Can I Block My Employer From Seeing My Linkedin Profile?

When you connect with your employer on LinkedIn, whether it's one boss or manager or a group of them, you're allowing access to most if not all of the details in your profile. So it's best, if you think a situation might arise in which you wouldn't want your employer to see your profile, to avoid connecting with him. That could be tricky, though, in those companies that require or urge employees to be connected via LinkedIn. In that case, you either have to endure it or be the rebel and risk alienation or termination.

If you work at a company where being on LinkedIn isn't required or encouraged, then you can prevent your employer from seeing your public profile. The public profile is visible to LinkedIn members who are not in your network as well as to people who find you just doing an Internet search. The problem is, you can't prevent just your employer from seeing your public profile; you have to prevent everyone. If that's what you want to do, however, sign in to your LinkedIn account, place your cursor over your name on the menu bar and click "Settings." Then click "Edit your public profile" and select the "Make my public profile visible to no one" option.

Another option in your public profile is to make only certain elements invisible, not the entire profile. For example, by keeping your public profile visible to everyone, your employer could view your name and location -- things he knows anyway -- but not other details. You can restrict your employer and others from seeing what LinkedIn groups you've joined, links to your personal or professional websites, published works and more. To do this, access your account settings and select only the features you'd want your employer to see in your public profile.

But even if you are connected to your employer on LinkedIn, you can limit what she can see, which is especially useful if you have been updating your profile in order to explore job opportunities outside the company and you don't want your employer to know about it. From your LinkedIn Settings menu, you can opt to turn off updates about your LinkedIn activity as well as notifications about what LinkedIn groups you join.