Retirement is a major life transition that deserves celebration and reflection. After years or decades of work, you find yourself entering a new phase of life with more free time and new goals. Retirement can be an exciting milestone, but it also often comes with complex feelings and uncertainties about this new season.
Updating your LinkedIn profile for retirement requires thoughtfulness and tact. You want to sincerely thank your colleagues and network, highlight your proudest accomplishments, and hint at what meaningful pursuits lie ahead. A thoughtful LinkedIn update announcing your retirement will capture the significance of this life change in a positive light.
Some key elements to include are: expressing gratitude, summarizing career achievements, explaining retirement plans, and signaling openness to new opportunities. The tone should remain professional yet personable. Follow these guidelines, and your retirement announcement will be heartfelt and inspiring.
Why Announce Retirement on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is the ideal platform for professionally announcing your retirement for several key reasons:
Reach Your Entire Network Instantly
LinkedIn enables you to inform all your connections at once about your retirement in a more personal way than mass email. Your network likely includes colleagues across many companies and roles you’ve held over the years.
Give and Receive Recognition
Retirement announcements allow colleagues, managers, and clients to acknowledge your contributions over your career. Their likes, comments, and shares on your post signal gratitude for your work.
Update Your Employment Status Officially
Changing your LinkedIn profile to “Retired” clearly communicates this new stage to your network. This update prevents confusion or mistaken outreach about job opportunities.
Reflect on Your Legacy
The milestone of retirement offers the chance to look back at accomplishments, relationships formed, and lessons learned over your career. Sharing these reflections and expressing pride helps inspire your network.
Announce Next Steps
Many retirees pursue passion projects, consulting, board roles, or volunteering in retirement. Updating your profile can let your network know what you plan to dedicate time to next.
Stay Socially Connected
Participating in the social rituals around retirement, like receiving congratulations and well wishes, can help ease the transition. LinkedIn provides a built-in community for this support.
How to Word a Retirement Announcement
When drafting your retirement announcement for LinkedIn, aim for sincere and enthusiastic wording. Here are some tips:
Thank Colleagues and Employers
Express heartfelt gratitude to the network of people who enriched your career, like managers, mentors, dedicated co-workers, helpful clients, and business partners. Call out companies and roles by name.
Note Major Achievements
Briefly recap meaningful projects completed, promotions earned, and measurable wins accomplished over the span of your career. Quantify results when possible.
Explain Rationale and Timing
Share when your official retirement date is and why you chose this specific time to retire. Is it for personal reasons like health, family, or bucket list dreams? Or professional milestones like wrapping up a major project?
Share Retirement Plans and Goals
Let your network know how you plan to spend your new free time in retirement or what’s next for you professionally. Will you consult, mentor others, pursue hobbies, volunteer, or relax with family?
Encourage Ongoing Contact
Note that you hope to stay in touch with your network in this next season of life. Make it clear you are open to connecting, advice, or collaboration.
Convey Excitement
Share some of what you are most looking forward to about retirement—travel plans, passion projects, rest, or precious time with loved ones. Express enthusiasm to set an uplifting tone.
Sample Retirement Announcements
Here are some retirement announcement examples and templates to give you an idea of wording:
Celebratory Tone
After an incredible 30 years in the tech industry, I’m thrilled to announce my retirement next month! I’m so grateful to have worked with wonderful teams at [list companies] and partnered with many clients and colleagues who enriched my career and life. I’m proud that together we [launched products, accomplished milestones, served the community, etc.]. I’m looking forward to more family time and checking items off my bucket list, like traveling the world. Please stay in touch, and I wish you all the best!
Reflective & Encouraging Tone
This month marks a major milestone – my retirement from [company] after 15 remarkable years. It has been an honor to work alongside so many talented people here who gave their all each day to advance our mission. I learned so much from my peers, leaders, and mentors over the years. I will cherish the support that allowed me to grow professionally and thrive. As I enter retirement, I aim to relax, consult part-time, and deepen my community involvement with volunteer work. I’m excited for this new phase. To everyone I’ve worked with, thank you for being part of my journey. Please keep in touch, and I wish you the very best.
Highlighting Achievements & Legacy
After 25 years in the retail industry, I’m announcing my retirement next week. It has been the privilege of a lifetime to serve customers and lead teams at [list companies]. I’m so proud that together we [describe key achievements, like awards won, revenue milestones hit, expansion into new markets, cause-related initiatives, etc.]. My greatest rewards were mentoring young professionals and solving complex problems as a team. To all my colleagues, customers and partners – you have made this journey extraordinary. I plan to consult and spend more time with family in retirement. Let’s stay connected!
