Is LinkedIn Premium Worth the Investment? A Guide to Help You Decide
You may have wondered if LinkedIn Premium is worth the money. LinkedIn has become an indispensable tool for modern professionals looking to expand their career opportunities. Like many social media platforms, it offers free and paid services.
Job seekers want their job search to be as short and cost-efficient as possible. Therefore, many wonder whether the added benefits are worth the cost. It can be a confusing and overwhelming decision, especially for those still determining what they stand to gain from the service and whether they will get value for their money.
I want to help you understand what you get for the money to help you choose if it is right for you.
What premium services does LinkedIn offer?
The following are the various Premium subscriptions offered by LinkedIn, each with its unique features:
Premium Career: This subscription option is aimed at job seekers with additional features to help with a job search.
Sales Navigator: This option aids in lead generation and client building.
Recruiter Lite: This subscription provides access to advanced search and filtering tools, allowing users to quickly find and hire talented candidates.
Recruiter: This subscription offers additional features, including collaborative hiring tools, candidate management tools, and access to the LinkedIn network.
Premium Business: This option provides detailed business insights, enabling businesses to expand further.
LinkedIn Learning: This subscription facilitates skill improvement and acquisition through various learning opportunities.
Since most readers are interested in premium offerings relevant to a job search, I will focus on Premium Career.
LinkedIn Premium Career Offerings
LinkedIn Premium Career provides exclusive tools and resources to help professionals advance their careers. This premium offering is specifically tailored to job seekers. It provides access to various features to help them stand out, gain insights into potential employers, and increase their chances of securing their dream job.
InMails
InMails are a messaging feature on LinkedIn that allows users to send messages to other LinkedIn members with whom they are not connected. InMails can be sent to anyone on LinkedIn, including recruiters, potential employers, and other professionals in a user's industry. Unlike regular LinkedIn messages, InMails do not require the recipient to be a first-degree connection, which makes them a helpful tool for networking and job searching. LinkedIn Premium Career members receive 5 InMails each month and can also purchase additional InMails if needed.
For those actively networking and engaging with others in their industry, InMails can effectively connect with recruiters, potential employers, and other professionals who may not be in their immediate network. If an individual is not using LinkedIn regularly or has no clear strategy for using InMails to advance their career, it may not be worth the additional investment.
Here are some workaround ideas to connect with individuals without access to InMails.
Connection requests: You can try to connect with the person you want to reach out to by sending them a personalized connection request. If they accept your request, you can send them a free message without using InMail.
Mutual connections: If you have a mutual connection with the person you want to contact, you can ask your mutual connection to introduce you via a LinkedIn message or email.
Group messaging: If you are both members of the same LinkedIn group, you can message individual group members.
Email: If you have the person's email address, you can contact them directly via email.
Other social media platforms: If the person you want to reach out to is active on other social media platforms, such as Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, you can contact them there.
Who's Viewed Your Profile
The "Who's viewed your profile" feature on LinkedIn is available in both the Basic (free) and Premium versions, but with some differences between the two:
Basic (free) account:
Displays the five most recent profile viewers in the last 90 days and suggestions to increase profile views.
Shows viewer insights, including the number of viewers, interesting views, where viewers work, where they found your profile, and their job titles.
Premium account:
Displays the entire list of viewers from the past 90 days, along with viewer trends and insights.
Includes weekly viewer insights, such as the number of viewers in the past 90 days and the percentage of increase or decrease of viewers since the last week.
Provides a graph with weekly viewer trends, with the ability to see viewer insights for a particular week by clicking on the data points.
Offers suggestions for interesting viewers based on the user's activity and interests on LinkedIn, including jobs they have applied for.
Being able to see more than the last five viewers can be handy for those that are either not on LinkedIn routinely but want to see the names of potential people to connect with or are very active on the platform and have a lot of viewers of their profile and so might miss names. Essential to get the most out of this feature would be to have a strategy of what you will do with the information you receive.
Applicant Insights
Job seekers can see the followings details on job postings that they're interested in:
The number of people who've already applied for the job you're viewing.
A percentage-based ranking of how your profile compares to other applicants, including experience and skills. You'll see your ranking as a percentage (if you're within the top 50% of applicants).
A list of top skills among the applicant pool, including the skills that you have in common.
The experience and education levels of applicants.
Jobs Insights
You can also check out the jobs homepage, which includes the following:
Jobs where you're a top applicant: A list of job postings where you're in the top 50% of applicants based on the current role, experience, and skills listed on your profile.
A list of fastest growing companies for those in your field, based on the number of people with industries and job titles similar to yours that were hired in the past 12 months.
