Ever since people stopped trading carrots & celery for cows & chickens, the exchange of skills for a standardized exchangeable commodity was formed (Ie work for money), the people with the money have done all they could to prevent the people doing the work going elsewhere (at least the ones that did good work).

Fast forward several hundred years, the market for skills and talents opened up like an epileptic flasher. Job boards like monster allowed you to post your resume for all to see and peruse. You could create a personal website and list your skills, achievements and veiled availability for your next move under the guise of an ego trip.

Since 2003, with LinkedIn and the perceived professionalism of the must-have profile (job seeker or not) has made employers sleep less at night.

Some have resorted to forcing employees to remove their profiles, some restricted access to LinkedIn within office premises. Some even take to recommending what should be displayed on the profiles if all else fails. One reportedly got fired for having a LinkedIn profile, another got her account hijacked when her employer was acquired.

Employees have not helped by artificially inflating titles, contributions & achievements. Some even become employees in their dream company simply by hitting the edit button. This has made LinkedIn get on the same restricted access list as porn sites, How-to-build-a-nuclear-bomb-in-your-basement forums & click-to-get-infected sites. LinkedIn is such a suspicious platform, it is now NSFW!

With each update made on your profile, HR & line managers raise a critical brow at the audacious act. Colleagues slyly wink at the water cooler casting aspersions at your intent. Recruiters take note and call you (That’s a tip BTW). At the next performance review, conversions start with “I noticed you updated your LinkedIn profile recently…..”

So what happens if you’re a quietly-searching-for-next-job employee or you simply want to update your profile picture work your post-face-lift mug shot without getting attention?

Here’s how you do it:- When you are editing your profile, watch out for the GREEN toggle button on the right hand side of the screen. It is labelled “NOTIFY YOUR NETWORK?” The default is “YES” meaning that any changes you make to your profile will be shared with everyone in your network. Remember to toggle this to “NO” until you are ready for the world to see you.

Happy updating!