How to Change Status on LinkedIn

Changing your status on LinkedIn can mean several different things, from tweaking your online availability to announcing that you're on the hunt for a new job. This guide will walk you through exactly how to control your visibility, signal your career intentions, and share updates that build your professional brand.

Managing Your Visibility: How to Change Your Network Activity Status

Your activity status is that little green dot next to your profile picture. It's one of the simplest statuses on LinkedIn, but controlling it is fundamental to managing your online presence and privacy.

What is the LinkedIn Activity Status?

This feature tells your connections when you're currently using LinkedIn. There are two main indicators:

• A solid green dot: This means you are currently active on LinkedIn via a desktop browser.
• A hollow green circle with a white dot: This means you are currently active on LinkedIn through the mobile app.

When this feature is active, your connections can see that you're online, making it a signal that you might be available to chat or respond to messages quickly. When you're inactive or have the feature turned off, no dot appears.

Why You Might Want to Change Your Activity Status

While being seen as "active" can be great for networking, there are several reasons to manage who sees this information:

• For Deep Focus: If you're trying to work without interruptions, turning off your activity status can discourage messages and help you stay in the zone.
• For Privacy: You might not want your colleagues, boss, or clients to know you're browsing LinkedIn during work hours or late into the night.
• For a Discreet Job Search: If you're actively looking for a new role while employed, a sudden spike in LinkedIn activity might raise suspicion. Going "invisible" can add a layer of discretion to your search.

Step-by-Step: How to Change Your Activity Status on Desktop

Adjusting your settings is straightforward and takes less than a minute. Here's how to do it on a computer:

1. Click the "Me" icon in the top right corner of the LinkedIn navigation bar.
2. Select "Settings &, Privacy" from the dropdown menu.
3. In the left-hand menu, click on "Visibility."
4. Under the "Visibility of your LinkedIn activity" section, find and click on "Manage active status."
5. Here, you can choose who sees when you're active:
   • Your connections only: Only your 1st-degree connections will see the green dot.
   • All LinkedIn members: Anyone who views your profile can see your activity status. This setting cannot be selected if you turn off "Profile viewing" options.
   • No one: Hides your active status from everyone. Keep in mind that when you turn this off, you also won't be able to see the active status of others.
6. To turn it off completely, toggle the switch next to "No one." The change is saved automatically.

Step-by-Step: How to Change Your Activity Status on Mobile

The process is just as simple on the LinkedIn mobile app:

1. Tap your profile picture in the top left corner of the app.
2. Tap "Settings."
3. Go to the "Visibility" tab.
4. Tap on "Manage active status."
5. Select who you want to share your active status with, or toggle it to "No one" to hide it completely.

Broadcasting Your Job Search: Using the "Open to Work" Feature

If you're actively searching for a new opportunity, the "Open to Work" status is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal. It's a clear signal to your network and recruiters that you're ready for your next move.

Understanding "Open to Work" and Its Two Privacy Settings

This isn't just a simple on/off switch. LinkedIn gives you two distinct options to control who knows you're looking:

1. Visible to All LinkedIn Members: This adds the well-known green "#OpenToWork" photo frame to your profile picture. It's a public announcement. Friends, former colleagues, and recruiters in your network can see it, share your profile, and potentially refer you for roles.
2. Visible to Recruiters Only: This is the discreet option. It hides the photo frame and any public indicators. Your status is only shared with people using LinkedIn's Recruiter product, outside of your current organization. LinkedIn uses algorithms to try and protect your privacy from recruiters at your current company, but it's not guaranteed to be 100% foolproof.

Choosing the right setting depends entirely on your current employment situation. If you're unemployed or your current employer supports your job search, the public option is excellent for tapping into your broader network. If you need to be confidential, the "Recruiters Only" setting is the way to go.

How to Set or Change Your "Open to Work" Status

1. Navigate to your personal LinkedIn profile page.
2. Look for the "Open to" button located just below your headline. Click it.
3. From the dropdown menu, select "Finding a new job."
4. A new window will appear, letting you specify your preferences:
   • Job titles: List the roles you're interested in. Be specific.
   • Workplace type: Choose from on-site, hybrid, or remote.
   • Job locations: Add the cities or regions where you'd like to work.
   • Start date: Indicate how soon you can start (e.g., Immediately, Flexible).
   • Job types: Select from full-time, part-time, contract, internship, etc.
5. At the bottom of this window, is the most important choice: "Choose who sees you're open." Select either "All LinkedIn members" or "Recruiters only" based on your needs.
6. Click "Add to profile" to save your changes.

