LinkedIn is a popular professional networking platform used by millions of people worldwide. While having an open and public profile can help you connect with new contacts, there may be times when you want to limit who can see your LinkedIn activity and information. Fortunately, LinkedIn offers several options to customize your privacy settings and hide parts of your profile from other users.
Make Your LinkedIn Profile Private
The simplest way to hide your LinkedIn profile from others is to make your entire profile private. With a private profile, only your direct connections will be able to see your full profile and activity. To make your profile private:
- Go to your LinkedIn profile settings
- Under “Privacy,” select “Edit your public profile and visibility”
- Uncheck the box next to “Let others see your LinkedIn profile when you’ve viewed their profile”
- Save changes
Now your full profile will only be visible to your 1st-degree connections. Note that some information like your name, headline, and profile photo may still be visible to 2nd and 3rd-degree connections even with a private profile.
Customize Visibility of Specific Profile Sections
In addition to making your full profile private, you can also customize the visibility of individual profile sections like your education, experience, skills, accomplishments, interests, and more. For example, you may want to hide your current employer from people outside your network. To adjust visibility for profile sections:
- Go to your profile settings and select “Privacy”
- Under “Control your profile visibility,” click “Select what others see when you’ve viewed their profile”
- For each profile section, choose who can view it – your connections, connections outside your network, or only you
- Save changes
With these settings, you have granular control over which parts of your profile are visible to different types of LinkedIn users.
Turn Off Activity Broadcasts
LinkedIn automatically shares certain activities like profile changes, new connections, and work anniversaries to your network’s feed. If you don’t want specific activities broadcasted, you can turn them off:
- Go to Settings & Privacy > Sharing & visibility preferences
- Under “Activity broadcasts,” uncheck any boxes next to activities you don’t want shared
- Save changes
With broadcasts turned off, only you will be able to see those activities on your profile.
Remove Past Positions from Your Profile
If there are past jobs or educational experiences you don’t want visible on your profile, you can remove them entirely:
- Go to your profile and find the experience you want to remove
- Click “Edit” next to that experience
- Select “Discard changes and remove” to delete it from your profile
This will permanently remove that experience from your profile so other users can’t see it.
Block Specific Connections
If there are certain connections on LinkedIn that you don’t want interacting with your profile, you can proactively block them:
- Go to your Connections list and find the person you want to block
- Click on the three dots next to their name and select “Block”
- Confirm that you want to block that connection
Blocked connections will no longer be able to view your profile or search for you on LinkedIn. Note that they won’t be notified that you blocked them.
Turn On Anonymous Profile Viewing
By default, LinkedIn notifies other users when you’ve viewed their profile. If you don’t want others knowing when you visit their profile, enable anonymous browsing:
- Go to Settings & Privacy > Privacy
- Under “Profile viewing options,” check the box for “Anonymous profile viewing”
- Save changes
Now you can browse LinkedIn profiles without the visited users receiving a notification.
Use Private Mode While Browsing
LinkedIn’s private mode allows you to browse LinkedIn and look up profiles without that activity appearing on your account. To use private mode:
- Click on your profile picture in the top right of the LinkedIn desktop site
- Select “Private mode”
While private browsing is enabled, your name and photo won’t show up when you look at profiles or content. Just remember to turn private mode off when you’re done browsing privately.
Review Your “You Might Know” Suggestions
LinkedIn suggests new connections for you to add in the “People You May Know” section. If there are people showing up there that you want to prevent from seeing your profile, you can remove the suggestion:
- Go to your homepage and find the person under “People You May Know”
- Hover over their profile picture and click the X icon to remove them
This tells LinkedIn not to recommend connecting with that person. However, it doesn’t prevent them from finding you through other searches on LinkedIn.
Check Who’s Viewed Your Profile
To see who has recently looked at your profile, use LinkedIn’s profile viewer tool:
- Go to your LinkedIn profile
- Scroll down and look on the right rail for the “Who’s viewed your profile” section
- Click “See all” to view the full list of recent visitors
This can help you identify any contacts or strangers who may be checking you out without your knowledge. You can limit profile views if needed.
Remove Profile from Google Search
If you don’t want your LinkedIn profile appearing in Google search results, you can opt-out of search engine indexing:
- Go to profile settings and select “Privacy”
- Under “Profile visibility off LinkedIn,” uncheck “Allow search engines outside of LinkedIn to link to your profile”
- Save changes
It may take some time for your profile to be removed from search results. You can also contact LinkedIn to request expedited removal.
Use a Professional Headline
Your LinkedIn headline appears below your name in search results and profile views. Avoid revealing company names or job titles there that you don’t want public. Instead, use a generic professional headline like “Marketing Specialist.”
Conclusion
Keeping certain professional details private on LinkedIn is easy with the right settings. Focus on limiting public access to your current employer, connections, job history, profile views, and activity broadcasts. Also leverage options like private mode browsing and blocking specific users. With a few adjustments, you can securely manage your LinkedIn presence and minimize unwanted attention.
Visibility Setting | How to Adjust |
---|---|
Profile Privacy Setting | Change to “Private” so only direct connections see your full profile |
Experience Visibility | Set past positions to be visible only to you |
Profile View Notifications | Enable anonymous profile viewing |
Activity Broadcasts | Turn off automatic sharing of profile changes and new connections |
Search Engine Indexing | Opt-out of allowing Google to index your profile |