How do I hide myself from viewing my LinkedIn profile?

There are a few reasons why you may want to hide your LinkedIn profile from being viewed by certain people. Here are some common scenarios:

• You are currently employed but discretely looking for a new job. You don’t want your current employer or coworkers to know.
• You are keeping your work history private for safety or privacy reasons.
• You only want your profile to be visible to recruiters or business contacts for professional networking reasons.

Fortunately, LinkedIn offers settings to control the visibility of your profile. Here are some tips on how to hide or limit the viewing of your LinkedIn profile.

Make Your Profile Private

The simplest way to hide your LinkedIn profile is to make it private. Here are the steps:

1. Go to your LinkedIn profile page and click “View profile” to view your public profile page.
2. Click the “Edit public profile & URL” button located just below your cover photo.
3. Under the Privacy section, uncheck the box next to “Make my public profile visible to anyone on the internet”.
4. Click Save. Your profile will now only be visible to people signed into LinkedIn.

By making your profile private, you’ve hidden it from search engines and unauthorized viewers. Only people logged into LinkedIn can see it.

However, this doesn’t prevent connections, recruiters or your network from viewing your profile. To further limit visibility, continue reading.

Selectively Show Your Profile to Connections

You can choose to show your profile only to your LinkedIn connections, and hide it from other members. Here’s how:

1. Go to your profile Privacy settings again.
2. Under “Select who can see your profile photo and network updates”, choose “Only your connections”.
3. Save your changes.

Now only 1st-degree connections will be able to view your profile and see your updates. Other LinkedIn members won’t see anything.

Disable Profile View Notifications

LinkedIn shows profile viewers that you are aware they looked at your profile. You can disable this feature:

1. Go to the Privacy page of your Settings.
2. Under “Profile viewing options”, uncheck “Let others know you viewed their profile”.

This ensures profile viewers won’t know you can tell they looked at your profile.

Use Anonymous Mode

Anonymous Mode lets you view profiles without the owner being notified or your visit tracked:

1. Click on a profile you wish to view anonymously.
2. Before the page loads, quickly click the “Anonymous” link at the top. The page will reload anonymously.

The profile owner won’t receive a notification. However, Anonymous Mode only works when viewing individual profiles. Any other LinkedIn browsing done in that session can still be tracked.

Remove Past Position Details

If you want to hide details of where you previously worked, remove the company names from your experience section:

1. Edit your experience section.
2. For each past position, delete the company name and leave the job title and dates.
3. This leaves gaps in your employment history that reduce the traceability of your background.

Just realize this looks suspicious to recruiters. An alternative is tweaking company names slightly. For example, change “Acme Company” to just “Acme”.

Disable Signal of Profile Changes

Viewers can opt to receive alerts when you update your profile. Disable this feature:

1. Go to Settings & Privacy page.
2. Under “Profile viewing options”, uncheck “Let others know when you’ve changed your profile”.

This prevents connections from being notified when you tweak your profile to hide items.

Show Only Month and Year for Dates

To prevent viewers from knowing exact dates of your education and work history:

1. Edit those profile sections.
2. For each date, change it to only show the month and year, not full date.
3. Example: Instead of May 2014 – August 2017, show only May 2014 – August 2017

This reduces precision of dates for more anonymity.

Limit Past Position Details Visible to Public

Even if you disable viewing of your full profile, your name, headline, photo and current position remain public. To hide past roles:

1. Go to your profile’s public visibility settings.
2. Under “Customize which sections you want to show”, uncheck past positions you want to hide.

This prevents public viewers from seeing those details. Only connections see your full history.

Show Fewer Profile Sections

Minimize the amount of profile information visible to connections only:

1. Go to the profile visibility settings for connections.
2. Disable sections like Recommendations, Accomplishments, Courses, Projects, and more.

This reveals less information to connections viewing your profile as well.

Remove Your Profile Photo

Having no profile photo also adds a degree of anonymity:

1. Go to your profile and hover over your photo.
2. Click the Pencil icon to edit it.
3. Delete the photo and save your changes.

Without a photo, you become less identifiable on LinkedIn.

Disable Search Engine Indexing

Prevent your name from appearing in search engine results:

1. Go to your profile’s public visibility settings.
2. Uncheck the box next to “Allow search engines to index your public profile”.

This can prevent people from finding you via Google or Bing searches.

Remove Your Last Name

Show only your first name and middle initial to be less searchable:

1. Edit your profile name.
2. Delete your last name and save changes.

This reduces chances of people finding your profile. But it’s also more suspicious to connections.

Potential Downsides

Here are some drawbacks to be aware of when hiding your LinkedIn profile:

• Prevents recruiters from finding you for job opportunities
• Reduces professional networking possibilities
• Looks suspicious if you go overboard hiding all information
• Connections may be confused or concerned by your sudden lack of info
• Harder to prove your background and qualifications

Conclusion

While LinkedIn provides options to limit your profile viewing, extreme measures also carry downsides. Strive for balance between privacy and professional transparency.

Key steps covered include:

• Making your profile private
• Showing it only to direct connections
• Using Anonymous mode to secretly view profiles
• Removing past position details and photo
• Disabling notifications and visibility of changes

With the right settings, you can selectively hide parts of your LinkedIn presence from various audiences. Just be thoughtful in what you obscure from connections to maintain professional relationships.

Setting	Purpose
Make Profile Private	Hide from search engines and public
Show to Connections Only	Hide from other LinkedIn members
Anonymous Mode	View profiles without notifying owner
Remove Past Positions	Obscure your work history
Disable Notifications	Prevent signaling profile changes

Other Identity Hiding Options

In addition to limiting your LinkedIn profile visibility, you may want to explore other online identity management strategies:

• Use a professional pseudonym or nickname instead of your full real name.
• Create an alternate “private” LinkedIn profile used only to apply for jobs.
• Periodically review your privacy on other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
• Google yourself periodically to identify any personally identifiable information available online.
• Adjust privacy settings on your web browsers and devices.
• Use a VPN service or firewalls to mask your IP address and location.

Managing your digital footprint requires ongoing diligence. But balancing openness with privacy is worthwhile to protect your personal brand and opportunities.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are answers to some common questions about hiding your LinkedIn profile:

Does deactivating your account hide it?

Yes, deactivating your LinkedIn account hides it from all viewing and searchability. However, this also cuts off access to your network and jobs. Make your profile private or limited visibility instead.

Can I hide my profile from specific connections?

LinkedIn doesn’t allow hiding from some connections while showing it to others. You must either show your profile to all connections or none of them.

Does LinkedIn indicate if you looked anonymously?

No, Anonymous Mode prevents any indication to the profile owner that you viewed their profile. It appears like any other normal visit.

Can I tell who viewed my profile anonymously?

No, there is no way to detect who is using Anonymous Mode to view your profile. The visitor appears anonymous to you as well.

Is there a way to permanently delete my profile?

Yes, you can permanently delete your LinkedIn account. However this removes all your connections and information. Most users prefer deactivating temporarily or limiting visibility instead.