LinkedIn Premium is LinkedIn’s paid subscription service that provides users with additional features and benefits beyond the free basic account. Having a Premium account can be advantageous for anyone looking to expand their professional network, find new job opportunities, stay up-to-date on industry news, and enhance their personal brand. Some of the key benefits of upgrading to LinkedIn Premium include:
Expanded profile views
With a Premium account, you can see everyone who has viewed your profile in the last 90 days, as well as get insights into how you rank in search compared to other profiles. This allows you to understand how visible and searchable your profile is to recruiters and hiring managers.
InMail messages
Premium members get InMail credits each month, which are messages that go directly to another member’s inbox even if you’re not connected. This makes it easy to reach out to recruiters, hiring managers, and other professionals that interest you.
Job insights
The job insights feature shows you how you stack up against other applicants who have applied for positions you’re interested in. You can see the average number of applicants, their titles and locations, and the top skills for the role.
Salary insights
Premium provides access to salary data for specific job titles in selected geographies. This gives you valuable context when negotiating salaries or considering new job opportunities.
Premium search filters
Search filters allow you to fine-tune your searches by years of experience, company size, location proximity, and other advanced criteria. This surfaces more targeted, relevant results.
Learning courses
LinkedIn Learning comes bundled with Premium, providing unlimited access to over 15,000 professional development courses. This is great for building new skills and improving your expertise.
Profile branding
Stand out by adding a background photo and other branding elements to your profile. Recruiters often evaluate profiles visually, so branding conveys professionalism.
Larger network
Premium allows you to grow your network past the cap of 500+ connections for free members. More connections mean increased visibility and outreach capabilities.
Company research
Unlock insights into companies you are interested in, including employee demographics, organizational charts, news/updates, and statistics on hiring and attrition.
Interview preparation
Study up on your interviewers and company before an interview with premium company research tools. This allows you to ask insightful questions and avoid repetition.
Ad-free browsing
Premium removes all advertisements from LinkedIn’s interface for a clean, uncluttered experience. This improves usability and reduces distractions.
Top benefits summarized
| Benefit | Description |
|---|---|
| Expanded profile views | See everyone who has viewed your profile in the last 90 days and get insights into your profile’s searchability and visibility. |
| InMail messages | Directly contact professionals outside your network with messages that go straight to their inboxes. |
| Job insights | Gain inside info on how you compare against other applicants for positions you apply to. |
| Salary insights | Access salary data for specific roles in selected locations. |
| Premium search | Refine searches with filters for experience level, company size, location and more. |
| Learning courses | Get unlimited access to 15,000+ professional development courses. |
| Profile branding | Make your profile stand out visually with a background photo and branding elements. |
| Expanded network | Grow your network beyond 500+ connections. |
| Company research | Unlock employee demographics, news, hiring stats and more for companies you’re interested in. |
| Interview prep | Research interviewers and companies before interviews. |
| No ads | Browse LinkedIn ad-free for cleaner, less distracted experience. |
Networking opportunities
Expanding your professional network is one of the biggest advantages of LinkedIn Premium. With Premium, you can grow your connections past the 500 limit imposed on free accounts. This allows you to connect with more relevant professionals in your industry, opening up new networking opportunities.
You’ll also gain visibility within your expanded network. LinkedIn prioritizes content and profiles of Premium members in notifications and search results. This gets you on more people’s radars. With your wider reach, you can attract new connections organically without sending blind connection requests.
Premium’s advanced search filters also help you find and connect to professionals according to location, company, job function, skills, and other criteria. You can even filter for 2nd degree connections, making it easy to request introductions to the right people through shared contacts.
Overall, Premium facilitates networking opportunities that can lead to career advancement, new jobs, business partnerships, investments, and other worthwhile relationships. The ability to grow your community beyond 500 connections and organically increase your visibility are both highly valuable.
Messaging capabilities
LinkedIn Premium opens up messaging capabilities that allow you to directly contact people outside of your network.
The core messaging benefit is InMail credits, which let you send direct messages to any LinkedIn member that land straight in their inbox. Recipients can reply for free, even if they aren’t Premium members themselves. This presents opportunities to reach out to and build relationships with recruiters, hiring managers, potential business partners, investors, and influencers.
With open messaging abilities, Premium makes it possible to pitch yourself for job openings or other proposals even if you lack a shared connection. The recipient also knows the message is important since it appears as an InMail notification rather than a regular message request. This can improve response rates.
Premium’s expanded network allowance further complements the messaging capabilities. You can proactively connect with more professionals, which then grants you basic messaging access. While InMail works whether connected or not, having more direct connections gives you additional messaging channels to utilize.
Messaging is critical for cultivating relationships and sharing ideas. Premium empowers you to cast a much wider net and have credible messaging channels at your disposal.
Stay updated on industry news
Remaining current on news and trends in your industry is essential for career success. Premium provides features that make it easier to stay in the know.
You can follow specific companies to receive updates whenever they post news articles or make announcements. Their updates will appear at the top of your LinkedIn feed. You can also opt to receive email newsletters or InMail messages when highlighted companies post new content.
Within your expanded network, you can better follow Thought Leaders, Influencers, and other trusted voices for their latest insights. With more connections, you can surround yourself with relevant experts.
