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According to statistics from a 2020 Jobvite report, 72% of recruiters are active on LinkedIn, and 67% of recruiters say that LinkedIn provides the highest quality candidates.
If you are looking for a job, merely using LinkedIn’s free basic membership could put you ahead of the competition. On the other hand, if you want to “seal the deal,” a LinkedIn Premium Career (formerly known as Job Seeker) account (starting at $39.99/month, or $239.88 if paid a year upfront) might be worth considering.
Key Takeaways
- A LinkedIn Premium Career account costs $39.99 per month.
- For the money, the Premium Career account offers several additional features over the basic account.
- These include free InMails, profile views, more intel on the job and job applicants, and featured applicant status.
- Some recruiters feel that having a premium status indicates that an applicant is more serious and professional about landing a job.
How a LinkedIn Basic (Free) Account Works
To understand the value of a LinkedIn Premium Career account, it’s essential to know what comes with a Basic (free) account.
With a Basic account, you can:
- Create and maintain a professional identity online.
- Build a network that includes other professionals.
- Receive recommendations from other LinkedIn members and provide recommendations for them.
- Search for people, jobs, companies, and more, including a limited number of advanced search features.
- Save your search results and receive weekly alerts about them.
- Receive (but not send) unlimited InMail messages.
What You Get With LinkedIn’s Premium Career Account
The Premium Career account (one of four premium accounts available on LinkedIn) offers several additional and expanded features:
Premium Profile
This feature allows for a badge on your profile picture and search results. As a premium member, you can turn this feature on through the settings page. The advantage of a badge on your profile picture is that it helps you stand out from the rest of the job-seeking crowd and lets people viewing your profile that you are taking your career or job hunt seriously.
Featured Applicant Status
As a premium member, your job application automatically sits above non-premium members when you apply for a job via Jobs You Might Be Interested In (JYMBII). This is similar to sponsored search status on Google.
Full List of Profile Views
Basic members can only see the last five views of their profile. By purchasing a premium membership, you will see all the people who have viewed your profile over the last 90 days.
More importantly, you receive information telling you how those people arrived at your profile. This allows you to personalize any contact you may wish to make. This would also let you strengthen the avenues that seem to be used most often by recruiters.
InMail
InMail is LinkedIn’s personal message system that lets you communicate with people outside your individual LinkedIn network. This can be invaluable when you are looking for a job. LinkedIn members trust InMail and the likelihood of a response is higher than with traditional email. The Premium Career account lets you send up to five InMail messages per month. Users can purchase additional InMail messages.
A Premium Career account allows you to contact potential employers directly through InMail, something Basic account holders can’t do.
Advanced Search
The premium search filter lets you fine-tune searches and save time looking for the right job or recruiters likely to be interested in your skillset. Parameters include the ability to search for people based on company size, Fortune 500 ranking, seniority, and much more.
Job Listing Breakdown
When you search for jobs, you can use this feature to analyze your fellow job applicants by level of experience, skills, and even their degrees. Having this ability lets you decide whether to apply or not—based on where you fall in the applicant pool pecking order.
Open Profile
The Open Profile feature allows anyone to contact you without needing to be introduced or connected. Basic members have to either be connected or become connected through an introduction. This feature’s benefits may not be immediately apparent, but over time, the fact that you can be more easily approached may prove to be a real plus.
| LinkedIn Basic vs. Premium | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic vs. Premium | Build Your Own Profile | See Who is Looking at You | Can Send and Receive InMail | Build a Network |
| Basic LinkedIn Account | Yes | See 5 views in the last 90 days | Can only receive | Yes |
| Premium Career Account | Yes | Yes (in the past 90 days) | Both | Yes |
Additional LinkedIn Premium Account Benefits
Built-in features available on LinkedIn’s Premium Career account are only part of the picture. Observations by those who have used Premium Career reveal a few additional advantages.
Connecting With Executives
Top business leaders often tend to insulate themselves through privacy settings. InMail, mostly because it is trusted, can help facilitate connections to people you would not otherwise be able to contact. While you can receive an unlimited number of InMail messages with a Basic account, you can only send messages if you have a premium membership.
Higher Response Rate to InMail
Another advantage of InMail, again due to the trust factor, is that the response rate is higher than with traditional email. The actual response rate varies—mostly with the degree to which the InMail is personalized—but in general, many job seekers find that the likelihood of getting a response goes up when using InMail.
Increase In Profile Views
Something as simple as “profile views” can have a significant impact on your ability to connect with the right employer. After all, as with ad views, more profile views put your product (you) in front of more people—with a greater likelihood that one of them will want to hire you.
Recruiters note that when someone has gone to the trouble (and expense) of obtaining a premium membership, it indicates they are more serious about a professional presentation. That makes it more likely they (the recruiter) will take time to view the profile.
Is LinkedIn Premium Worth It?
While a smaller percentage of HR recruiters are using LinkedIn (92% in 2017 vs. 72% in 2020), according to Jobvite, it appears to be still a healthy choice for recruiters based on those figures.
According to LinkedIn, Premium Career account holders are hired an average of two times as fast as other candidates. This type of account provides online tools (like interview prep and online video courses), and it’s an easy way for recruiters who aren’t in your network to view your profile and contact you with job opportunities. Also, some recruits feel that LinkedIn Premium profiles are a bit more professional for job hunters.
What Are the Main Differences Between LinkedIn Basic and Premium?
A LinkedIn Basic account allows you to maintain a professional profile on LinkedIn. A Basic account is for anyone who wants to create and maintain a professional profile online, locate and connect with colleagues and friends, plus receive messages and save up to three searches a week.
A Premium Career account is aimed at job seekers who want to view their competition, receive InMail credits, see who has viewed their profile in the past 90 days, and enjoy all the features of a Basic LinkedIn account. A Premium Career account is designed for active job seekers and professionals seeking to network and find growth opportunities in their field.
Why Is LinkedIn Premium So Expensive?
Not everyone would consider it expensive. LinkedIn Premium Career is less than $40 a month for a wide range of tools to help you polish your professional profile and find potential new jobs or career advancement opportunities. Premium Career accounts can access 16,000 expert-led LinkedIn learning courses. All for less than $10 a week, which some job seekers might say is an affordable way to network, while others may think it is too expensive.
The Bottom Line
Whether LinkedIn’s premium features are worth it, the extra price is something you won’t likely know until you try the service. Fortunately, a one-month free trial is easy to set up. At the end of the trial, if you don’t feel you’ve gained enough benefit to justify the cost, you can drop back to the basic free membership service.
It’s important to note that extra features are only valuable if you use them. If you sign up for LinkedIn Premium Career, take the time to explore all available services and make an honest attempt to use them. Otherwise, you’ll never know which feature may have helped you land that dream job.