When job hunting, broadcasting your search seems logical, yet the LinkedIn “open to work” feature—a green frame around one’s profile photo indicating availability for employment—divides opinion among career professionals.
Former Google recruiter and CEO of FairComp, Nolan Church, brands it “the biggest red flag” for job candidates. He subscribes to the belief that top talent isn’t actively job hunting and thus wouldn’t need to broadcast their availability.
Lindsay Mustain, a former Amazon recruiter and career coach, is Echoing this sentiment and argues that recruiting hinges on a power dynamic. She suggests displaying neediness via the banner could diminish a candidate’s leverage.
However, contrary views exist, and LinkedIn’s statistics suggest benefits to the feature. Since its introduction in June 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the “open to work” banner has been adopted by over 33 million LinkedIn members.
The banner was designed to address the sudden spike in unemployment and complements an existing feature that allowed users to notify recruiters of their job-seeking status discreetly.
LinkedIn data reveals that profiles with the banner activated are twice as likely to receive messages from recruiters and see a 20% increase in communication from the broader LinkedIn community, which often includes job opportunities.
Angelina Darrisaw, founder of the executive coaching firm C-Suite Coach, points out the particular utility of the banner for smaller enterprises with limited recruitment budgets.
It simplifies identifying potential candidates, allowing the quality of these candidates to be assessed during the interview process rather than prematurely judging their status indication.
The effectiveness of the “open to work” feature also depends significantly on the robustness of one’s LinkedIn profile. Career coach Phoebe Gavin notes that without a substantive profile, the banner offers slight advantage, emphasizing that a well-rounded profile is crucial in attracting genuine interest from recruiters.
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