Company Insights
Job seekers can see the followings details about a company they're interested in:
The number of employees and hiring trends over the past 24 months
Growth rate of the company over the past 24 months
Median tenure of employees at the current company (and the ability to view the top job titles, if available)
Employee distribution and headcount growth by function
New hires and recent senior leadership hires
Notable company alumni
Total job openings
Interview Prep
Expert-approved sample interview answers in addition to the ability to practice your answers to interview questions through video or writing a response.
Resume Insights
This nifty feature lets you upload your resume and pick a job title. LinkedIn then will compare information about the words associated with the desired job title with the resume and give you the following information:
Keywords found in your resume
Suggested keywords
A check of how your resume formatting works in an Applicant Tracking System.
This can be helpful when updating your resume for a specific job to ensure you have the appropriate keywords.
Other platforms allow you to do the same thing, except they match your resume to a specific job description, such as Jobscan and Resume Worded.
Private Browsing
LinkedIn offers a private mode feature for its members to browse profiles without revealing their identity to the owners of the profiles they view. This can be useful for various purposes, such as finding potential job candidates, sales leads, clients, or business partners. However, this feature has certain limitations depending on your LinkedIn account type.
Basic (free) account holders who browse in private mode cannot see the people who have viewed their profile.
Premium account holders can still see the list of individuals who have viewed their profile in the last 90 days, even when browsing in private mode.
A workaround is to turn Private mode on while viewing the profiles of others you don't want to know you are viewing and turn it off when finished with your research.
Open Profile
The Open Profile Premium feature on LinkedIn enables anyone to message a Premium member without being in their network, free of charge. Additionally, all LinkedIn members have full access to the profiles of Premium members who have enabled Open Profile.
LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning is an online educational platform that offers over 5,000 courses to help users develop business, technology-related, and creative skills. The platform uses expert-led course videos and personalized recommendations to help users discover, complete, and track courses related to their fields and interests. Additionally, users can add these courses and related skills to showcase their expertise to potential employers. Learning subscriptions offer several benefits, including:
Access to the entire LinkedIn Learning library of content.
Recommendations based on the skills that you're interested in.
Exercise files and assessments, and transcripts for many of the courses.
The ability to view and download videos offline.
There are some ways to get access to Linkedin Learning for free. Military community members, including active-duty service members, veterans, and military spouses, are eligible for free access to LinkedIn Learning. This is part of LinkedIn's commitment to supporting the military community and helping service members and their families to build the skills they need to succeed in their civilian careers.
Also, some public libraries offer free access to LinkedIn through their computers or a library card. To find out if your library provides access to LinkedIn, you can visit their website or contact them directly.
At various times, LinkedIn will also offer some of its courses for free for a specific duration of time. You can keep an eye out for these promotions.
LinkedIn Learning is a nice feature IF you will be using it regularly. But, it might not be worth the cost if…
You do not have a specific need or interest in the courses offered on the platform.
You can access similar educational resources at a lower cost or for free.
You do not have the time to commit to taking courses and completing them.
You plan on using something other than the skills learned on LinkedIn Learning in your personal or professional life.
What Is the Cost of LinkedIn Premium Career?
As of this writing (March 2023), LinkedIn Premium Career costs $29.99 per month in the US, with the option to purchase an annual subscription at a discounted rate.
Does It Make Sense to Get LinkedIn Premium Career?
This is an often-asked question. To determine if LinkedIn Premium Career is worth the cost, it's important first to evaluate your job search strategy and consider how the features of LinkedIn Premium Career will support it. Keep in mind that the features of LinkedIn Premium Career may only be necessary for some job seekers. Here are some key factors to consider:
Are you already utilizing the free features of LinkedIn effectively? If not, it may be more beneficial to master the free features before considering a paid subscription.
Review LinkedIn Premium Career's different features and determine which are most relevant to your job search strategy.
Evaluate LinkedIn Premium Career's cost and ensure it aligns with your budget. If you can't afford the subscription, or it doesn't make financial sense, stick with the free features.
Finally, make sure you understand how to utilize the features effectively. It's important to use LinkedIn Premium Career intentionally and ensure you're using it to support your job search strategy.
To try LinkedIn Premium Career, you can sign up for a free one-month trial. Check it out and see if the features are worth the cost. If they are, great! If not, cancel your subscription and use the many great features already available for free.
You might also be interested in new LinkedIn features to help you with your job search.
Shelley Piedmont is a Career Coach. She wants to help job seekers put their best foot forward by providing the tools for a successful job search. I help job seekers prepare for interviews. You can engage me to help you prep for any type of interview. Schedule a 15-minute no-obligation consultation.