Wednesday, July 29, 2026

Is LinkedIn Premium Worth It?

The Short Answer: No.

The Long Answer: As a job-seeking software engineer, I don't think LinkedIn Premium is worth the cost ($39.99/month). I reached that conclusion after using the free one-month trial and spending time with its exclusive features.

Opinions on the internet are mixed about whether LinkedIn Premium offers a meaningful advantage in the job market12345. Supporters point to features like seeing which recruiters viewed your profile, messaging those recruiters directly, and receiving application insights that estimate how well your resume matches a position. In my experience, however, none of these features had a meaningful impact on my job search.

First, the ability to see which recruiters viewed my profile didn't provide much of an advantage. Just because a recruiter viewed my profile doesn't mean they'll respond to a message. In fact, I've never received a response after reaching out to a recruiter first. If a recruiter is genuinely interested, they can message me—and as recruiters, they almost certainly already have LinkedIn Premium through their employer.

The feature I used most was "Jobs where you'd be a top applicant." It highlights recently posted jobs that LinkedIn believes closely match your experience. It's a useful feature, although not a perfect one. It frequently recommended full-stack and frontend positions, even though I'm exclusively a backend engineer.

I eventually realized that these recommendations rely heavily on the Skills section of your profile—a section I had largely neglected. Improving that section only slightly improved the recommendations. Even then, LinkedIn's search and filtering tools remain fairly limited. There's no equivalent of a negative regex or exclusion filter, so you'll still spend time filtering out irrelevant positions.

Some info censored for privacy reasons

Another selling point of LinkedIn Premium is access to LinkedIn Learning. Personally, I found most of the courses to be fairly introductory. For the topics I was interested in, classes I've found on LinkedIn were rudimentary and lower in quality than what you can find on YouTube for free.

Finally, paying LinkedIn for the privilege of fully using its own data feels a little backwards. It reminds me of paying a headhunter to help you find a job. Traditionally, job-search platforms have been funded primarily by employers and recruiters rather than by job seekers.

That said, the strongest reason to use LinkedIn isn't Premium—it's the network itself. Nearly every professional software engineer I've worked with has a LinkedIn profile. Over time, your coworkers become your professional network, giving you a large pool of current and former colleagues (along with the occasional recruiter) that you can reach out to during your next job search. None of that requires a Premium subscription.

LinkedIn's job board is also reasonably useful, although I still think it's underdeveloped due to its meager filtering options. Its biggest advantage is the integration with your network. Once you discover that a company you're interested in employs someone you know, you can ask them for that sweet, sweet job referral. Again, that's entirely possible with the free tier.

To be fair, there are situations where Premium may be worth the cost. If you're pursuing a particularly niche role or have been searching unsuccessfully for an extended period, spending $40 for a month or two to gain even a slight advantage may be a reasonable investment. Job searching can be exhausting, and even small improvements to the process can make it feel more manageable—even if they don't ultimately land you the job.
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