Is it worth paying for LinkedIn as a job seeker?
By Cham Posted Date: August 08, 2017
If you’re a recruiter or a sales person then you may be used to paying for LinkedIn just to get the additional information and features, however job seekers are probably not. LinkedIn offers premium accounts for all users with a heap of additional features now, so as a job seeker you might be asking yourself the question, Is it worth paying for LinkedIn?
Although it can be very tempting to upgrade (especially with the way LinkedIn is marketing their paid services) – a standard LinkedIn account isn’t necessarily bad. The free accounts are actually good enough and LinkedIn have made sure that these accounts aren’t very limited in features in order to maintain and improve their user base. Similar paid providers haven’t increased their user base as much because they charge for even the basic features, unlike LinkedIn.
Listed below are some of the things you can do with a free LinkedIn account:
- Create a professional profile and improve your presence online
- Develop and maintain professional networks and connections
- Find old colleagues and classmates that you can reconnect with
- Search and view the profiles of other LinkedIn members (very useful for developing industry connections)
- No restrictions on the messages you receive
- Ask for and provide recommendations (with other LinkedIn users)
What do you get with a paid account?
- When you’re hunting for jobs, find out how you compare to other applicants (using the ‘Applicant Insights’ tool)
- Your job applications are given a higher priority over non-paying members (so you application will appear above them)
- LinkedIn’s messaging tool, InMail has no restrictions on who you can message and when. (on un-paid profiles there are some restrictions with messaging other people depending on their profile settings)
- Find out how your rank amongst others in your industry with the ‘How you rank professionals like you’ tool
- Get keyword suggestions to help you with your profile summary section
- Get detailed insights into how people found you and who has viewed your profile over the last 3 months.
So is it worth paying?
If you’re a daily linked in user and feel that you’re out of options and a paid profile will give you the added benefit you need then sure, go ahead and make the purchase, maybe try out the paid version and see if it’s the one for you. If your free LinkedIn profile gives you sufficient features to get ahead in your industry and make the connections you seek then there’s no need spending the extra money.
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