LinkedIn Recruiter is a powerful tool that allows employers to search for, connect with, and recruit candidates through the LinkedIn platform. As an employee or job seeker, it’s important to understand what recruiters and hiring managers can see about you on LinkedIn Recruiter so you can best manage your profile and privacy settings.
Some key things employers can see on LinkedIn Recruiter include your profile information, connections, groups, job interests, skills, endorsements, recommendations, and more. Recruiters have access to advanced search filters and views of your activity to evaluate you as a potential candidate.
In this article, we’ll provide a comprehensive overview of what data and insights employers can access with LinkedIn Recruiter and how your profile visibility impacts your discoverability. Read on to learn what’s viewable, what’s hidden, and best practices to control your recruiter visibility.
LinkedIn Recruiter Overview
LinkedIn Recruiter is LinkedIn’s integrated recruiting platform that over 30,000 companies use to find and engage talent. It allows recruiters to:
– Search LinkedIn profiles with advanced filters like skills, location, education, and work experience.
– Save and organize search results and profiles into projects and lists.
– View profile analytics like number of applicants, Competition for Job, and Talent Pool availability.
– Message prospects through InMail to start conversations.
– Post jobs and review applicants and resumes.
– Manage the recruiting workflow from initial outreach to hire.
Recruiters can search both active and passive candidates on LinkedIn to build their talent pipeline. The Recruiter platform provides data and insights well beyond what a standard LinkedIn user can see.
Employers pay for various tiers of LinkedIn Recruiter access that determine how many advanced features they can utilize.
Profile Visibility Settings
To understand what recruiters can see, it’s first important to know how LinkedIn profile visibility works. You control visibility and discoverability through your profile and privacy settings.
By default, LinkedIn profiles are set to the “Public” visibility option. This means anyone on or off LinkedIn can view your full profile. Setting your profile to “Public” maximizes your discoverability by recruiters.
You can also change the visibility setting to:
– Private – Only your 1st-degree connections can see your full profile.
– Your Connections – 1st, 2nd & 3rd degree connections can see your full profile.
A more private profile limits the data recruiters can access unless they are already connected to you in some way. They would still see some profile info like name, headline, location, connections in common, and profile photo.
Additionally, you can control visibility of specific profile sections like connections, education, skills, about etc. For example, you can hide your connections list while keeping the rest of your profile public.
Profile Information Visible to Recruiters
Assuming your profile is set to the default public setting, here are the main sections recruiters can see and evaluate:
Photo – Your profile and cover photos are fully visible. Recruiters will check that your photo looks professional.
Name & Headline – Your full name and professional headline appear. Recruiters glance at the headline to get a quick sense of your experience and skills.
Location – Your location is displayed, which recruiters may filter by if they are looking for local candidates.
Connections – Recruiters can see your number of connections and view your full connections list which reflects your professional network.
Summary & About – Your summary and about sections show your background, experience, and interests in narrative form. Recruiters will evaluate your writing style, skills, achievements, and motivation.
Experience – All work experience listed with titles, companies, dates, and descriptions are visible. This is a key section recruiters evaluate.
Education – Schools attended, degrees earned, and dates can be seen to assess your educational credentials.
Skills & Endorsements – Skills are a top item recruiters search on. They can also see who has endorsed you for various skills.
Groups – Professional and community groups you have joined are viewable by recruiters browsing your profile.
Projects, Honors & Awards, Courses, Licenses – These additional sections provide greater insight into your capabilities, achievements, and interests.
Activity and Accomplishments – Recruiters can see your activity trail showing posts, comments, shares etc.
Essentially, recruiters can view all details you include on your LinkedIn profile to thoroughly evaluate your background, experience, skills, and personality when considering you for job opportunities.
Profile Activity and Analytics
In addition to profile details, LinkedIn Recruiter offers recruiters visibility into your activity and profile analytics that go deeper than what you can see as a regular user. Some examples include:
– Who’s viewed your profile – Recruiters can see how many times your profile has been viewed and by whom.
– Profile statistics – Graphs showing your profile views over time and top viewers by industry and location.
– Recent Activity timeline – An expanded timeline showing all your posts, comments, likes, follows etc. that you may not expose on your profile.
– Potential leads – Based on your activity and connections, LinkedIn identifies and surfaces other prospects recruiters may want to engage.
– Related searches – Recruiters can see what other searches people used to find your profile.
– Competition for job – Data on how many other prospects a recruiter may be engaging for a specific role.
– Talent pool availability – Insights on how in-demand people are with your skills and experience.
