LinkedIn Premium Accounts: How To Choose the Best One for You

Meredith Darling | @merdar Let me break it down for you real quick. For most of you out there, including myself, there is no need to upgrade your LinkedIn account. I'll rephrase that. For most of you out there there is no need to upgrade your LinkedIn account unless you like giving LinkedIn your money or enjoy seeing a little gold "in" and "circle" button next to your name, which I can understand is sometimes intriguing.

But this blog isn't about most of you. It's about those that truly feel they can take advantage of the upgrade benefits. That means you will use the InMails, set up searches, and need to see full profiles. I've broken it down in what I believe to be the simplest way possible.

LinkedIn Premium

After extensive experience training professionals from a variety of industries on LinkedIn best practices, I have decided that the best package overall is the Business upgrade ($19.95/month). That gives you, among other things, access to full profiles in your network, premium search, 3 InMails a month, and OpenLink. The "recommended" subscription by LinkedIn is the Business Plus which doesn't pay for itself when you're paying twice as much monthly for a few more search results.

For Recruiters

If the Business upgrade just isn't cutting it for you and you're going to be sending a lot of messages to people you aren't connected to (and don't know the secret to get around this) then Talent Finder is what you need. It ranks as my second choice premium account, recruiter or not. It's $74.95 a month but you get 25 InMails a month, full name visibility, more search filters, and more search results.

For Sales Professionals

The only reason, and I mean only, to purchase one of the Sales subscription plans is for the introductions. Introductions are when you ask a connection to -you guessed it- introduce you to one of their connections. All LinkedIn members get 5 free introductions a month. With the Sales plans you also get access to LinkedIn's Lead Builder organizer, which is basically something you should already have that organizes your -you guessed it again- leads.

For Job Seekers

You flat out don't need this. There are tons of free sites out there for job seekers. Unless you are in the group of people who enjoys seeing an icon next to your name.

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