How to quietly search for your next job on LinkedIn
You've no doubt heard it before: The best time to look for work is when you already have a job.
The problem, of course, is not tipping your hand to your current employer as you look for your next one. You might take an interview on your lunch break or even use a sick day for it.
But well before that point in your search, you have to make yourself visible to recruiters without appearing to do so to your current boss. It's a delicate dance being visible to the right people in your job search — and invisible to everyone else.
Fortunately, there are a few ways to keep your job search discreet on LinkedIn, one of the most popular sites for job seekers, experts told BI.
While your manager and coworkers probably "aren't going to be studying your profile," you can still take some steps to stay under the radar to them, said Beth Granger, a consultant who focuses on networking and building your professional brand on LinkedIn.
"You might not post about being on an interview or if somebody shares a post about a job, you might not comment publicly about that," she said.
Putting your company's corporate logo in your banner is one way to maintain the outward appearance of loyalty to your employer, said executive résumé and LinkedIn writer Virginia Franco.
In your headline, you might "go with the one the company gave you just to be on the safe side," she added. Then you can use what remains of the character limit to "pump up your headline with some keywords" to help surface your profile in recruiters' searches.
For those who've let their LinkedIn profiles collect dust, suddenly overhauling them can clearly indicate you're job-searching.
"If you've never done anything on LinkedIn, to all of a sudden have a robust profile might make your employer nervous," Franco said.
In settings, turn off notifications of changes to your Experience section so LinkedIn won't broadcast to your connections, some of whom are likely your coworkers, that you're sprucing up your profile.
And make your changes gradually.
"Start from the bottom; add skills one week," said Franco. "Then the next week, you add the older experience, and so on, so you're slowly building it up, versus all in one fell swoop."
If you want to turn on the Open to Work banner, make sure it's set to recruiters only, though be forewarned that's not foolproof either. LinkedIn says, "To protect your privacy, we take steps to prevent LinkedIn Recruiter users who work at your current company from seeing your shared career interests, but we can't guarantee complete privacy."
Another setting to keep an eye on is Connection Visibility, according to Meg Guiseppi, an executive job search strategist.
If you're suddenly connecting with recruiters galore, you can turn this off so that only you can see your connections list. Keep in mind your connections will still be able to see mutual connections you have and connections who have endorsed you.
Guiseppi also suggests being mindful of what you post in LinkedIn groups. Groups can be a great place to share your thought leadership and expertise in an area, but remember that people in your network might also be members of the same group and privy to what you share there.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
7 hours ago
- Forbes
4 Ways To Build Your Personal Brand On LinkedIn
entrepreneur working on building her brand on LinkedIn LinkedIn isn't just for job hunting anymore. With over 1.2 billion members worldwide, the platform has become essential for entrepreneurs, students, and professionals building their careers. But most people use it wrong. They treat LinkedIn like a digital resume instead of a relationship-building tool. They lurk instead of engaging. They connect without purpose. The result? A forgettable presence that generates zero opportunities. Building a strong personal brand on LinkedIn doesn't require thousands of followers or executive credentials. It requires intention, consistency, and clarity about what you want to be known for. Whether you're a teen entrepreneur launching your first venture or an executive pivoting careers, these four strategies will help you stand out and attract the right opportunities. Your LinkedIn profile is your digital handshake. In some cases it's the first time someone is 'meeting you'. You want to make it count. You want to make a great impression. Start with your headline—the 120 characters that appear under your name everywhere on LinkedIn. Most people waste this prime real estate with generic titles like "Student at University" or 'Aspiring Marketing Professional' or 'Looking to connect'. Instead, use it to communicate value and give people a reason to keep reading. Compare these examples: Your headline should immediately tell visitors what you do and who you serve. This approach attracts the right connections and repels the wrong ones. The "About" section functions as your elevator pitch in written form. Keep it conversational and human. Share your "why" and include specific accomplishments that demonstrate your expertise. Think of it less like a resume summary and more like the bio you'd want to read if you