The depth of activity, analytics, and visibility available through LinkedIn Recruiter gives recruiters a strong sense of who you are and how you present yourself professionally before even reaching out.
Recruiter Searches and Discovery
LinkedIn Recruiter provides numerous advanced search features to help employers find qualified candidates quickly. Some key ways they can search and come across your profile include:
– Keywords – Searching for keywords that match your skills, job titles, employers, schools, certifications etc.
– Location – Filtering by your specified location.
– Current company – Searching your current employer to surface potential leads.
– Past companies – Targeting profiles who list your past employers.
– School – Searching by university or degree to find alumni.
– Title – Looking for job titles like “software engineer” or “accountant”.
– Connections – Finding 2nd and 3rd degree connections in common as referrals.
– Groups – Joining the same LinkedIn groups makes you discoverable.
– Experience level and duration – Filters like years of experience or “entry-level”.
– Industries – Focusing on profiles in their particular industry.
– Functions – Looking for specific roles like “sales” or “engineering”.
– Engaged accounts – People who follow or engage with their company pages.
– Profile completeness – Filtering by fully completed profiles.
– InMail acceptance propensity – Higher responsiveness to messages.
The wide array of filters enables recruiters to precisely engage the right people for their hiring needs. Appearing in a recruiter search is one of the top ways to get discovered on LinkedIn.
Messaging by Recruiters
Once recruiters identify you as a potential candidate, they may message you directly through InMail on LinkedIn. With recruiter or talent accounts, they get a number of free InMails every month to contact prospects.
You can view any messages from recruiters in your LinkedIn inbox. Replying is at your discretion but can open the door to new opportunities and conversations.
Even if you aren’t interested at the moment, building rapport with recruiters allows them to keep you in mind for future roles. You can also proactively reach out and connect with recruiters at companies that interest you.
Job Postings and Applications
Beyond inbound recruiting searches, you may interact with employers through applying to new job postings listed on LinkedIn.
When you apply to a LinkedIn job listing, recruiters and hiring managers at that company can view your full candidate profile and application which pulls data from your LinkedIn profile.
This again allows them full visibility into your background to assess your qualifications before deciding to move forward in the hiring process with interviews and assessments.
Importance of a Complete, Updated Profile
To maximize your discoverability and appeal to recruiters on LinkedIn, it’s critical that you have a 100% complete and up-to-date profile.
This includes:
– Professional photo
– Customized headline
– Summary statement
– Comprehensive work experience
– All education listed
– Skills, endorsements, and recommendations
– Groups and volunteering
– Projects, publications, certifications
– Links to external sites and portfolios
A fully optimized profile allows you to populate LinkedIn’s powerful algorithm as well as search filters used by recruiters. Put your best foot forward on your profile to increase the chances of standing out in results.
Customizing Your Recruiter Visibility
While a public profile provides the most recruiter visibility, you do have options to customize and limit what recruiters can see to some extent.
Some settings to consider based on your preferences include:
– Profile visibility (Public, Connections only etc)
– Showing or hiding your connections list
– Showing or hiding your activity timeline
– Turning on/off the “Open to recruiter outreach” setting
– Joining/leaving groups related to your industry or interests
– Excluding current job from your work experience
– Removing old positions that aren’t relevant
– Expanding or condensing your profile summary
Experiment to find the right profile settings for you. You may also consider having separate profiles for job seeking vs business networking purposes.
Takeaways for Job Seekers
As a candidate, it’s empowering to know what data recruiters can access on LinkedIn Recruiter so you can proactively manage your profile. Here are key takeaways:
– Recruiters see your full profile and activity unless limited by your settings.
– A complete, detailed profile improves your discoverability.
– Engage with recruiters to get on their radar early on.
– Tailor your profile to the types of roles you want.
– Keep your profile up-to-date as your experience grows.
– Be thoughtful about your profile visibility settings.
– Participate in relevant groups and follow company pages.
– Apply to jobs through LinkedIn when possible.
With some strategy, you can maximize your professional brand and opportunities on LinkedIn as a job seeker.
Conclusion
LinkedIn Recruiter is an incredible asset for employers looking to connect with their next great hire. As a candidate, virtually all the information you include on your LinkedIn profile is visible to recruiters and hiring managers when browsing profiles and evaluating applicants.
While you have some control over your profile visibility and discoverability through LinkedIn’s privacy settings, a public, completed profile provides the highest chance of being contacted by recruiters. By understanding what recruiters see on LinkedIn Recruiter and intentionally managing your professional brand, you can take advantage of the extensive opportunities this essential hiring platform provides.