, there are ways to limit what each level of connection sees of your full profile and activity on LinkedIn:
Public Profile View
Everyone on LinkedIn, whether they’re connected to you or not, can see your public profile by default. This includes information like:
- Name
- Headline
- Photo
- Current position and company
- Location
- Industry
- Public URLs you’ve added
To change what people see when viewing your public profile:
- Go to your profile settings
- Under “Profile visibility”, choose what sections are visible to “Public”
- You can select only basic information, or customize visibility by section
1st Degree Connections
Your 1st degree connections on LinkedIn can see a lot more of your profile and activity by default. Settings to limit visibility to your 1st degree connections include:
- “Your dashboard & activity” under profile visibility
- Limiting viewing of your connections
- Showing “Network updates” only to connections
You have granular control here to show as much or as little as you like to your direct connections.
2nd & 3rd Degree Connections
For people you’re connected to through 2nd and 3rd degree connections, you can limit visibility in the same way as the public profile view. They will only see the basic profile sections that you set to public visibility.
Key Settings to Limit Your Visibility
Here are some key profile and account settings to limit your LinkedIn visibility:
Setting | What it controls |
---|---|
Profile photo visibility | Who can see your profile photo and other media |
Search engine visibility | Whether your public profile appears in search engines |
Your dashboard & activity | What connections see of your homepage activity |
Member viewing options | If connections can see your list of connections |
Visibility of network updates | Who sees when you like/comment on content |
You can access these visibility settings from the accounts & settings menu on LinkedIn.
Limiting Visibility of LinkedIn Activity
In addition to profile visibility, you can also control how much of your activity on LinkedIn is shown to your connections or publicly:
- Sharing Updates – You can select who sees the updates you post from the dropdown menu before sharing.
- Liking & Commenting – Control whether this activity appears on your profile under “network updates”.
- Groups – Choose whether to show your group memberships publicly on your profile.
- Articles & Posts – When publishing long-form posts, you can limit visibility to connections only.
The more aspects of your profile and activity you limit, the more hidden your presence on LinkedIn becomes. Find the right balance for your specific needs.
Limiting Ad Targeting
LinkedIn uses profile data to target relevant ads to members. You can limit the data used for ad targeting under account & privacy settings:
- Demographics like age, gender and location
- Interests like hobbies and pages you follow
- Inferred professional attributes like seniority level and job function
Restricting this ad targeting limits the visibility of your profile details to marketers and advertisers on LinkedIn.
Using Anonymous Mode
LinkedIn recently introduced a new “Anonymous Mode” viewing option. This allows you to browse profiles and content on LinkedIn without others being notified:
- Your name and profile photo will not show up to others
- Other members will not receive notifications when you view their profiles
- Recent searches and activity are private
Anonymous mode essentially makes your browsing on LinkedIn invisible to others. It’s useful if you want to maintain a low profile but still need to access LinkedIn’s content.
Should You Completely Hide Your Profile?
While it’s not possible to completely hide on LinkedIn, limiting visibility can damage your networking potential and access to opportunities. Here are a few pros and cons to weigh when considering increased privacy:
Pros
- Avoid unwanted attention or contact
- Present selective information to different audiences
- Reduce social media distraction and notifications
- Maintain privacy and confidentiality
Cons
- Harder for recruiters and hiring managers to find you
- Limits ability to connect on exciting new job opportunities
- Reduces personal branding and professional visibility
- Misses out on LinkedIn content and news tailored to you
Evaluate your specific needs and priorities to decide if limiting your LinkedIn presence provides more benefits than drawbacks. You can always adjust your settings later on.
Other Tips for Managing LinkedIn Visibility
In addition to your account settings, there are some other things you can do to manage your professional presence:
- Clean up your connections – Prune connections to only people you want seeing your full profile.
- Use private mode browsing – Prevents your profile views from showing up to others.
- Remove last name – Display just a first name or initials only for more anonymity.
- Limit sharing of updates – Be selective about what professional details you broadcast publicly.
Like any social media platform, visibility on LinkedIn exists along a spectrum. Find the right balance for your career needs and personal preferences.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are answers to some common questions about controlling your visibility on LinkedIn:
Can I make my LinkedIn completely invisible?
No, LinkedIn requires members to have a public profile visible to all users. But you can limit the information displayed and hide most activity.
What happens if I restrict my public profile visibility?
People who aren’t connections will only see your name, headline, photo and current position – no other information.
Is there a way to hide my LinkedIn profile photo?
Yes, you can configure your profile photo visibility under account settings. The default is visible to everyone.
Can I browse LinkedIn anonymously without others tracking my profile views?
Yes, LinkedIn’s new anonymous mode stops your profile views from showing up to others. It essentially hides your browsing.
If I limit ad tracking, will I still see ads on LinkedIn?
Yes, you will still see LinkedIn ads. But they may be less tailored to your professional interests and activity.
Conclusion
While you can’t completely hide your presence, LinkedIn provides powerful options to limit your visibility and activity trail. Take advantage of privacy settings, anonymous browsing, and profile customization to show only what you want to who you want. Approach LinkedIn visibility with your career goals and personal needs in mind to dictate the right balance of open professional networking vs. private profile management.