Making Your LinkedIn Profile Public

By Scott Allen, on December 9th, 2006

As Jeff Barr, Lead Web Services Evangelist at Amazon, just noticed, one of the cool features LinkedIn has added recently is the ability to make your LinkedIn profile not only accessible to the public, but also to make an easy-to-remember unique URL (linkedin.com/in/scottallen vs. linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=2369). Here’s an illustrated step-by-step how-to:

Go to My Profile:
Go to Edit My Public Profile:
Edit your public profile URL:
Choose an easy-to-remember URL:

Your name is probably the best choice (I got lucky and was the first one to claim mine – there are at least 50 other Scott Allens in LinkedIn!). If that’s not available, try a combination of your name and company name, or your name and your title or line of work. Don’t use something wacky – remember this is a professionally-oriented site.
Now choose which portions of your profile you want to make public:

I’m honestly not sure why you would want to hide any of this unless you’re a very private person, in which case I don’t know why you’d be making your profile public anyway, but the options are there if you so choose.
Save the changes and optionally preview your profile as it will appear to others:

You’re done! Now you can easily include your LinkedIn profile – a dynamic resume/portfolio – in your resume, your email signature, or wherever else you think it’s appropriate.

Author: Scott Allen (299 Posts)

Scott Allen is a social media pioneer, helping people turn virtual relationships into real business since 2002. He is coauthor of The Virtual Handshake and The Emergence of The Relationship Economy and contributor to over a dozen books on social media, business and personal development.

Clive Hartnett

January 21, 2007 at 3:09 pm

Hi Scott,

Thanks for your article on a public profile. I would be happy to link with you if you would like to send me an invitation.
Clive Hartnett
ASSOB Gold Coast Qld
Australia

Scott Allen

January 21, 2007 at 4:51 pm

Clive (and anyone else reading):

I’m a truly “open” networker in the sense that I’m open to hearing from just about anyone, getting to know each other and finding out how we might be of service to each other, i.e., building an actual relationship.

However…

As I say in the top right corner of every page next to the link to my profile:

Please note: I welcome contact requests, but I only accept connection invitations from people I know well professionally.

That’s based on my own experience as well as LinkedIn’s recommendations about who to connect with:

When you invite a friend or colleague, be sure they would make a good connection for you.

Only invite those you know well
You may be asked to tell one of your trusted friends more about the person you invite. And they may have to do the same for you.

Only invite those you trust
Sometimes you’ll forward a request (either yours, or from a friend) through them. Be sure you trust them to represent you, and to be careful with a potentially serious request.

Only invite those you want to forward things to you
Your connections will forward you requests from other members. Be sure the people you invite know you well enough to send you only things you are interested in.

For more on my thoughts on this, see The Connection that Wasn’t There.

If you’d like to e-mail me, though, I’d love to hear from you at Scott At Linked Intelligence Dot Com.

Vincent Wright

February 10, 2007 at 3:56 pm

Excellent, Scott!

Good to have an illustrated version explaining Linkedin’s public profiles.

I’ll share it with some of my friends.

Thanks!
Vincent

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August 23, 2007 at 3:19 am

[...] profile URL, I’d suggest changing it to “dhanna” or “doughanna” (instructions here). Besides simple cosmetics, it also makes it much easier to give someone your LinkedIn profile in [...]

Allison May

September 23, 2011 at 10:33 am

Making my LinkedIn profile public is a necessary step for personal branding and I’m quite happy with things being that way. Thanks for this article and the illustrations are a big help.

Allison May
Webmaster of CreditCreator.com