Can people see who viewed their LinkedIn profile? The answer is yes. LinkedIn will show you exactly who has discovered and viewed your LinkedIn page.
This information is very important to know and understand. This is especially true if you intend on using your LinkedIn profile to find a job.
Who viewed my LinkedIn profile?
The specific tool we're talking about is 'who viewed my profile'. It's full features are available as part of a 30-day free trial of LinkedIn Learning which you can access here.
Many people do not realise this LinkedIn tool exists, let alone how to use the insights it provides. If you're one of these people, you've missed out on a powerful LinkedIn tool. But don't worry, you're in the right place.
If you learn to use this tool, it can provide a big boost to your job search efforts. In fact it's an essential piece of the LinkedIn optimization process.
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Why do you need to see who viewed your LinkedIn profile?
Before we go any further, we need to answer this question.
The main reason people use LinkedIn is to increase their online visibility. LinkedIn is all about getting found online. But don't forget, you need to get found by the right people on LinkedIn!
This is why LinkedIn shows who's viewed your profile. Out of the 850M LinkedIn members, there is a small segment that can help you to grow your career. These are likely to be the recruiters that hire within your industry. Or the hiring managers, HR teams and decision makers in your target companies.
But if your LinkedIn profile is only viewed by a bunch of random people, it's no good to you.
Getting discovered on LinkedIn
You can harness LinkedIn's true potential when your profile attracts the right attention.
If your LinkedIn profile is not attracting the attention of the right people, you need to fix it. If you don't you are wasting your time on LinkedIn.
When you know who your LinkedIn profile is attracting, you can make adjustments. These informed adjustments will help you get found and hired.
To attract the right attention you'll need to optimize your LinkedIn profile.
When optimizing your LinkedIn profile I recommend using JobScan. Jobscan will scan your LinkedIn profile and the job descriptions of your target roles.
Jobscan will then tell you the exact keywords that you need to insert into your LinkedIn profile.
The end result is a LinkedIn profile that gets seen by the right people. You can create a free Jobscan profile here. (ad)
How to see who's viewed your LinkedIn profile
To access this feature from desktop, navigate to the left side of the home page and click on the 'Who Viewed Your Profile' link. You'll find it below your LinkedIn profile picture.
To access it on the mobile app, tap your profile picture, then 'view profile'. Now scroll down to the analytics section and locate the number of profile views that you've had. Click on this number to access the analytics.
Please note, if you haven't had any profile views in the last 90 days, this option will not be available to you.
How far back can you see who's viewed your LinkedIn profile?
The Who Viewed Your LinkedIn Profile feature shows you data from the past 90 days.
It also shows trends, plus further important insights about your viewers. We'll talk about why these are important later in this article.
What information will LinkedIn show you about your profile visits?
This depends on their privacy settings. There are three possibilities that you should be aware of:
Privacy settings open
If privacy settings are open you'll be able to see their name, headline, location, and industry. This is of course very helpful information.
In my experience as a recruiter, most LinkedIn members have their profile open. So you'll likely be able to see this information for most of your LinkedIn profile visitors.
Semi-private profile
If the profile is semi-private, you'll see limited information. This includes their job title, company, industry and place of education.
For example it might say VP of sales in manufacturing industry, or student at NYU, or someone who works at Heinz.
Private LinkedIn profile
If someone has their LinkedIn profile set to private mode you'll only see 'LinkedIn Member'.