Should You Use the 'Open to Work' Badge on LinkedIn? Insights from Ex-Google and Amazon Recruiters

If LinkedIn users are looking for jobs can indicate their job-seeking status by using the 'open to work' badge. However, former recruiters from companies such as Google and Amazon have advised job seekers against using this "Open to Work" feature as it could potentially lose the chance of being hired.

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Nolan Church, former Google recruiter and currently CEO of FairComp, stated that the badge is considered a red flag by recruiters as it indicates that the candidate is actively searching for a job.

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Lindsay Mustain, a former Amazon recruiter and career coach, agrees with this perspective and feels that it shifts the power dynamic in favour of the recruiter. This sentiment was also echoed by Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal, who stated that the company does not hire people who are looking for jobs, as the perfect candidates are usually not unemployed.

Despite having over 33 million users with the 'Open to Work' badge, has been criticized by recruiters and considered as the "worst social media feature ever pushed to production" by Nolan Church.

Although, this badge was introduced by LinkedIn during the Covid-19 when the pandemic hit the world, provides job seeker with a more public way to indicate their job-seeking status.