LinkedIn Open to Work: Who Sees It and How to Turn It Off

What Open to Work shows, and to whom

Open to Work on LinkedIn is a short set of job preferences attached to your profile: job titles, location types, locations, start date, and employment types. LinkedIn says that when you fill these in, it will "help your profile show up in search results when recruiters look for suitable job candidates." The main choice is who can see it, and LinkedIn's Open to Work help page lists three options:

With Recruiters only, LinkedIn says your preferences are not added to your LinkedIn profile, and Recruiter users can find you based on them when they search for profiles. Its page on privacy for shared career interests lists what it shares with them, if you provided it:

• A flag that you are open to hearing about new opportunities
• The job titles or roles you are interested in
• Whether you are open to full-time or contract work
• The date you flagged yourself as open to new opportunities

Because recruiters see the date you turned it on, a status you set long ago shows up as old.

Can your current employer see that you're open to work?

With All LinkedIn Members, yes. LinkedIn says that audience "includes recruiters and people at your current company." It adds the #OpenToWork frame to your profile photo, and your career interests are added to your profile, where any LinkedIn member who views it, including people at your current company, can see them.

With Recruiters only, LinkedIn tries to stop it. It compares a company ID for the current employer on your profile with the company ID of each Recruiter user, and hides your career interests from Recruiter users at your company and at companies it maps as related. LinkedIn's Open to Work page says it "can't guarantee complete privacy." The privacy page names the weak points: a company may not be identified correctly, related companies may not be mapped, and a recruiter's company ID may be out of date, "so there's a small chance" a recruiter at your employer sees it.

Given how the check works, keep two things in mind before you turn it on:

• Make sure your current job is on your profile and marked "I am currently working here." LinkedIn uses that company to decide whose recruiters to hide your status from. If no current job is listed, LinkedIn's documented check has no employer to compare against, so do not count on it.
• LinkedIn describes the check only in terms of a recruiter's own company and companies affiliated with your employer. These help pages say nothing about recruiters at outside staffing agencies, so do not assume they are blocked.

If being found out would cost you your job, the safest choice is Visible only to you, or leaving Open to Work off and applying to jobs yourself.

Photo frame or recruiters only: which to choose

I think turning on Open to Work, either with the frame or for recruiters only, is worth it for most people. Rohan Rajiv, a director of product management at LinkedIn, wrote in 2020 that "turning on Open to Work on your LinkedIn profile increases your likelihood of getting a recruiter message by 2X," as quoted by ERE. That figure covers turning Open to Work on in general and does not separate the frame from Recruiters only.

LinkedIn's sales page for Recruiter lists "Identify 'Open to work' talent instantly" among the filters it offers recruiters. Recruiters only puts your status in front of those users, without the frame.

People disagree about the frame. A former Google recruiter, Nolan Church, called it "the biggest red flag on LinkedIn," and the same ERE piece, from November 2023, reports an informal LinkedIn poll aimed at recruiters, answered by nearly 3,000 people, where 70% said the banner is good, 7% said bad, and 18% were neutral. ERE notes the poll is not scientific.

How I would decide:

• You are employed and your employer does not know: Recruiters only. The frame is shown to your coworkers by design, and Recruiters only still puts you in recruiter searches.
• You are between jobs or your employer already knows (a layoff, a contract ending): the frame is a reasonable choice. Its main extra is that former colleagues and other contacts who see your photo know you are looking and can pass on roles. If you are worried about how the frame reads to hiring managers, Recruiters only gets you the recruiter searches without the public signal.
• You only want better job recommendations: Visible only to you.

If you share it with recruiters or all members, the job titles and locations you enter matter most, because LinkedIn uses them to help your profile show up when recruiters search.

What to enter so recruiters find you

To turn it on, use the Open to button at the top of your profile and choose Finding a new job (the same in the app). You pick the visibility in that same window.

What you enter decides which recruiter searches you show up in:

• Job titles: use the titles employers put on postings for the jobs you want, not your company's internal title. If you would take two kinds of roles, add both.
• Location types and locations: include every place you would really work. A recruiter searching for candidates in a city you left off may not find you.
• Start date: set it to when you could actually start, counting any notice period you owe.
• Employment types: select only the types you would actually accept. LinkedIn tells recruiters whether you are open to full-time or contract work.

Open to Work helps recruiters find you. If you also want to see new postings for the same titles as they go up, set up LinkedIn job alerts.

How to change who sees it or turn Open to Work off

You can edit everything from the Edit icon on the Open to Work box at the top of your profile (the same icon in the app). Change your titles, locations, or visibility there, or click Delete to turn Open to Work off completely.

To switch from the #OpenToWork frame to Recruiters only, you have two routes: change who can see it in that edit window, or click your profile photo, choose Frames, and pick "Share 'Open to Work' with recruiter only" from LinkedIn's frame options. Either way Open to Work stays on, shared with recruiters only.

Before you delete, note that LinkedIn says "you can re-enable it at any time, but your previous preferences won't be saved." If you might turn it back on later, copy your job titles and locations somewhere first.

The Frames menu also has "Remove 'Open to Work' from profile," which LinkedIn says removes "this feature completely from your profile," not just the frame. If you only want the frame gone, choose the recruiter-only option instead.

Why your Open to Work status disappeared

If your Open to Work status is gone and you don't remember deleting it, these are the likely reasons:

• You stopped answering recruiter InMails. LinkedIn says that if it notices you stop responding to InMails from recruiters, it emails you to confirm you are still open to work, and without a confirmation it removes Open to Work "until you manually enable it again." Look for that email in your inbox and spam folder. If it is too late, turn the feature back on and check that your preferences are still filled in.
• The frame was removed through the Frames menu. "Remove 'Open to Work' from profile" deletes the whole feature, as described above.
• Only the frame is gone. If the visibility was changed to Recruiters only or Visible only to you, the frame disappears but the setting is still on. Check for the Open to Work box at the top of your profile before you set it up again.

LinkedIn does not say what counts as responding. If you want to keep the status, replying to recruiter InMails, even with a short no thanks, and watching for the confirmation email is the safest approach.