Growing Your Team: Gaining a "Hiring" Photo Frame

On the flip side of job searching, if you're looking to expand your team, LinkedIn offers a similar photo frame feature to signal that you're hiring. This leverages your personal brand and network to attract top talent.

What is the "#Hiring" Frame?

The "#Hiring" frame adds a purple banner around your profile picture, making it immediately obvious to anyone visiting your profile that you are looking to fill one or more roles. It's an effective way for hiring managers and recruiters to turn their professional visibility into an inbound recruiting channel.

How to Add or Remove the "Hiring" Frame

You can activate this frame directly from your profile, but you must have an active job posting associated with your company to do so.

1. Go to your LinkedIn profile.
2. Click on the "Open to" button below your headline and select "Hiring."
3. LinkedIn will prompt you to select the company you're hiring for. Make sure your current position is correctly listed on your profile.
4. It will then ask you to create a new job posting or link to an existing one at your company. Follow the prompts to create your job post.
5. Once your job is posted, the #Hiring frame will be added to your profile to help publicize the role. You can remove it at any time by navigating back to your profile, clicking your photo, selecting "Frames," and opting for no frame.

Sharing Your Voice: How to Post a Status Update

Beyond settings and photo frames, the most fundamental "status" on LinkedIn is a good, old-fashioned post. Regularly sharing updates, insights, and stories is how you build a powerful professional brand, engage your network, and establish yourself as an authority in your field.

Why LinkedIn Status Updates Matter for Your Brand

Posting on LinkedIn is much more than shouting into the void. A consistent content strategy helps you:

• Stay Top-of-Mind: Regularly appearing in your connections' feeds keeps you relevant and memorable.
• Showcase Your Expertise: Sharing knowledge about your industry positions you as a valuable expert.
• Build Community: Asking questions and starting discussions fosters engagement and builds relationships.
• Create Opportunities: You never know who is watching your content. A single great post can lead to a new client, job offer, or partnership.

Crafting an Engaging LinkedIn Status Update

Not all posts are created equal. To make your updates stand out and drive engagement, follow these simple guidelines:

• Start with a compelling hook. Open with a thought-provoking question, a bold opinion, or a relatable anecdote to grab attention immediately.
• Use clear formatting. Break long paragraphs into shorter, two-to-three-sentence chunks. Use bullet points or numbered lists to make your ideas easy to scan. A well-placed emoji or two can add personality.
• Incorporate visuals. Posts with images, videos, or documents (like PDF carousels) get significantly more views and engagement than text-only posts.
• Tag relevant companies or people. If you're mentioning a company or quoting an industry expert, tag them. This notifies them and expands your post's potential reach, but use it thoughtfully.
• Use strategic hashtags. Include 3-5 relevant hashtags. Mix broad tags (e.g., #marketing) with more niche ones (e.g., #b2bsaasmarketing) to reach different audiences.
• End with a Call to Action (CTA). Encourage conversation by asking a question. For example, "What's the biggest challenge you're facing with this? Let me know in the comments."

The Easy Steps to Post Your Update

Once you have your content ready, sharing it is simple:

1. From the LinkedIn homepage, click the "Start a post" button at the top of your feed.
2. Write your text in the composer window that appears.
3. Use the icons at the bottom to add media (photo, video), a document, create a poll, and more.
4. Add your hashtags and tags.
5. Click the "Post" button to share it immediately, or click the clock icon to schedule it for a later time and date.

Final Thoughts

Managing your status on LinkedIn is all about shaping your professional narrative. Whether you're carefully controlling your online privacy, signaling a job search, attracting new talent, or sharing valuable expertise, each of these "statuses" gives you another lever to pull in building your career and personal brand.

Staying on top of this narrative means being active and consistent. We actually built Postbase to solve this very problem by making content creation effortless. Our platform provides a simple, visual calendar to help you plan and schedule your content across LinkedIn and all your other social channels reliably. It takes the guesswork out of consistency so you can focus on making meaningful connections.