Transcript
Speaker: So should I expose myself? What will my colleagues think? what What about my friends or my network? Can they ever unsee it once I've shown it publicly?
Speaker: Hey, wait, wait, wait, wait. wait what do you What do you think I'm talking about? I'm talking about the the green open to work frame on my LinkedIn profile. What were you thinking?
Speaker: Hi, my name is John Steck and this is the Ageism Survival Guide. And and I'm about to talk ah about a decision that you may not even know that you're making.
Speaker: Stay with me for the next minutes because most people, they think that they're choosing how their profile looks. They're not. They're actually choosing who gets to see it once they start looking for work. And that's a completely different decision. And it's one that frankly can potentially cost you an interview or it can even cost you a job.
Speaker: Here's the thing, LinkedIn, it doesn't give you ah a frame switch and ah and a privacy switch. there's There's no separate toggle for those. What they do have is they have three doors and you have to pick one of those.
Speaker: Door one is all LinkedIn members. That puts your job preferences out there in front of everyone on the platform. And LinkedIn then automatically adds that green open to work frame onto your profile photo. Everyone, and I mean everyone, can see that, including the people at your current company.
Speaker: Door two is for recruiters only. Your profile still surfaces for people searching with a paid recruiter seat. And importantly, no frame appears, no green ring, no signal, nothing on your profile.
Speaker: LinkedIn says that they take steps to stop recruiters um at at your company from seeing it. But they also say in their own documentation that they cannot guarantee complete privacy.
Speaker: Then there's door number three. It's visible only to you. That does nothing for anybody else. It just uses your preferences for job recommendations that you're going to see in your feed.
Speaker: So let me say the the quiet part. The choice between wearing the green ring and and not wearing it is all located in one dropdown menu, one dropdown in the same workflow.
Speaker: And here's what I always like, the the irony alert. The feature that many think is just a ah ah fashion decision on their photo, it's actually an audience decision.
Speaker: Who sees it? Before I go further, I want to know where you're standing. Which door are you at right now? Door one, visible to everyone. Door two, recruiters only. Or door three, you're still figuring it out,
Speaker: and showing nothing. Tell me in the comments down below, and I'm going to get back to this question at the end of the episode. Now, let me be really honest with you. There's a real case for going public. LinkedIn itself says that members who use the green frame, they get about 40% more in-mails from recruiters.
Speaker: and And they also get about 20% more um messages from their community, from their network. Now, That's LinkedIn's number about LinkedIn's own feature on their own platform. So you can treat it as their claim, not necessarily as ah as a study or as a fact.
Speaker: But here's the part that matters even more. Recruiters and your network are two completely different pipelines. And the green ring is the only one that talks to your network. The recruiter filter, it it gets you into the search results. that That is assuming that the recruiter has the setting turned on for open to work.
Speaker: On the other hand, the ring reminds the person that you worked with eight years ago that you're available now. And that person could very well know about a role before anyone posts it anywhere.
Speaker: As I've said before, if you tell nobody that you need help, that's exactly who's going to help you. Nobody. One career coach who works exclusively with senior professionals in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, they made a point actually better than I can. If you've built a strong and engaged network over the years, the green ring actually becomes an amplifier.
Speaker: She reports seeing clients announce redundancy or downsizing at their companies, and then they receive dozens of warm introductions within hours. warm introductions.
Speaker: That's what we're actually shopping for here. not Not volume of messages, but actual warm introductions. And and the frame, it also removes the the burden of having to go out there and tell everyone individually. you you You announce it all at once on your terms with an accompanying post, and then you move on and you search.
Speaker: But now the other side to the argument, and this is important, it's against the green frame. And for our audience, this one is actually heavier. First, you can't exclude your current employer.
Speaker: That's not my opinion. That's LinkedIn's own documented limitation. If you're still employed right now and somebody in your building looks you up, the green ring is right there. How do you think your employer and your boss is going to react to that green ring?
Speaker: Second, the market does not read the ring the same way in every single room. A former Google recruiter, Nolan Church, has publicly called it the biggest red flag on LinkedIn and said that it can read like desperation to a hiring manager.
Speaker: Now, that's one recruiter's opinion and plenty of people actually disagree with him. But you should know that that opinion exists because some hiring managers have it.
Speaker: Third, and and this is the part that should either exasperate you or anger you, the stigma compounds with age. In the threads I read this week, the fear people keep repeating was not about the banner. It was about what an older candidate actually already has to overcome. Being visibly in transition, it just adds one more data point to age bias that's already there. And and unlike a resume, it's difficult to to reframe it Fourth, there's the clock. It works against you.
Speaker: That ring is a permanent public status until you actually turn it off. So a search that's that's two weeks old, it looks one way. A search that's eight months old, it looks a different way with that badge. And there's no setting that says recently laid off versus long-term searching.
Speaker: Fifth, and this one actually surprised me, profiles carrying the green frame, they get they get targeted by fake recruiter outreach and phony listings. Back in 2022, for example, I received outreach from a recruiter about a position and ended up being nothing more than a camouflaged attempt to try to offer me resume writing services.
Speaker: In short, more inbound messages is not the same thing as better messages. Sixth, and think about this one really carefully. For director and executive level roles, the market expects your next role to arrive through your reputation and your network, not through a public availability badge.
Speaker: Your reputation and your network, they should be rock solid by now. So take that one into consideration. The approach is is is possibly fine in your early career, but it gets riskier as you climb because because it raises questions.