were being introduced at a conference. Don't overlook the banner image—customize it with your website URL, tagline, or visual elements that reinforce your professional identity. This small detail signals that you take your online presence seriously. LinkedIn rewards creators who publish original content consistently. Most users consume content passively, creating an opportunity for those willing to share their perspectives. Choose two to three content pillars—topics you want to be known for—and rotate through them in your posts. For a young entrepreneur, these might include: For professionals in traditional careers, content pillars might focus on industry trends, career development insights, or lessons from specific projects. The key is consistency over perfection. Publishing one thoughtful post per week beats sporadic bursts of activity. If writing full posts feels overwhelming, start by commenting meaningfully on others' content. Add genuine insights, ask thoughtful questions, and tag relevant connections when appropriate. LinkedIn's algorithm currently favors diverse content formats. Experiment with polls to gather audience insights, carousel posts to share step-by-step processes, and short videos to add personality to your brand. Focus on content that provides genuine value to your network. Share specific lessons from recent projects, industry observations with your unique perspective, or resources that have helped your professional growth. Avoid overly promotional posts—LinkedIn users respond better to authentic insights than sales pitches. When sharing wins, include the challenges you faced and lessons learned, plus credit the team members, mentors, or collaborators who helped make success possible. This approach builds credibility while positioning you as someone worth following and connecting with. Most people overlook the Featured section on their LinkedIn profile—but if you're trying to stand out, this is prime real estate. It's where you can pin work you're proud of and make it easy for someone skimming your profile to get a clear sense of what you do. Think beyond a generic link. Use this space to showcase: Make it easy for people to understand your value, without scrolling too far. For job seekers, it could showcase presentations, published articles, or volunteer work that demonstrates relevant skills. This section transforms casual profile visitors into engaged prospects. When someone clicks through to your Featured content, they're actively choosing to learn more about your work—a strong signal of genuine interest. LinkedIn connections without context create hollow networks. The goal isn't to accumulate connections but to build meaningful professional relationships. When sending connection requests, always include a personalized note. Generic invitations get ignored or rejected. Personalized messages start conversations. Effective connection messages follow this structure: Example: "I appreciated your recent post about sustainable business practices—especially your point about balancing profit with purpose. As someone building an eco-friendly product line, I'd love to connect and learn from your experience." After connecting, don't disappear. Engage with their content thoughtfully, offer assistance when relevant, and share valuable resources. These interactions foster genuine relationships that generate opportunities over time. Quality matters more than quantity. A network of 500 engaged connections who know your work generates more value than 5,000 strangers who barely remember connecting with you. Personal branding on LinkedIn isn't about creating a false persona or chasing viral content. It comes down to showing up consistently—and making it clear what you're all about. The people who really thrive on LinkedIn aren't just posting for attention. They're adding value. They share what they're learning, highlight others' wins, and take part in real conversations within their industry. Over time, that kind of presence builds trust and makes people want to stay connected. Start with one element: update your headline, publish your first post, or send five personalized connection requests. Small, consistent actions compound over time to create a powerful professional presence. Your brand is already forming in every LinkedIn interaction, post, and connection. The question is whether you're shaping it intentionally or letting it develop by default.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
To accept or decline: Here's how you should treat LinkedIn requests from strangers
