When you sign up to LinkedIn, your be greeted with a number of features in both the free and paid subscription channels. This begs the question from many LinkedIn users, is it worth upgrading your profile to LinkedIn premium, what advantages do you get, and is the upgrade more appropriate for the job seeker or for recruiters and businesses?
Features of LinkedIn Premium
LinkedIn Premium comes offers a number of teas such as: Premium Career, Premium Business, Sales Navigator and Recruiter Lite.For job seekers, the Premium Career is the most relevant, and will give you immediate access to a number of new features that include:
InMail Messages:
You will be allocated a number of InMail credits per month to send messages to people outside your network (i.e. people that you do not have a direct connection with) and let them know you are open to work. This is useful for reaching out to recruiters or industry professionals, and you don’t have to wait for the connection to be established. Think of it as cold calling or reaching out to expand your network.
Who Viewed Your Profile:
The free version of LinkedIn only shows a limited number of people who have viewed your profile, and most of the data is hidden. Premium is an exciting opportunity to view the full list of people have viewed your profile, so you can identify opportunities and follow up on interest.
Learning Courses:
LinkedIn Learning has a huge library of courses on all sorts of topics, offering an exciting way to both up skill as well as to put the new courses and education on your LinkedIn profile. Premium subscribers have unlimited access to these courses which can help you build new skills or enhance existing ones. You’ll also find a number of discounts and incentives for the premium user.
Job Applicant Insights:
When applying for jobs, Premium members can see where they rank among other applicants and get insights into the skills and experiences of other candidates. This is a fantastic tool, and is a great way to quickly learn how to beat the competition as well as how to refine your profile based on the many LinkedIn algorithms.
How Much Does LinkedIn Premium Cost
it’s frustrating that there is no clear pricing plan on the initial signup for LinkedIn premium. Instead, the platform entice you into signing up for a free one-month. You need to dig deeper to find the facts.
At the time of publishing this article, LinkedIn Premium Career costs around $29.99 per month and offers discounts for annual subscriptions. If you’re looking for the premium business, the pricing is $59.99 per month.
For many job seekers this can be justified as an investment if you can afford it. But for others who are financially challenged, sometimes hard to justify the cost without knowing whether you will ultimately get results.
Cost Benefit Analysis
While the features of LinkedIn Premium are great, the question remains: do they justify the cost? Here’s a breakdown to help you decide:
Job Market and Industry: In highly competitive fields or industries with a strong LinkedIn presence (tech, finance, marketing) the benefits of LinkedIn Premium, using the many tools that premium has to offer will help you quickly carve out your market and think of new ways to approach job seeking. Being able to make direct connections without the waiting game can be a major return on investment.
Networking Needs: If you have an established professional and can already make the connections you need without InMail the value of this feature diminishes. If you are starting from scratch or breaking into a new industry InMail is well worth considering. However, keep in mind that not everyone uses InMail regularly.
Learning Opportunities: How much will you use LinkedIn Learning? If you are committed to continuous learning and professional development the access to courses can justify the subscription cost. If you prefer other learning platforms or don’t think you’ll use this feature the value decreases.
Current Job Search Stage: For those in the early stages of their job search LinkedIn Premium might be a big boost. But if you’re near the end of your search or have already got interviews the need for these features will be less important. Whatever the situation, this feature offers great insights on how to refine your job search.
Is it Worth it?
To decide if LinkedIn Premium is worth the investment you need to evaluate how its features align with your job search needs and goals. You also need to think about how much time you can use to utilising LinkedIn’s features to get the maximum return for your pocket.
Increased Visibility and Networking
As we mentioned before, LinkedIn Premium will give you the ability to send InMail messages. This can really boost your networking by allowing you to reach out to hiring managers, recruiters and industry professionals. If you are targeting specific companies or roles the ability to bypass gatekeepers and connect directly with decision-makers can be huge. But don’t expect everyone to respond to your messages. In fact, when prospecting, you will most likely need to send several messages to the same contact to get a reply (but without annoying them).
The “Who Viewed Your Profile” feature can be an extremely useful tool and a fascinating insight into how your profile is performing to different target markets and audiences. If a recruiter or an employer from a company you’re interested in views your profile, this is a great signal to take action and engage with them and turn a passive interest into an active opportunity.
Data Driven Job Applications
The job insights and applicant ranking features give you an edge, but it will take time to learn how to uses data and make those changes. This information will give you a useful insight to see where you sit among other applicants allows you to tailor your LinkedIn profile content more effectively. For example if you see most applicants have a certain certification that you don’t have you might decide to prioritise getting that certification to improve your chances. You can also start including more target key skills, and think about reducing content that’s irrelevant.
Salary insights
There is also a really handy salary insights tool that can give you the information you need to negotiate better offers. This is especially useful in industries where salary ranges are not published.
Skill Building through LinkedIn learning
Having access to LinkedIn Learning courses is a big advantage especially if you’re looking to pivot into a new field or update your skills. There are so many courses to choose from short day courses through to longer, more structured certificates. The platform has courses on everything from software development to project management and leadership. It goes without saying, not only will these courses help up skill you, but will also help make your profile more attractive.
FREE Options (For those not wanting Premium)
If LinkedIn Premium is out of budget here are other ways to get more out of LinkedIn:
Optimise Your Profile: Make sure your LinkedIn profile is fully optimised. A strong profile can attract recruiters even without Premium. In fact, whether you are on a premium subscription on the free subscription, it makes no difference to how recruiters view your profile, and whether you appear on the searches are not.
Active Networking: We encourage you to engage in LinkedIn groups, comment on industry posts and connect with people in your field. Building relationships organically and connecting through these forums can be as effective , if not more effective than using InMail.
Free LinkedIn Learning Trials: LinkedIn often offers free trials for their Learning platform. Take advantage of these to get skills without committing to a subscription.
Use Other Job Search Tools: Use other job search platforms like Indeed, Glassdoor and professional association job boards. These can complement your LinkedIn efforts and expand your reach.
Summary
LinkedIn Premium has a range of features to give job seekers an advantage in a competitive market. Many of these tools are really easy offer some much more than the free subscription. While it’s great for networking, job insights and skill development the cost may not be worth it for everyone. The decision to buy LinkedIn Premium should be based on your individual needs, industry and financial situation.
For some the extra visibility and direct access to recruiters will be worth it, for others optimising their free LinkedIn profile and using other strategies will be just as effective. However, you’ll only get a return on investment if you’re willing to put the time needed to learn and utilise all the features available in premium. If you are someone who prefers to just sit and forget, then you’re probably better off sticking with the free profile for the time being.
