If you are currently employed and looking for confidentiality in a search for another job, you may have a tough task ahead of you — especially if you use LinkedIn during the search.
With this dilemma in mind, LinkedIn has recently introduced Open Candidates. As LinkedIn’s Dan Shapero writes:
“The secret to career happiness is finding a job you love, however there is no way to tell the world that you’re open to new opportunities without worrying about your employer finding out. But imagine if you could signal to recruiters everywhere that you’d like to hear from them, and by doing so increase your chances of having one of those magic moments when a recruiter reaches out with an amazing opportunity.”
“Introducing Open Candidates. Open Candidates is a new feature that makes it easier to connect with your dream job by privately signaling to recruiters that you’re open to new job opportunities. You can specify the types of companies and roles you are most interested in and be easily found by the hundreds of thousands of recruiters who use LinkedIn to find great professional talent. Open Candidates is accessible from the “Preferences” tab on the LinkedIn Jobs home page.”
Here’s a short video overview.
So, is this new service as good as it seems? Maybe! Consider these observations from
“When you opt in to the new feature, called Open Candidate, recruiters are able to see that you are interested in potential opportunities. At the same time, LinkedIn will do its best to block your information from appearing to recruiters at your company or its subsidiaries. When you opt in, you can select a few specifics about what type of job you would like, what city you want to work in, and write a short message to potential recruiters.”
“Though LinkedIn does its best to hide your information from recruiters at or affiliated with your company, Dan Shapero notes that they can’t guarantee that it won’t be seen. Still, he says that early testing of the feature has been successful on all sides: so-called ‘open candidates’ are more likely to be contacted by recruiters and recruiters are more likely to hear back from them.”
The bottom line: The likelihood of your new job search being confidential on LinkedIn depends on how active your current employer is on LinkedIn — and social networkers do communicate with one another. Working with recruiters OFF-line will still be more confidential.