Change is a part of life, and your career is no exception. Even if you're happy with your current employer, you may be looking to climb the ladder, broaden your experience or find a role in a new city. But as employers and employees increasingly rely on LinkedIn to streamline job searching, networking and hiring, questions about LinkedIn best practices tend to come up.
Here's a question I received recently from a reader:
I want to update my LinkedIn profile for a career change and worry that doing so will alert my current employer. Is there a way to stay employed and move my profile toward what I'm looking for?
Reader, I applaud you for thinking this through! Many professionals -- whether prior military or not -- start connecting with recruiters on LinkedIn, posting about their plans and new career goals, and update their profiles without realizing how public the platform truly is.
Here are some things to consider on the job hunt without making your employer panic:
Determine Your Intent
Are you exploring new options, career fields and opportunities or are you actively applying for open positions? If you're actively sending resumes to open positions on LinkedIn, your strategy here will be different than if you're just exploring and doing informational interviews to grow your network.
Read Next: How to Know When Your Resume Is ‘Ready’
Determine the Best Keywords and Search Terms for Your New Focus
Are the keywords for your LinkedIn profile the same as the search terms for your current job? If you're making a career pivot (for example, from project management to social media marketing), then adding new keywords and search terms to your LinkedIn will be important. If the terms would be similar but nuanced, it's easier to work those into your profile without setting off alarms.
Determine Your Target Audience
Is your ideal target audience connected or related to your current work? Do you need to initiate relationships in new industries or communities?
If who you're sending a resume to overlaps with the people you currently work with, tread carefully. If the people you intend to approach are not related to your current work, company or industry, your online searches and outreach on LinkedIn might be safer and more confidential.
What to Avoid When Secretly Job Searching
If you're quietly searching for a new job, there are a few things you should try to avoid if you don't want to tip off your employer.
1. A Complete Visual Change
If your headshot, background image or featured content changes dramatically from what they know to what they now see, this could raise red flags. For example, if you're dressed in a business suit and begin to feature vibrant, bold graphics in your background image while highlighting your social media design skills, this could raise eyebrows if your current role is supply chain manager.
2. Expressing Dissatisfaction
Remember that anything you post or add a comment to -- in your feed or in a Group -- is public. Even if you have certain privacy settings on, anyone in your network could screenshot and share what you put out there. Be very careful speaking ill of your current employer or situation.
3. Changing Your Profile to Say 'Open to Work'
It's true that LinkedIn has settings that can limit who sees an "Open to Work" banner on your avatar, but the same rules apply here: Anyone in your network can screenshot and share your new avatar. This is especially true if you're searching for jobs within a small industry or community. If your employer doesn't know or wouldn't support your job search, rely on individual conversations with potential employers and others in your network, vs. advertising your availability.
4. Abruptly Increasing Your LinkedIn Activity
If you're usually inactive on LinkedIn and you've suddenly started posting multiple times a day, it could raise questions. Instead, work your way into a nice cadence to start. If you've not posted, shared or commented in months (or longer), start with one or two a week. Then add more as the level of interest and engagement grow. This appears more organic and less aggressive, which your employer may associate with job searching.
How to Secretly Job Search
1. Make Subtle Changes
Small changes over time work better than big, fast swings. Start by updating your experience -- add measurable results and outcomes to previous jobs and update your education and volunteer work. Then organize the key skills you want to be known (and endorsed) by. Next, seek recommendations from colleagues on the platform. Refine your About section to add relevant keywords and update your current work with recent successes and outcomes. Give yourself time to make all these changes so as not to alert your employer.
2. Turn off 'Notify My Network' Settings
LinkedIn gives you the option to refrain from alerting your network to events you're attending, changes to your profile and other updates. Consider using this feature if you post about job fairs or networking events that could indicate your desire to make a change, and profile edits that could signal you're in a job search.
3. Take Direct Messages Offline
If you're interested in a role or are contacted by a recruiter or hiring professional, don't comment on a post or publicly engage in networking conversations. Offer to email recruiters from your personal email for detailed conversations.
Looking for a job while you're employed is tricky. Use LinkedIn to grow your visibility and your network, and search for open positions and remember that being careful is always smart.
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