Premium also unlocks unlimited reading privileges for business news stories on LinkedIn. You can consume as many articles as you want to absorb the latest developments in your field.
With customized feeds, email alerts, unlimited reading, and an expanded network, Premium has you covered for staying in touch with what’s happening in your industry. This knowledge will keep you aware of risks and opportunities in your business or career.
Find the right job
For job seekers, LinkedIn Premium provides powerful tools for finding the right opportunities. Here are some of the key job seeking features:
– Job insights show you how you compare to other candidates who have applied for a role you’re interested in. You can see average applicant profiles, top skills required, locations, and company sizes. Thiscontext helps you determine if a job is a good fit.
– Salary insights let you explore typical compensation ranges for specific job titles in chosen locations. You can benchmark salaries to have informed expectations during negotiations.
– Premium search allows filtering job listings by date posted, location, company industry, job function, seniority level, and other criteria. You can tailor results to surface ideal opportunities.
– Recruiter search helps connect you with recruiters at your target companies so you can express interest even without an open job posting.
– Company research helps you thoroughly evaluate potential employers by learning about employee demographics, organizational structure, work culture, financials, common interview questions, and more.
With Premium’s specialized tools for refining your job search process, you can land opportunities that genuinely match your professional goals, skills, location, salary needs, and preferences.
Skill development
In addition to helping your job search, LinkedIn Premium provides ample resources to develop relevant new skills through LinkedIn Learning.
With a Premium subscription, you get unlimited access to LinkedIn Learning’s library of over 15,000 courses on business, creative, and technical topics. Courses are taught by industry experts and cover everything from programming languages to project management software.
You can build skills tailored to your goals, like training for a promotion, brushing up on new technologies in your field, or crashing courses for a career change. Some popular courses include instruction on Python, graphic design, Excel, presentation skills, and leadership principles.
Premium also lets you add skills to your profile and take skill assessments to validate your expertise to employers. You can even display badges on your profile highlighting the courses you’ve completed on LinkedIn Learning.
The unlimited learning opportunities combined with skill endorsements help drive your professional development and boost your appeal to recruiters and hiring managers.
Build your brand
Premium provides helpful tools for establishing your personal brand which can enhance your reputation and recognition in your industry.
One benefit is the ability to customize your profile URL – for example, linkedin.com/yourname. This creates a professional, memorable web presence to share.
You can also build your brand visually with profile enhancements. Add a customizable background photo to your profile. Showcase rich media content like videos, presentations, and PDFs to demonstrate your work. Share visual stories to highlight your projects, career progression, events, and company culture.
With an expanded network, you can better keep up relationships with colleagues who can endorse your skills and write recommendations to vouch for you. These social proof elements help reinforce your personal brand.
Premium provides metrics on your profile views, search appearance, and content engagement so you can benchmark your brand reach and refine your presence based on insights.
With consistent branding efforts over time, Premium can help establish you as an authority, thought leader, and industry influencer.
Ad-free experience
One nice perk of LinkedIn Premium is eliminating advertisements from LinkedIn’s interface. This creates a clean, professional, and distraction-free browsing and networking experience.
Without ads, your newsfeed contains purely pertinent updates from your expanded network and followed companies. You can scan articles and content without intrusive sidebars or pop-ups.
The seamless, uncluttered interface feels like a premium service designed for your productivity and satisfaction. Professional networking is the focus rather than monetization through advertising.
An ad-free experience also conveys greater credibility when connecting with colleagues and prospects. It demonstrates you have invested in a premium toolset for career management rather than relying on free resources.
For many professionals, eliminating ads is one of the most immediately noticeable perks motivating them to upgrade to Premium. The clean interface facilitates uninterrupted engagement with your network.
Is LinkedIn Premium worth it?
Considering the many benefits, LinkedIn Premium can certainly be a worthwhile investment for professionals across fields and career levels looking to maximize their use of LinkedIn.
For active job seekers, Premium’s career enhancement tools like InMail, job insights, and recruiter connectivity make the upgrade hugely advantageous. The monetary investment pays dividends through landing impactful new roles.
Business owners, executives, and freelancers can also benefit tremendously from an expanded network and direct messaging abilities to generate new partnerships, clients, and deals.
The learning courses alone may provide enough value to justify Premium for anyone seeking to build technical skills and business acumen. Unlimited expert courses could otherwise cost thousands of dollars.
Professionals focused on shaping their personal brand and growing their industry influence will find Premium’s profile enhancements and metric tracking extremely useful.
Even just removing ads and accessing more relevant, curated content can make Premium worthwhile for people who use LinkedIn regularly for their work.
The Premium costs may be tax deductible as well since the subscription can be considered a business development expense.
Overall, Premium unlocks LinkedIn’s full value. The costs can easily pay for themselves through increased career opportunities, knowledge, and connections.
Conclusion
LinkedIn Premium offers an array of benefits that enhance your professional networking capabilities, career development, and personal brand building. Key perks include expanded profile views, direct messaging credits, unlimited Learning courses, advanced job seeking tools, and creating an ad-free experience. For frequent LinkedIn users focused on career growth and business opportunities, upgrading to Premium can provide tremendous long-term value worth the subscription costs.
