Keeping Your LinkedIn Profile Edits a Secret!

Turning off LinkedIn Activity Broadcast Updates

This article is up to date as of 2023.

As a LinkedIn Profile Writer, my days are spent helping professionals optimize their LinkedIn profiles so they can put forth a professional and polished image that attracts opportunity like moths to a flame. Often I am asked by my clients if it’s possible to cloak their profile edits so employers aren’t tipped off that changes are being made.

Previously, LinkedIn sent notifications to your connections even for minor profile changes like adding a space. Having profile edits go out to their entire network struck fear and panic in many people’s hearts and made many people reluctant to edit their profiles. Another consequence was that few individuals engaged with their LinkedIn feeds due to the overwhelming number of inconsequential profile updates from connections, which obstructed valuable content. However, this situation has changed. LinkedIn has actively worked to enhance user engagement. Yes, you read that right, engagement! LinkedIn aims to retain user attention and encourage them to peruse their newsfeeds. As part of this effort, they have ceased sending out frequent, insignificant notifications.

LinkedIn no longer notifies your network of profile edits. Instead, LinkedIn only notifies your network of key career changes such as:

  • New Job
  • Work Anniversaries
  • New Certificates
  • New Education

If you never want LinkedIn to share job changes, education changes, or work anniversaries with your network, you can turn off these profile updates. 

Here are the steps:

Stop LinkedIn From Sharing Profile Edits with your Network

  1. Click your image in the upper right-hand corner of LinkedIn. 
  2. Click Settings & Privacy.
  3. Click the Visibility tab.
  4. Click Share profile updates with your network
  5. Toggle the Share key profile updates switch to No.

Rather than follow these directions, just click here -> Turn on/off your profile notifications with your network.  

Manually Removing LinkedIn Profile Updates Broadcast to Your Network

Oh no! Did LinkedIn notify your network of a new job or work anniversary and you are getting besieged in messages congratulating you? Don’t panic, just delete the update!

  1. Click your image in the upper right-hand corner of your screen.
  2. A drop list appears, under Manage, click Posts & Activity.
  3. Find the update you want to remove and click the three dots in the upper right-hand area and click Delete Post. That activity will be deleted.

If You Are Ever Confronted About Your LinkedIn Activity

It’s a new world out there and many people still don’t get it. If you are ever confronted by an employer for having an optimized LinkedIn profile or for being active on LinkedIn, it’s important to use this as a teaching experience. Let the person know that LinkedIn is above all else a professional networking site. LinkedIn offers a perfect way to connect with professionals, prospects, clients, vendors, business partners, etc… NOT JUST RECRUITERS! LinkedIn offers a visual, digital business card and career profile. By optimizing it, you are making sure you are found by the right people and are projecting the right, unique image which will reflect positively on your company.

I wish you the best of luck and if I can ever be of any assistance, please contact me!

Power Up Your LinkedIn Headline

Access my LinkedIn Headline Generator to get MORE VIEWS to your LinkedIn profile and MORE OPPORTUNITY!

Access my LinkedIn Headline Generator app to boost your brand and achieve higher placement in LinkedIn Search results. Your profile will get more views and you will collide with amazing opportunities! All it takes is a couple of clicks and in seconds you have an engaging, professional LinkedIn Headline that impresses. It's fast, easy, and completely free.

Instant Access
CTA Illustration

14 Comments

  1. interesting article- though i’ve found even with my activity feed setting “visible only to me” and my activity broadcasts turned off, my connections are still seeing when i join groups and occasionally other activities… it would be nice to know how to go completely silent.

  2. This is a hugely non-friendly user site loaded with redundant password demands and incredibly confusing and hard to find setting changes. You have to become a near-expert to control what you do here, which I definitely am not interested in. Hence, I, like many here, are sending and receiving alerts and announcements we don’t care to send or receive.

    I also find it incredibly invasive and almost creepy that somehow I’m being hooked up with certain people I care not to “link” with. It makes me wonder, what is being put out there to others I can’t see? I mean, seriously, there are connections Linked encourages me to link with that honestly, has nothing to do with business or family. Again, it’s invasive and makes me feel as if I have zero control. Then it suggests people I may want to hook up with, and after clicking one or two, find myself back at the log in page. Then it shows the same people I may wish to connect with. Totally infuriating and not user-friendly.

    And let’s not forget this is the website that got hacked by amateurs two years ago and all members had their passwords stolen. Then they send a message out to members like, “Your information is secure with us. However due to a recent breach you may wish to change your password.” Oh really? How is it, if they stole my password, that my information is “secure”? And what if I used a similar password for my banking let’s say, how is it I should not feel violated? A crappy website.

  3. I wanted to change my settings so that I dont all my first connections notified when I connect with someone new. I followed the instructions above but my connections still receive notifications.

  4. I don’t like the way that LinkedIn includes my recent connections in the weekly round up. As an independent consultant I don’t necessarily want to broadcast when I connect to new clients. Event though I have turned off my activity broadcasts my new connections still seem to appear in other people’s weekly round up. Is there a way to stop this happening?

  5. Very helpful article — thanks!

    I found your Group Broadcast comments a little confusing; could you please clarify? Specifically, you state that, “Turning off your Activity broadcast updates doesn’t turn off the broadcasting of Groups you joined.” Immediately afterwards, you discuss joining groups anonymously by manually removing the update.

    My confusion — If my activity (joining a group) is broadcast no matter what, it seems like the damage is already done at that point (at the time I join). In other words, if notification of the group join is sent at the time that I join, then removing it from my timeline only keeps it off my timeline — it doesn’t keep others from being notified that I joined a new group. Or am I missing something?

    Thanks

  6. I don’t know who put my name in and done a profile for me.
    I would like my name,
    My profile and my details to be removed from LinkedIn members lust.
    How do I do that?
    I don’t even have any password.
    Thank you,
    Anat.

    1. You are absolutely right– In fact, whenever I update a client’s photo, I immediately check their activity feed and delete the update regarding the new photo. It’s a bit annoying and clearly a bug. Perhaps LinkedIn will fix it.

  7. You know what else is annoying? Continuing to get activity feeds from contacts you have explicitly REMOVED. If I make the decision to remove a contact, why in the world would I want to get their activity updates? Why would I want to know that they “liked” somebody’s picture or commented on some silly puzzle or cartoon? I hate LinkedIn, personally. It’s a necessary evil when I am looking for a new job. Other than that, it’s just another massive hole blown in my privacy and makes me feel like I am in high school again.

  8. Hi Donna,

    For some reason I cannot see in the activity feed whenever a new connection is added to my account. I see other peoples additions but not my own. I checked all of my privacy settings but nothing works. Can you help?

    Thanks so much!
    Jennifer

  9. Zafar Iqbal says:

    Thanks. As whenever we add a new connection, a message is shared with our connections. So as there any way to hide only such kind of message/post from our connections?

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Get an Optimized LinkedIn Headline… Automatically!

Widget BG
LinkedIn Headline Generator App

Instant Access

More than just LinkedIn Makeovers!
Resumes, Executive Branding, Social Media Strategy and more

Our Services

Questions? Contact me!

Donna Serdula 215-839-0008

Location Philadelphia, PA :: EST

Contact Me

Latest Blog Entries

Disclaimer

I LOVE LinkedIn! But I am not endorsed by or affiliated with LinkedIn in any way whatsoever.

There is NO relationship or affiliation with, sponsorship, or endorsement by LinkedIn with this Website.

Absolutely NO content has been authorized by or represents the views or opinions of LinkedIn or LinkedIn personnel.

LinkedIn Makeover is simply a description of a service I provide. My company is called Vision Board Media.