Professional Do’s and Don’ts
Aim to make your LinkedIn retirement announcement…
Do:
- Sincere
- Upbeat and inspiring
- About 2-3 paragraphs long
- Include gratitude and praise for colleagues
- Mention your retirement date
- Share highlights and achievements from your career
- Note your retirement plans and goals
Don’t:
- Make it too long with excessive details
- Dwell on disappointments or conflict
- Include heavy negativity or venting
- Talk excessively about yourself
- Criticize former employers
- Try to schedule calls or meetings
- Solicit clients for a new venture
The announcement should remain focused on graciously transitioning from your career and expressing appreciation.
Etiquette for Responding to Reactions
You’ll likely receive many likes, comments, and messages congratulating you on your retirement. Follow these general etiquette tips for responding:
- Like and thank people for any comments on your post.
- Reply thoughtfully if colleagues ask questions about your plans.
- If requested, accept invitations to connect from new LinkedIn contacts.
- If asked, schedule time to catch up over coffee, on a call, or video chat.
- Politely decline any job leads or business propositions.
- Do not use mass replies – respond personally to each message.
Reacting with care to those who reached out shows appreciation. But you need not accept every request – focus on commitments that fit your needs in retirement.
Updating Your Profile for Retirement
In addition to posting a retirement announcement, update key sections of your LinkedIn profile:
Headline
Change your headline to “Retired [former position].” This clearly communicates your status at a glance.
Current Position
Edit your current position to “Retired” along with your retirement date. You can still keep past positions listed.
Description
In your professional summary description, include a line like “Recently retired from [company] on [date].” Share your broad career highlights and plans for retirement.
Experience Timelines
For your current company, mark your end date as the retirement date. Then select “Retired” as the reason for leaving.
Advice for Contacting
In the “Advice for Contacting” section, note you are retired and open to staying in touch. Provide any limitations around consulting requests.
Status Settings
Under your profile photo, toggle your statuses like “Open to Work” and “Career Interests” to the “off” position.
Should You Fully Deactivate LinkedIn?
Most retirees keep an active, if minimal, presence on LinkedIn to stay connected with their network. But some may consider fully deactivating their account. Here are pros and cons:
Pros of Deactivating
- Avoid unsolicited outreach about job opportunities
- Present a clear break from your career
- Less pressure to engage with new content
Cons of Deactivating
- Lose access to former colleagues and contacts
- Appear closed off to consulting or volunteering
- Miss out on career reflection and well wishes
Many find an active but minimal presence ideal for retirement. But deactivating can be the right choice depending on your goals.
Best Practices for a Retired LinkedIn Presence
For most retirees, maintaining some level of activity on LinkedIn allows valuable connection while minimizing unwanted outreach and noise. Consider these best practices:
Update Settings
Disable notifications and email summaries to reduce prompts to visit LinkedIn. Change your frequency setting for being in someone’s feed.
Revise Bio and Headline
As outlined above, update key profile elements like your summary, experience, photo, and headline to reflect retired status.
Alter Recommendations
Archive any recommendations focused on skills needed in your former career only. Display recommendations that highlight soft skills applicable to consulting or volunteering.
Limit New Posts
You need not remove old posts, but refrain from publishing content often unless industry related. Post sparingly about volunteering, travels or hobby milestones.
Remain Open to Connecting
Accept connection requests selectively to stay loosely in touch with your broader network. But limit these to retirees or close contacts.
Add a Disclaimer
In your profile summary, add a line like “Retired and not seeking employment opportunities.” This tempers recruiters reaching out.
Finding this balance takes some experimenting. Evaluate what works best for your retirement goals and connectivity needs.
Key Takeaways
Announcing your retirement on LinkedIn deserves thought and finesse. Follow these best practices when drafting your post and updating your profile:
- Thank your network for enriching your career
- Highlight major achievements and milestones
- Note your retirement date and reasons
- Share your plans and goals for retirement
- Encourage colleagues to stay in touch
- Change headline, description, experience timeline and settings to “retired”
- Personally respond to those congratulating you
- Limit or disable notifications to control incoming messages
Retirement brings huge life changes. Using LinkedIn to reflect, celebrate accomplishments, and transition gracefully can help you embrace this new chapter. With thoughtfulness, positivity and sincerity, your network will support you on the journey ahead.
Conclusion
Announcing retirement on LinkedIn is an art that balances professionalism with personality. It requires reflecting sincerely on your career while setting an inspiring vision for the future. Most importantly, the tone should convey gratitude, optimism and openness to this next season of life. With care and wisdom, your retirement announcement will capture this major milestone beautifully. Though your daily work has changed, your network will remain an invaluable source of community.