LinkedIn Tip for Non-Premium Account Holders

booleanstrings Uncategorized 11 Comments

If you use people search on LinkedIn and get a person that is “outside of your network” as one of the results, you will see a very minimal set of information and this message:

Expanded profile views are available only to premium account holders. Upgrade your account.

But you know what? You do not need to upgrade your account to see much more! Simply click on the public profile URL. This will let you see the profile as if you are logged out of your LinkedIn account. Take a look and you will see lots of info in the public profile – including positions held, companies, and schools, all with dates. You will also see the “show full profile” option – but if you select it, you will get back to not seeing much and an invitation to upgrade your account.

Here is a random example of a LinkedIn profile of a person with zero connections, so none of us would be in the person’s network. Take a look and then click on the “full profile” button. (You might have to log into LinkedIn.) See the difference? The “full profile” shows much less…

I’d say that this is a case where the surface web has more information than the deep web 🙂

Of course, you will not see much if the profile owner hasn’t entered much data – many LinkedIn members don’t. But in this case, being a premium account holder wouldn’t help you either.

Now, if a profile of someone you find is “private”, you will not see a link to the public profile. However, in many cases I was able to find a public link to the profile in question anyway. If you are interested in a private profile that shows up in your search, I am open to helping you find out more information – please email me.

Oh, and I am happy to connect on LinkedIn, here’s my profile.

Comments 11

  1. Hi Irene,
    I would like to know more as well. As always, thanks for sharing your knowledge!

    Regards,
    Chrissy M

  2. Hi Irene,

    I would like to learn more about this technique as well. Thanks for sharing!

    Sincerely,
    Natallia

  3. Yes, I would like to know how to find a public profile when the account says private. Thanks for being there! Sincerely, Mercedes

  4. Pingback: Exploring Private Profiles on LinkedIn « Boolean Strings

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