Speaker: And seventh, the the green ring is not a filter. It it it doesn't boost you in the recruiting searches. it It doesn't lift you out of that massive pile of AI-generated resumes. Instead, it only helps if your if your headline, your titles, your skills really match what the recruiter is looking for. an empty ring without the job titles or the preferences set in the background is is exactly that, an empty green ring.
Speaker: So let us now talk about door number two, recruiters only. There's no green frame, but you're still visible in the recruiter search. What you get is is real. You get you get the the paid recruiter pipeline. And I'll explain what I mean by paid in a moment. But but your network sees nothing in this setting. there's There's no green ring, there's no signal, there's there's no kind of implied status. Your your colleagues, your your clients, and the non-recruiter people at your company, they see your profile exactly like it was yesterday, and and nobody is any the wiser that you're looking for something new.
Speaker: You can switch this on the day that you decide to leave, which lets recruiters warm up while you're still finishing up a project or or having that severance conversation. and And filling in your preferences on the back end, it still does real work. Your job titles, your your locations, your your start date, your employment types, that's what determines whether you appear at all, frame or no frame in the recruiter searches. So what does it cost you? Well, your human network goes blind. Every former colleague that could have referred to you has no idea
Speaker: that you need help. That the personal network in this case goes dark. So while privacy is your best effort to fly under the radar with your employer, not every recruiter can see it either.
Speaker: and And now I'm gonna get back to that paid recruiter thing. A paid recruiter seat is subscribing to LinkedIn's recruiter tool, and that can cost anywhere from 2000 to $16,000 plus on an annual basis. that's That's pretty expensive for small businesses and for small recruiters. So so plenty of in-house and small agency recruiters, they they simply don't have an account due to the cost. That means that every one of them is blind to your setting.
Speaker: And then there's one more thing, because this one is a little bit sneaky from LinkedIn. If you stop responding to recruiter in-mails, LinkedIn will email you to confirm that you're still actually open to work. And if you don't confirm,
Speaker: They remove the feature automatically, which you then have to go back and switch on by hand, which means that you might be going dark without ever actually even noticing it if you've missed their email.
Speaker: So coming back to the beginning, which door would you open? I want you to stop asking the question of whether the green frame looks desperate or not. That's that's actually not really the question. The the question is is which of the two pipelines is actually alive for you? And you need to answer this one honestly for yourself. when When was the last time that somebody reached out to you about an opportunity? And I'm not talking about a recruiter, but someone in your network.
Speaker: If your network is is deep and warm and engaged, then going public, it it converts your network into introductions. and And that's the good scenario, and it works quite fast.
Speaker: But if your network is thin or if you've been out of the market for a while, for for a long stretch, then then going public, it mostly just converts into recruiter volume, and and much of that can be of mixed quality.
Speaker: Plus, you have a public status that you can't take back so easily. It's that thing that you can't unsee that I mentioned at the beginning. And for those of us over 50,
Speaker: There's a third hybrid path that that's worth talking about. Run recruiters only in the beginning and and build your network through your own posting, your connecting and building relationships instead of through a badge, which is exactly what we've talked about so many times in the past. You need to leverage your network because here's the thing.
Speaker: The ring does nothing about age bias. The recruiter opens your profile and still sees your graduation years, your your earliest roles, and in your face, your picture. That recruiter only setting, it just changes who sees you. It doesn't change what they see, which could be an issue if your profile is is not optimized or age-proofed.
Speaker: Before I close, I want you to have something in your hands. go to ageismsurvivalguide.com, all one word. On the website, you're going to find our resource library with with lots of different tips. There are downloadable guides, some free, some for purchase, practical checklists, and also frameworks that you can work through in a single evening. And if and if you want help on a specific situation, that's exactly what I do. I write resumes that don't scream out your birth date to the world. And I also optimize LinkedIn profiles, including talking about the visibility settings and and how to make that decision on your own.
Speaker: and And I also do one-on-one career coaching with professionals who are navigating the market. You can find all of this at ageismsurvivalguide.com. The link is down below.
Speaker: And one more thing, my newest blog article is gonna go live this week. It covers exactly this, the green frame question. And it includes something that this episode actually deliberately does not, that I left out, the actual mechanics of how to do this. I'll go into the step-by-step instructions on how to set up each option on LinkedIn, whether the all LinkedIn members, the green frame, recruiters only, or visible only to you.
Speaker: Where do the buttons live on the desktop? Where do they live on your phone? And also how to edit your preferences and and how to ultimately, frankly, remove the frame if you've already put it up.
Speaker: That article is going to go up on the website this week. Again, it's ageismsurvivalguide.com. Now back to my question. Which door were you standing at when I asked earlier? And then the second part of the question, have you changed your mind about which door after you've heard what I had to say?
Speaker: Tell me in the comments because I do read every single one of them and I also respond to all of them. So here's where we land. The green frame is, it's not a badge of shame, but at the same time, it's also not a magic ticket either. It's an audience choice.
Speaker: That's exactly what it is. Make the choice deliberately. Make it according to your situation, your needs, and and your stage of career. and And if you're not sure yet,
Speaker: That's also a legitimate answer. You're allowed to to think about it and then choose exactly what's right for you. As I always say, youth runs fast, but age knows the terrain.
Speaker: I'll see you in the next one.
