Is LinkedIn Premium worth it?

Water Cooler
#1

I’ve been wondering if the enhanced functionality is worth it. At the low end, the plans are like $29.99 a month, which can add up over time. It would be good to hear from users who have actually tried it. I would do the free month, but they want your credit card first, which I can’t stand.

#2

I don’t use it enough to justify, if you get it would be interested in knowing how much of a difference it makes.

#3

Generate a virtual credit card. Cancel it immediately after use.

#4

What is the purpose of going premium? What are your intentions?..

Also, do i get a t-shirt now i’m at 1000 AF points?..

#5

I think I did it years ago and concluded that it wasn’t really worth it. You do get to write people that have normally hidden their email-ability, but they can presumably ignore your emails as much as those who don’t pay.

I do recall that they make it really hard to unsubscribe. Aside from pleading with you like a relationship partner that doesn’t want to break up, I had to telephone them in order to get them to stop charging my card and the number you call is hidden deep in some link somewhere on the page.

Perhaps they’ve changed both the benefits and the unsubscribe options since then (it was just before financial crisis when I did it), but the experience definitely left a feeling that it wasn’t worth it.

#6

For job seekers - no

For headhunters - yes

IF you’re a job seeker, the only people who will respond to your messages are HR’s and they themselves don’t have any real recruiting power. Generally speaking, those who have the power to actually help you are far too busy to read and reply to LinkedIn messages.

When I tried it, I definitely added some big names to my network - but they never responded to my message, so it was a bit of a waste of money. But it could’ve just been me.

#7

I did the premium a couple of years ago so I could email someone we were interested in recruiting who was not in my network. Other than that, I found no benefit and it was a PITA to cancel the premium and go back to the normal free membership.

#8

No benefit at all. You can find someone’s email usually through the corporate site if you need to contact someone directly.

I’ve only paid for a job-service once and far exceeded my expectations. I was able to talk to a few MDs who received my resume but mostly HR but it’s how I found my current job.

#9

I think it was very marginal benefit

#10

I just have the free version. You can message all your contacts… and headhunters can contact you. What more do you need?

#11

I used it for 1 or 2 months during my job hunt and it was helpful in 2 ways

  1. it let me read up on people before contacting them. Since I was contacting alumni, that was helpful because it helped me cross over a small hurdle

  2. It let me know where I stood vs my competition when applying for jobs. When you apply for a position, it uses keywords, education, and years of experience (I’m guessing) to give you a rough percentile rank of how you compare vs other people that submitted an app already. When I saw messages like

“You would be in the top 10% of candidates” or

" you would not be in the top 50% of candidates"

that affected how I spent my time.

#12

^ This is very helpful to know that they have some algo like that. Thanks, mlwl.