Is LinkedIn Job Seeker Premium Worth the Price One Womans Story...

Is LinkedIn Job Seeker Premium Worth the Price One Womans Story... Many people approach me to ask whether it’s worth the price to subscribe to LinkedIn Job Seeker Premium.   One of my subscribers, Susan Poseika, signed up for the one-month free trial and was kind enough to share her evaluation of the service.   Her experience is anecdotal only one person’s experience and does not necessarily predict what anyone else will experience. Still, I thought it would be valuable to share. As background, I invite you to read an article I wrote about LinkedIn’s Job Seeker Premium.   You might also want to view LinkedIns VIDEO about the service, available HERE. LinkedIn claims the following advantages of Linkedin Job Seeker Premium on the subscription page: Get noticed by recruiters and hiring managers with a JobSeekers Badge Zero in on $100K+ jobs with detailed salary information Move to the top of the list as a featured applicant Contact anyone directly through InMail response guaranteed See who has viewed your profile with details Get introduced to the companies you are targeting Let recruiters message you for free through OpenLink Get Priority Customer Service Below is what Susan reported as her experience with Job Seeker Premium: Get noticed by hiring managers and recruiters with LinkedIn badge: I did not notice a difference with this feature. Recruiters had contacted me when I did not have the badge; however, during the month I had the badge, there was nothing. After I took the badge off (after the free month) I still did not see any change. Move to top of the list as Featured Applicant: I did not notice a difference from this feature. InMail: With InMail, Linkedin members can contact anyone without knowing their contact information or going through introductions from other LinkedIn members. However, if you get a deep enough network, there would be a way to connect with the same people, if not through direct invitations, then through introductions. Note from Brenda:   Two other ways to connect with people you don’t know are 1) by joining a group where you are both members 2) by looking for the person’s email address, either in the person’s profile (many members include their email address) or by searching the web.   If you know a person’s company then often you can figure out their email address.   For instance, if you are looking for Peter Cantor who works at samplecompany, go to samplecompany.com and find an email address.   If you find sarahj@samplecompany.com, then you have a good chance that Peter’s email address is peterc@samplecompany.com. Who has viewed your profile: With the Free version, you can see who has viewed your profile over the last week only. With Premium, however, you can see who has viewed your profile over the last week, last month, or more. In both cases, you can view a trend chart  of profile viewing. The trend chart is an excellent feature that allows you to see whether profile viewing is going up or down. For those job seekers who check once a week, the Premium account won’t really give you anything you don’t already have. Note from Brenda:   With the paid service, you can see the full list of the people who viewed you. With a free account you can only see the most recent five viewers.   Whether you have a paid or free account, you can see the names of your viewers IF they set their privacy settings to allow you to see them. Otherwise you will get only a description of their industry. Get introduced to target companies: With the Free version, you can get introduced, through one of your contacts, to up to a maximum of five targeted companies. With the Premium version, you have the potential of twenty-five. OpenLink Networker: I did not notice a difference with this option. Back to Brenda: Where I’m left with all this is that if you can afford it and you are targeted in your job search, you may as well use the enhanced service.   One thing Susan didn’t mention is that the service provides tools to help keep your job search organized.   She tells me she did not have a chance to test-drive that aspect of the service, and believes it would be quite useful over time. â€Å"If you can,† recommends Susan, â€Å"take advantage of any free one-month offer, have a targeted strategy, and use the service to its maximum potential. By doing so, you should see this feature leading to off-line/personal contact, which is the goal of using of Job Seeker Premium.† I couldn’t agree more.   And if you have a story to share about LinkedIn Job Seeker Premium, you might be featured in a future blog! Need Linkedin profile writing or strategy assistance?   Contact The Essay Expert for a 15-minute consultation.