LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform, with over 800 million members worldwide. As a professional social media site, LinkedIn profiles are visible to others by default, allowing you to connect and network with other professionals in your industry. However, you may want to limit who can view your LinkedIn profile for privacy reasons. While you can’t completely prevent people from looking at your profile, there are steps you can take to limit visibility and control who can access your information.
Make Your Profile Private
The easiest way to limit visibility of your LinkedIn profile is to make it private. Just go to your profile settings and change your privacy settings to “Private mode”. This means your profile will not show up in LinkedIn search results and only your direct connections will be able to view your full profile. When your profile is private, your photo, connections, and activity will not be visible to anyone except your 1st-degree connections.
Things to note about a private profile:
- Your public profile visibility will be turned off completely.
- 2nd and 3rd-degree connections will no longer be able to view your full profile.
- You will stop showing up in “People Also Viewed” or “People You May Know” sections.
- You can be found in search only if someone enters your exact name, company, school, etc.
Making your profile private limits your exposure and prevents people from accessing your information and activity timeline without your approval. It’s a good option if you want your profile visible only to your direct professional network.
Customize Your Public Profile
If you don’t want to go completely private, another option is customizing what’s visible on your public profile. Go to your settings and adjust the following:
Profile photo
Make sure your profile photo is professional rather than personal. Or remove it altogether if you want to limit identification.
Background photo
Use a nonspecific background photo like an abstract pattern or landscape. Don’t use photos that reveal too much personal information.
Custom URL
Change your public profile URL if it contains identifying information like your name. Customize it to be anonymous.
Headlines
Keep your headline and tagline generic rather than detailed. For example, “Marketing Professional” instead of your exact job title and company.
Location
List only your country or general metropolitan area instead of your exact city.
Connections
Change your settings to hide the number of connections you have.
Activity
Disable your activity feed so endorsements, posts, and comments aren’t visible.
Customizing these profile elements allows you to share some information publicly but limit personal details. You can also toggle individual sections of your profile on and off for public visibility.
Review Your Profile As Others See It
Use LinkedIn’s “View As” feature to see what your public profile looks like to others. Look for any sensitive information that you may have overlooked and make edits to customize further. Remove or adjust anything too personal that you don’t want strangers viewing.
Limit Profile Visibility By Geography
You can specify the location of where your public profile will be visible to others on LinkedIn. Go to your settings and under Profile Visibility, select “Choose who can see your profile and activity.” Here you can enter a custom area to limit profile views to only people within that geographic radius. For example, you could limit it just to people within your city or country. This allows you to still keep a public profile but narrow it down from being globally visible.
Be Selective With Endorsements
Be cautious about adding skills to your profile or endorsing connections for skills. Endorsements from your connections are public and can expose more details about your work history and expertise. Consider turning off the ability for others to endorse you on your profile. You can also endorse connections back privately rather than publicly.
Ways to be selective with endorsements:
- Disable endorsements from others
- Endorse only few general skills
- Return endorsements privately instead of publicly
- Hide all endorsements from your profile
Decline Invites From Strangers
Be selective about accepting connection invites on LinkedIn. Decline requests from people you don’t know to avoid exposing your profile to strangers. You can also change your settings to automatically decline invites from members outside your network.
Remove Last Name
Using just your first name and last initial instead of full last name on your profile can limit identification. Go to your personal info settings and adjust your name visibility.
Use a Generic Title
Rather than your exact job title and company, use a more generic title like “Accountant” or “Nurse” or simply “Professional.” This reveals less specifics about your employment history.
Disable Profile Reading Notifications
Turn off notifications that show who has viewed your LinkedIn profile. Go to your preferences under Communications and disable profile viewing notifications. This stops you from seeing who has accessed your profile, and also stops others from knowing when you’ve looked at theirs.
Remove Last Name on Posts
When you publish posts and articles on LinkedIn, use just your first name and last initial. This provides some anonymity when actively engaging on the platform.
Use an Anonymous Profile Picture
Rather than your photo, use a generic avatar or icon image for your profile picture. This prevents people from clearly identifying you at a glance when viewing your profile.
Disable Search Engine Indexing
Opt out of having your public profile indexed by search engines like Google. Go to your profile settings and uncheck the box for “Allow search engines outside of LinkedIn to link to your profile.” This can prevent people from identifying you easily via broader web searches.
Remove Past Position Details
Limit past job titles, companies, and descriptions on your profile. Remove specifics and just use generic descriptions like “Sales Professional” instead of company names and exact roles. Keeping details vague makes it harder to pinpoint your employment history.
Use a Middle Initial Only
Display just your first name and middle initial on your profile rather than your full middle name. This is another simple way to limit some identifying details.
Conclusion
While you can’t completely block people from accessing your LinkedIn profile, there are several options to limit your exposure and prevent strangers from viewing your sensitive information. Making your profile private, customizing public visibility settings, being selective with connections, and using anonymous elements like generic titles and photos are just some of the ways to control how others see your profile. With the right settings and some minor adjustments, you can maintain an influential LinkedIn presence while still prioritizing your privacy.
