LinkedIn is a professional social networking platform used by over 750 million members worldwide to connect with other professionals, discover job opportunities, stay updated on industry news, and more. When you connect with someone on LinkedIn, you gain access to their profile information, can message them directly, and your connection displays in both your “Connections” list. This raises an important question – can you see who someone has recently connected with on LinkedIn? The short answer is yes, to an extent, but with some limitations.
Viewing 2nd Connections
One way to see some of the new connections a LinkedIn member has made is by looking at their 2nd degree connections under the “Connections” section of their profile. 2nd degree connections are people who are connected to your 1st degree connections. So if you are connected with Jane Doe, any connections made by Jane will show up under your 2nd degree connections after about 24-48 hours. This allows you to see some of the people Jane has recently connected with on LinkedIn, even if you are not directly connected to them yourself. However, this only displays a portion of someone’s new connections, not all of them.
Seeing New 1st Connections
The best way to see all of the new 1st degree connections someone has made on LinkedIn is to visit their profile daily or frequently. LinkedIn does not have a feature that publicly shows all new 1st degree connections in real time, but you can identify new connections through observation. By regularly checking someone’s profile, you can compare their current connections list against what it was previously. Any new additions are people that individual has just connected with. Doing this requires manually monitoring profiles of interest, so it takes some effort.
Why You Can’t See All New Connections
You may be wondering why LinkedIn does not allow you to easily see all newly added connections on someone’s profile. There are a few reasons for this:
- Privacy – LinkedIn prioritizes user privacy and control over how much of their information is visible. Allowing anyone to see everyone you’ve recently connected with would reveal more than some users are comfortable sharing.
- Prevent misuse – Public new connections could enable activities like targeted spam to those connections, solicitation, etc. Keeping it private reduces misuse potential.
- Encourage real relationships – LinkedIn wants connections to represent substantive professional relationships between members, not a meaningless tally or follower count.
- Data load – Displaying live connection updates to millions of users would require significant data processing, which could impact site performance.
So in summary, while you have some limited visibility into new connections, LinkedIn’s design intentionally makes it difficult to track all of them in real-time.
What You Can See of New Connections
While you can’t easily see the full list of someone’s new 1st degree connections, here is what information you are able to see:
- New 2nd degree connections displaying on their profile within a day or two, assuming you are already connected to the person.
- Without a direct connection, you can still identify new 1st degree connections by regularly manually checking their connections list for changes.
- When viewing someone’s profile, their connections are ordered with newest additions first. So you may be able to identify some of the most recent connections, especially if you check frequently.
- When you receive a notification that a connection has a work anniversary or job update, generally that means they have just updated their profile with a new position. This could indicate they have made new connections due to changing jobs.
Although limited, these signals can help you spot some new connections being made by a LinkedIn member over time through observation.
Connection Privacy Settings
One other factor that can limit your ability to see someone’s 2nd degree connections is their privacy setting. Under Account > Settings & Privacy, LinkedIn members can adjust their connections visibility:
- Your connections only – You can only see a 2nd degree connection if you share another 1st degree connection.
- Connections of your connections – Default setting. Allows 2nd degree connections if you share any connection.
- Everyone – All 2nd degree connections are visible regardless of shared connections.
If someone has their setting on “Your connections only”, you would need to be connected through the same person to see their other connections. This adds another layer restricting visibility of new connections.
Ethical Considerations
While you may have genuine professional reasons for wanting to know who someone has recently connected with on LinkedIn, it is wise to reflect carefully on your motivations before actively monitoring profiles:
- Avoid stalking or harassment – Never use connection data to stalk, harass, or make someone uncomfortable.
- Respect privacy expectations – Recognize that users intend connections to be public but not expecting them to be monitored.
- Build legitimate relationships – Focus on establishing direct, value-adding connections rather than indirect monitoring.
- Consider consent – If possible, be transparent about your interest and get the user’s consent first before viewing connections.
With the right motivations and approach, checking connections on LinkedIn can be done respectfully and professionally.
Conclusion
In summary, while LinkedIn does not provide a feature to publicly display all new 1st degree connections in real time, you have some limited visibility into new connections through 2nd degree connections and regular profile observation. However, user privacy settings, design considerations, and good ethics should be kept in mind when viewing connection data. Building substantive professional relationships directly, rather than relying on superficial monitoring, is the ideal approach for using LinkedIn.
