One Month of LinkedIn Premium: Was It Worth It?
Over the last several months, I have been job hunting, and things have changed so much since the last time I really had to put myself out there to find a job. My Job Search Tracker has helped keep me organized, but now, in addition to a stellar resume, you also need an optimized LinkedIn profile (that’s different from your resume). I’m not sure I even had a LinkedIn profile the last time I changed companies. Luckily, my friend Taylor at The Career Curator helped me craft an impressive resume and LinkedIn summary, but I quickly learned both would need constant refinement based on the jobs I was applying for and the results I was getting.
I’ve ignored LinkedIn’s Premium trial offer for years but finally decided to take the plunge and get serious about my job search. Here’s what I thought:
What I Liked
Competitive Intelligence About Other Applicants. This was the single most useful feature I encountered during my trial and the reason why a Premium subscription is a must during your job search. I was able to see:
How I compared to other applicants in terms of past experience, current role, and skills
The top skills among applicants. This was critical because it allowed me to figure out the skills my profile was missing for the types of jobs I wanted, and if applicable, I added them to my profile. I noticed my profile had variations of the skills I was seeing for jobs I was interested in, but not the exact wording that other applicants were using. I used this information to refine my profile, and I could see the results in the increase in the number of searches I was being found in for keywords I wanted to be found for. I also used this information to update my resume to ensure I was highlighting the right skills.
Seniority level of other applicants
Education level of other applicants
Hiring trends for the company over the last two years and the median tenure of employees
Who’s Viewing Your Profile. I could see who was viewing my profile (if they had the feature turned on) without removing my incognito status. I’ve started posting more frequently on LinkedIn, and the number of people viewing my profile (both in and out of my network) has significantly increased. It also helped me gauge the interest of companies I had applied to when I saw that someone from the company had viewed my profile.
InMail. Depending on someone’s LinkedIn settings, if you aren’t a 1st connection, you won’t be able to send them an InMail directly. A premium subscription allows you to send a certain number of InMail messages per month depending on your subscription level. This is helpful if you want to reach out to a recruiter or when trying to connect with someone for networking purposes who isn’t in your network.
What I Didn’t Like
The Price. LinkedIn Premium is worthwhile while you are actively job searching due to the reasons outlined above. It is a helpful feature when you are not job hunting, but the monthly price of $30 makes it not worthwhile for casual users. If LinkedIn reduced the monthly price to $10-15, I would absolutely make the investment in a monthly subscription.
Limits to Competitive Intelligence. Not all jobs showed you what percentile of applicants you would be in. Sometimes it would say that not enough people had applied, but other times, there would be lots of applicants and LinkedIn wouldn’t offer an explanation for why this wasn’t shown.
***
LinkedIn Premium alone will not get you a job, but it can be a powerful tool in your job search. While I found it overpriced for the casual user (someone not job hunting or trying to be an influencer), the Competitive Intelligence feature is invaluable for job seekers. If you are job hunting and struggling to be noticed by companies, you should consider investing in Premium for at least a month or two while you refine and optimize your profile.
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