It happens to a lot of us. A new LinkedIn connection request pops up without a note, a message, or a reason. Perhaps the person shares a few mutual connections, but they're essentially a stranger. Some people are willing to accept any request that comes their way. Others, however, are more guarded, and only looking to connect with people they know personally. But the question remains: should you accept or decline LinkedIn invitations from an unknown person? As a career expert at hiring platform Indeed, Priya Rathod often gets these kinds of invitations. 'I personally get several requests where there's no mutual connections, no note. I'm just left wondering who this person is and why they want to connect with me,' she tells Fortune. Career experts that Fortune spoke with say there's no blanket formula for how to treat these invitations. Instead, they emphasize that the choice is a personal one: Some people may prefer a carefully curated professional network, while others see strength in numbers. And they add that while it's not strictly forbidden to send a LinkedIn request to a stranger, there are some important rules that aspiring networkers should keep in mind. 'A lot of people hate getting a LinkedIn connection request from a random person, because it's a bit uncomfortable,' says Gracie Saskersian, associate dean of Columbia Business School's Career Management Center. 'On the other hand networking is about engaging with both people that you know in your personal network, as well as people who are a couple of degrees removed. And those are the folks who have proved to be the most valuable resources during a job search.' There are two schools of thought when it comes to receiving a LinkedIn request from a stranger. The first is that all requests are welcome. This is especially prevalent among early-career workers trying to build their professional network, and it can be tempting to accept all invites in an effort to boost numbers and reach a threshold like 500 connections. Other people may just want a larger group of connections for their posts to have a bigger impact. 'I'll accept almost everyone,' says Tim Toterhi, CHRO advisor, author, and career coach. That includes recent graduates, colleagues or anyone who's read his latest book—as long as the connection request comes with a brief explanation. He does try to avoid pictureless individuals or people with blank profiles as a way to weed out bots or scammers, but Toterhi says he's willing to connect with most humans as long as there's some level of intent behind it. 'We each have a right to decide what kind of network we are building and whether that network is meant for intimacy, influence, or impact,' says Arianny Mercedes, who previously helped lead talent management at American Express, and is now the founder of Revamped, a global career and workplace consultancy. She adds, however, that the downside to a 'more is more' approach to LinkedIn is an increasingly noisy timeline. 'Every time we accept a new connection, we allow another voice into our digital field,' she says. The second school of thought is that LinkedIn invitations should be considered carefully. That means declining or ignoring requests from strangers. 'It's about relevance, not rejection,' says Nirit Peled-Muntz, chief people officer at HR technology company HiBob. 'For me, it's about treating people the way I'd want to be treated. That doesn't mean accepting every request, but it does mean being thoughtful and kind where possible.' Michael Mandel, co-founder and CEO of CompStak, a platform for commercial real estate data, recently posted his own list of criteria for rejecting LinkedIn invitations. People who promote the number of connections they have, describe themselves as 'thought leaders' and 'visionaries,' or frequently use the rocket ship emoji, are all disqualified. He even noted that he wished he had an 'AI agent that automatically rejects LinkedIn invitations' based on that criteria. Reaching out a stranger on LinkedIn is possible, career experts say, and sometimes even encouraged. You just have to go about it the right way. 'Sending a connection request is really akin to walking up to someone in-person at a networking event and asking for an introduction or doing it yourself,' says Rathod. 'So it is okay, but there are some very key things that you need to keep in mind.' The main thing is to include a short, well-written missive along with the request. Career experts say it's the number one differentiator as to whether or not they're willing to accept a request from someone they have not actually met. LinkedIn members are also much more likely to connect with people who have interacted with their content, according to the company's internal data. Around 20% of users say having mutual connections is one of the most important factors in deciding who to connect with. Andrew McCaskill, a career expert at LinkedIn with more than 30,000 followers on the platform, says he typically gets 10 direct connection requests per day, and only knows the names of one or two people. McCaskill is in a unique position in that he works for LinkedIn, but even then he says he doesn't accept connection requests from just anyone—he's much more likely to accept a request from someone who's been following his work, or who he's interacted with on the platform before. They must also share the reason they're reaching out to him. 'If I'm looking at a line of people who are asking me for a direct connection, I'm going to look at the note first. Writing the note says that I don't just want a connection, I'd like you to be my connection,' he tells Fortune. Most professionals don't have the time to 'go through all the mental gymnastics' around whether or not they've met said person, he adds. If it takes too much effort, more often than not he leaves it for later. 'Once it gets lost in that shuffle I may never return to it.' When it comes to writing that all-important note to go along with a connection request, experts say it's crucial to make sure it isn't too detailed—avoid sharing a long career history. Instead, just write one or two sentences about why you're contacting someone. 'Anything from a shared industry to similar goals or admiration for their work can make a big difference in how their request is received,' says Rathod. This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Do you have buyer's remorse about your new degree? It's OK, these CEOs studied subjects that aren't related to their industries
