An "Open to Work" Tag (On LinkedIn), May Keep the Recruiters Away!

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Acknowledgement: I thank my former colleague and friend, (Prof) Mr. Marmik Soni, who provided the idea to write a blog post on this topic.

LinkedIn has many features, that may seemingly help you to find a job or advance your career. It keeps adding new features too. One such feature is "Open to Work" badge that you can activate on LinkedIn. There are many ways to know how it works, so my focus here is not much on the functionality of this feature. Rather, this feature, which prima facie looks to be very helpful to a job seeker, may also have dark sides, which might not be easily noticed. So, here are observations on keeping "Open to Work" badge on.

Observations:

1. Whenever you send an invitation to connect to any senior manager or an entrepreneur, he/she will accept it or reject it, after viewing your profile. The biggest catch is here. If your "Open to Work" badge is visible, the invitees might think that your sole purpose to connect to them is to seek a job. They may not see much value in connecting to you. Remember one thing about networking, when I and you connect (on LinkedIn), we both must be able to see some value addition in that connection. If I see that our connection (on LinkedIn) will largely benefit you only, I may avoid accepting such an invitation.

2. Though LinkedIn does allow you to choose a setting that your "Open to Work" badge be visible only to the potential recruiters (who are registered on LinkedIn Recruiter platform as recruiters), and not your existing employer, this does not necessarily mean that your employer has no means and ways to know about it. The biggest risk is that, someone from the place where you apply, might get in touch with your immediate supervisor! So, the risk is always there.

3. The potential recruiters also want to recruit someone who is already having work (and not unemployed). So, this tag might turn out to be counter intuitive and may well keep the recruiters away! An employer, who is looking to recruit, may well contact you even if this tag does not appear in your photo.

4. You may well be contacted by the employers, who are not in your preference list. You may be spammed with irrelevant recruitment offers! If you still get contacted by unknown employers, you may better review their reputation at glassdoor before applying. 

5. Remember one thing, marketing your candidature (with or without "Open to Work" badge) may only bring you to the interview table. To get and sustain the job, you must perform on sustainable basis. The same principle applies to your LinkedIn profile. Your LinkedIn profile must be up-to-date with all your recent qualifications, experiences, certifications etc. You must avoid over marketing yourself. And, the posts on LinkedIn (at least the recent ones) will viewed very seriously by the potential employer. Meaning, any posts, that do not justify your candidature and profile, will only be harming your ability to get the job.

6. When you have "Open to Work" badge, you become "one of them" who are looking for a job. Assess well, if it suits your job search strategy. The strategy will be different for freshers vs experienced people. It also depends on the type of job you are looking for, the region you belong to, the salary expectations you have. If you are looking for extremely specific type of niche profile, this may really not help much. But, if you are desperate to land in a job, this one will work fine.

Conclusion:

Overall, the effort of this post was to create awareness on "Open to Work" function in LinkedIn. There are many other posts you can refer to learn more about it. I recommend this one in particular: https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthellmann/2020/07/20/job-seekers-be-careful-using-linkedins-new-open-to-work-feature/

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