LinkedIn Premium? Yes or No?

LinkedIn Premium - do you use it? Several people have asked me lately if it’s worth upgrading and my answer has honestly been different for every person.

I've just been invited to have another free trial which I find amusing because I've used all the company versions of Premium throughout my career. I’d love to pull a: ‘Don’t you know who I am!’. Or more specifically, ‘Haven’t you looked through my data and noticed that I’ve used your premium many times and there’s probably a reason I’m not using it now?’ But no, it’s just the automatically generated offer that comes out exactly one year after your last trial. And I used to feel so special. 

The Hiring option, (or Recruiter Lite as it used to be) was pretty awesome when I was a recruiter with the sales leads, lots of Inmails and comprehensive search options that you could store/save/reallocate profiles within the LinkedIn platform. If you’re feeling rich (the most expensive option by far) use that one, I couldn’t fault it.

I used the Sales option free trial last year for when I became a ‘grown up’ Recruitment Consultant trying to get business connections and leads. It was fine, you could follow companies relatively easily and it gave you access to the key players. But I found it dull - it wasn’t them, it was me in all honesty.

My colleague used the Business option as her free trial and it seemed a watered-down version of Sales, she used it to search every conceivable business owner/decision maker in our market to connect with them. Yet again useful, but the Hiring option would have served us much better. 

So I have my free trial again and I’m eyeing the Career option - not to get hired (perhaps for a business writing contract), but because I’m dead curious to see what advantage it actually gives candidates in the job market. In this age of AI scraping information from Social Media looking for passive candidates I can’t help thinking just having a comprehensive profile (and using it) will get you noticed. However I can always give it a go to have a look and then write a blog about the experience.

My answer to the above questioners and anyone else that asks me? Use the free month to figure out if it works for you (and make sure you schedule a calendar reminder to cancel so you’re not charged). It may even be a 'You don't know what you've got til it's gone situation’ – there’s a song in that! 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/linkedin-premium-yes-kathryn-stewart