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I’m not joking when I say this: one of the great pleasures of social media is the ability to lurk anonymously, consuming as much content as you want, without anyone actually knowing what content you’ve consumed. By remaining anonymous, you don’t have to worry about giving out a like, or leaving a comment, or pretending to be interested in someone when you’re really not. And, if you’re using LinkedIn, going anonymous has one additional advantage: it means that nobody can see that you’ve viewed their profile or checked them out online.
And, yet, few people actually know how to go into “anonymous mode” on LinkedIn. They mistakenly think that they are forced to leave behind little bread crumbs wherever they go on the platform, thereby letting everyone know what they are doing to change their career or upgrade their job. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Thanks to a quick little hack, anyone can go into anonymous mode on LinkedIn.
How to become invisible on LinkedIn
The process of going into anonymous browsing mode is actually much simpler than you might think. Once you’ve logged into your account, all you have to do is click the “me” button next to your tiny profile photo at the top of the screen. Once the “Account” drop down menu appears, just click “Settings & Privacy.”
After that, select “Visibility” and then “Profile Viewing Options.” And, there, voila! There’s the option that you will need to click: “Private Mode.” By toggling this on, you will officially become an “Anonymous LinkedIn Member.” And that means people checking their LinkedIn profiles for activity won’t see that you dropped by. Instead, they’ll just know that an “anonymous LinkedIn member” happened to stop by. But they won’t have any clue it’s you, no matter how tenacious they are. They’ll probably just assume that it’s a random stranger located in an entirely random city. They won’t have any clue it’s their co-worker located down the hall!
The big takeaway
There’s a bigger lesson here, and that is that you should always be aware of the privacy settings of a social network before you start using it. Often, the “default settings” are encouraged to make you as visible as possible. But, when it comes to all matters job-related, it’s not always favorable to be visible. You’ll be able to breathe a deep sigh of relief, knowing that your boss and co-workers have absolutely no idea that you plan on looking for a new job, or that you’ve been quietly amassing accomplishments and credentials on your Linkedin profile.
Just be aware – there are always trade-offs between privacy and visibility. If you’re actively looking for a new job, and everyone in your close circle of friends knows that, you might not want to remain in anonymous mode for any long amount of time. By remaining anonymous too long, you might miss out on some important job opportunities. But if you are still in passive job search mode, there’s nothing wrong with going invisible and lurking in the background.