As freshly minted college graduates look ahead to a tough job market, some may be wondering how useful their degrees might be. But for those looking to climb the ladder in Corporate America, the path to success doesn't always run through business school. Some top CEOs studied subjects that have nothing to do with their industries. If you just got a degree in medieval studies, then congratulations. But if you're not going to pursue that subject further in grad school, then you may be wondering how useful it is in today's job market. Buyer's remorse for new college graduates is nothing new. But those entering the workforce now are facing a slowing economy, high uncertainty among businesses amid President Donald Trump's tariffs, and AI eliminating many entry-level jobs. A deep dive into the leadership of the Fortune 500 shows that many, many, many, many CEOs did indeed get a bachelor's degree in business or a master's degree in business administration. Also, tech bosses often have engineering degrees, finance chiefs have economics or accounting degrees, and pharmaceutical CEOs have medical degrees. But there's still hope. For those looking to climb the ladder in Corporate America, the path to success doesn't always run through business school. Some top CEOs studied subjects that have nothing to do with their industries. A notable example is LinkedIn cofounder and founding CEO Reid Hoffman, who has a bachelor's in 'symbolic systems' from Stanford University, which says it integrates computer science, linguistics, math, philosophy, psychology, and statistics. He then got a master's degree in philosophy from Oxford University. In 2017, he told Business Insider that 'philosophy is a study of how to think very clearly,' and it's been useful in investing and being an entrepreneur. 'Formulating what your investment thesis is, what the strategy is, what the risks with the approach are, what kinds of things you would be doing with it, are all greatly aided by the crispness of thinking that comes with philosophical training,' he added. Similarly, Palantir CEO and cofounder Alex Karp got bachelor's in philosophy from Haverford College, a JD from Stanford Law School and a PhD in neoclassical social theory from Goethe University in Frankfurt. Despite running a data-mining software company that offers AI-powered platforms to governments and businesses, he has said he learned coding on the job. He told the New York Times last year that not getting a business degree actually helped. 'There's nothing that we did at Palantir in building our software company that's in any MBA-made playbook. Not one,' he explained. 'That's why we have been doing so well.' Karp revealed that 'the single most valuable education I had for business' came at the Sigmund Freud Institute, a psychoanalysis research center, where he worked while getting his doctorate. 'You'd be surprised how much analysts talk about their patients. It's disconcerting, actually. You just learn so much about how humans actually think,' he said, adding that he used that knowledge to help motivate his engineers. Among Fortune 500 CEOs, Airbnb's Brian Chesky has a bachelor of fine arts from the Rhode Island School of Design. According to the company, his creative roots are embedded in Airbnb's culture, product and community. 'This design-driven approach has enabled a system of trust that allows strangers to live together, and created a unique business model that facilitates connection and belonging,' it says. Here are some other Fortune 500 leaders who have less conventional educational backgrounds: Juan Andrade, CEO of financial services firm USAA, has a bachelor's in journalism and political science from the University of Florida and a master's in international economics and Latin American studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Leon Topalian, CEO of steelmaker Nucor, has a bachelor's in marine engineering from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Maria Black, CEO of human resources services provider ADP, has a bachelor's in political science and international affairs from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Laura Alber, CEO of home furnishings chain Williams-Sonoma, has a bachelor's in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Richard Hayne, CEO of retailer Urban Outfitters, has a bachelor's in social relations from Lehigh University. This story was originally featured on
