Trying to Run a Covert Job Search on LinkedIn? Pay Attention to These Settings

By Laura Smith-Proulx

Want to ensure your LinkedIn activity is as covert as possible?

You MUST understand the site’s broadcast message types, Activity Broadcasts and Activity Feed, and the differences between them.

Often confused with each other, these controls allow messages to be widely distributed to other
LinkedIn users, informing them of your activity (and basically prompting them to look at your Profile to interpret your actions).

Here’s a close-up look at the type of information you can control with Activity Broadcasts and Activity Feed settings — with key points on how to customize and maximize these messages for your job search:

1 – Activity Broadcasts.
Activity Broadcasts are the dead-giveaways sent out when you change your Profile. So, if you’re tweaking your Headline to arrive at the best fit, or finally populating your Profile with a ton of new data, this is the one to turn off first.

You can view your Activity Broadcast options by going to Settings, then “Turn on/off your activity broadcasts.”

Here, you only have On (“Let people know when you change your profile, make recommendations, or follow companies”) and Off.

As you can see, this setting also gives your Connections a heads-up that you’ve written a Recommendation or are following Companies. These are rarely considered high-profile activities, but they’re included in LinkedIn’s definition of a Broadcast.

Typically, turning your Activity Broadcasts off during a job search is a good idea (even recommended by LinkedIn), since Profile updates are usually the first sign that you’re preparing for flight.

Another bonus:  if you’re trying out new Headlines or continually adding keywords, turning off Activity Broadcasts will prevent your contacts from being hammered during each iteration.


2 – Activity Feed.

See more on "Activity Feed", more tips, and the complete CareerRocketeer article