LinkedIn Now Lets You Shop for Jobs without Your Boss Knowing, Here’s How to Do It

In a move that’s sure to entice more people to use its professional platform, LinkedIn has rolled out the ‘Open Candidates’ feature, which lets users privately reach out to recruiters and avoid the potential awkwardness of having their current employers find out.

LinkedIn has also unveiled updates to businesses’ career pages in tandem with Open Candidates, in a bid to make its platform the go-to spot for hirers and job-seekers. And there’s a considerable market for such services, according to LinkedIn, because as many 77% of employees are open to other opportunities, even if they aren’t quite sure where they see themselves in five years.

Recruiting services, called ‘Talent Solutions’ on LinkedIn, also generates the lion’s share of the social media platform’s income. Last quarter, it yielded between $558 million and $861 million in sales, according to Techcrunch.

“This is a signal to recruiters that you want to hear from them,” explained Eric Owski, LinkedIn’s head of talent brand products, according to Venture Beat.

How to Enable ‘Open Candidates’

To access Open Candidates, toggle your preferences on LinkedIn’s jobs homepage and select the “Let recruiters know you’re open” option. From there, you will be prompted to specify the field and position you’re open to and LinkedIn will transmit the info to relevant recruiters while hiding it from your current boss and any other affiliated companies.

The Open Candidates feature lasts for three months after which you’ll have to refresh it by going through the above process again. So far, the feature’s been tested in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia and has already attracted around 1 million candidates, out of 450 million LinkedIn members.