Perhaps the greatest benefit to maintaining a robust profile on LinkedIn is the possibility that a recruiter or law firm hiring authority may discover your profile and reach out to you about a job opportunity.
How can recruiters and hiring authorities you don’t know contact you about job opportunities? Are there steps you, a job seeker, must take to allow recruiters/hiring authorities to contact you? Do you need a paid account for recruiters/hiring authorities to contact you?
Connection Not Required to Send InMail
The recruiters/hiring authorities may contact you about job opportunities by sending you an InMail message on LinkedIn. The recruiters/hiring authorities don’t need to be connected to you to send an InMail.
Acceptance of InMail Messages Required
However, recruiters/hiring authorities can only send you an InMail message about an opportunity if you indicated in your LinkedIn Contact Settings that you will accept InMail messages. Thus, the burden is on you, the job seeker, to set your account to receive InMails.
To check to see if you accept InMails, click on Settings in the upper right menu bar.
Scroll down until you see the Email Notifications category on the left side of your page. You may stop here if LinkedIn indicates that you are receiving InMails. If you aren’t receiving InMails but want to receive InMails, click on Contact Settings.
Then, click the second option, “I’ll accept Introductions and InMail.”
All Accounts May Receive InMail–Paid Account Not Required to Receive InMail
As you can see in the chart below comparing the various accounts on LinkedIn, anyone–including users with the free, basic LinkedIn account–may receive InMail messages.
You will note, however, that recruiters/hiring authorities must have a LinkedIn Business account or higher (and, most do) to send an InMail message.
Bottom Line for Job Seekers
- You DO need to accept InMail messages.
- You DON’T need a paid account.
