Over time, many LinkedIn users end up with connections that are no longer relevant or that they rarely interact with. Having too many connections on LinkedIn that you don’t actually know or engage with regularly can make your profile seem disingenuous. Additionally, LinkedIn limits the number of connections you can have, so cleaning up old connections periodically frees up room to connect with new professional contacts.
Cleaning up your LinkedIn connections can take some time and effort if done manually one-by-one. Fortunately, there are some techniques to streamline the process and bulk remove connections you no longer want. Here are some recommendations for cleaning up your LinkedIn connections efficiently.
Why You Should Periodically Prune Your LinkedIn Connections
Here are some key reasons to do an occasional sweep of your LinkedIn connections:
– Maintain authenticity – Keeping connections with people you don’t actually know well or interact with can make your profile seem inflated. Pruning back to active connections maintains the authenticity and credibility of your network.
– Open up capacity – LinkedIn limits the number of connections members can have, typically capped based on your account level. Removing inactive connections frees up room to connect with new, relevant contacts.
– Reduce noise – With fewer connections you don’t interact with, your feed becomes less cluttered with updates from distant connections. This helps signal-to-noise ratio.
– Focus your brand – Curating your connections to align with your professional brand helps reinforce what you want to be known for. Removing outdated connections keeps your profile focused.
– Avoid awkwardness – Deleting connections you no longer work or interact with can prevent uncomfortable social situations if you see them again after a long absence.
How to Identify LinkedIn Connections to Remove
To effectively clean up your LinkedIn network, you first need to identify which connections should get removed. Here are some ways to decide which connections to cull:
– Look for contacts you haven’t interacted with for years – If there’s been no engagement for several years, the connection is likely no longer active or relevant.
– Review connections from past companies – Former colleagues from past jobs who you are unlikely to work with again are often safe to remove.
– Consider contacts you wouldn’t recognize – If you wouldn’t recognize the person if you bumped into them, the connection isn’t providing value.
– Weed out contacts outside your industry – Connections from personal life or past industries won’t help much professionally.
– Remove redundant contacts – For example, don’t need connections to whole departments or teams if you only work with a few key people.
– Identify contacts with inactive accounts – Profiles that haven’t been updated in years can likely be dropped.
– Delete contacts with minimal profile info – Sparse profiles without photo, position details, etc make the connection less useful.
You can also filter your LinkedIn connections using search operators and keywords to identify subsets of your network to evaluate for removal. For example, search for connections from a past employer, school, or location.
Best Practices for Pruning Your LinkedIn Connections
When cleaning up your LinkedIn connections, follow these best practices:
– Do it regularly – Set reminders to prune your network every quarter or twice a year. Making it a recurring habit prevents your profile from becoming bloated again.
– Be ruthless – Don’t hesitate to remove connections that provide little or no value. You can always reconnect later if needed.
– Check for mutual connections – Review connections’ profiles before deleting them to avoid unintentionally offending shared contacts.
– Do it gradually – Deleting hundreds of connections abruptly could alarm remaining contacts. Spread out your pruning over time.
– Personalize parting messages – Send a quick personalized note when removing connections to maintain goodwill.
– Keep Excel tracking list – Track the connections you remove in a spreadsheet so you can recall why you deleted them later if needed.
– Turn off notifications – Toggle your settings to avoid bombarding your network with removal notifications.
– Don’t rely solely on filters – Filtering alone often won’t surface all irrelevant connections. Manually review as well.
– Focus on quality over quantity – Nurture your strongest connections rather than chasing maximum connection volume.
By regularly cleaning house and removing outdated or low-value LinkedIn connections, you can maintain a tight-knit professional network that aligns with your current career focus and goals.
How to Bulk Remove Connections on LinkedIn
Manually deleting connections one-by-one on LinkedIn can take hours if you have hundreds of contacts to remove. Fortunately, there are some techniques to remove multiple LinkedIn connections in bulk:
– Use LinkedIn’s bulk removal tool – Go to Contacts > Manage Contacts > More Actions > Remove Connections and check boxes to select multiple connections to remove at once.
– Install a LinkedIn connection cleaner browser extension – Extensions like Klenty or Connections Cleaner for LinkedIn let you mass select connections from your profile to remove.
– Use advanced search to filter connections, then remove – Filter your connections using keywords or company names, select all results, then remove.
– Export connection list to Excel, delete rows, re-import – You can export your connections, delete batches of rows, then re-import the pruned list.
– Use a third-party app like Connection Optimizer – This paid app lets you analyze connections metrics and prune large batches with a few clicks.
– Hire a virtual assistant for bulk removal – A VA can take care of mass connection removal grunt work at an hourly rate.
When using bulk removal methods, delete connections in batches of around 100 at a time to avoid LinkedIn algorithm penalties that could temporarily limit your ability to send invitations.
Maintaining Quality Connections After Pruning
Once you’ve completed a major cleanup of your LinkedIn network, it’s important to be more selective and proactive about new connection requests to prevent your profile from becoming cluttered again. Here are some tips:
– Adjust your acceptance criteria – Only accept invites from contacts you’ve worked with directly or who come from strong referrals.
– Limit random invites – Politely decline generic invites from recruiters or contacts with unrelated backgrounds.
– Proactively connect with key contacts – Seek out and connect with professionals aligned with your goals versus accepting inbound invites.
– Focus on engagement over volume – Actively nurture your top connections rather than endlessly expanding your network.
– Review your network regularly – Set calendar reminders to re-evaluate new connections and continue pruning every few months.
– Limit company or industry batches – Be cautious about connecting with lots of people from one employer or field to maintain diversity.
– Monitor your connection capacity – Watch your connection limit so it doesn’t impede adding relevant contacts when needed.
The more strategic you are about cultivating your network after a purge, the easier it will be to maintain quality in your LinkedIn connections going forward.
Other LinkedIn Profile Cleanup Tips
In addition to refining your connections, here are some other maintenance tasks to keep your LinkedIn presence polished:
– Remove stale work history – Keep your experience section up-to-date and archive old positions no longer relevant.
– Delete irrelevant accomplishments – Remove distracting honors and awards unrelated to your current career path.
– Refresh your summary – Update your profile summary regularly to reflect the latest stage of your career journey.
– Add new skills – Developing new capabilities? Keep your skills current with the competencies you can demonstrate today.
– Update job titles and companies – If your role or employer changes, make sure your profile reflects that accurately.
– Showcase recent projects – Feature key projects and accomplishments from the past 1-2 years to demonstrate your continued value.
– Remove unused media – Delete presentations, files, videos, etc that are outdated or no longer help your personal branding.
– Limit default public visibility – Review which profile sections are fully public versus visible only to your connections.
– Tighten privacy settings – Check your account and ad preferences to limit data visibility and target marketing.
Conclusion
Periodically pruning your LinkedIn connections is vital for maintaining an authentic, focused professional profile that aligns with your current career aspirations and business relationships. While the process takes effort, using bulk removal techniques allows you to efficiently clean house so your profile doesn’t become bloated again. By mindfully cultivating a quality network, you can derive much greater value from the connections you invest time into nurturing. Consistent profile maintenance helps present your best professional image to the LinkedIn community.