How to View Your LinkedIn Profile as Someone Else

If you’re on LinkedIn, you’re broadcasting — so you’d better know how to view your LinkedIn profile as a visitor and make sure the message is right. 

If this is new to you and you’ve been running your profile on autopilot, LinkedIn has a built-in feature — “view LinkedIn profile as public” — that lets you check your profile as others see it and catch what they notice first.

No matter your approach, first impressions matter: it helps you control what’s visible, spot what’s missing, and fine-tune your page to attract the people you actually care about — recruiters, leads, and future collaborators.

Explore how to view your LinkedIn profile as someone else,  why it matters, and how to make the most of your public profile for business, career growth, and networking.

Why View LinkedIn Profile As Someone Else?

Your biggest reason to view a LinkedIn profile as a visitor before anyone else does is simple: prospects, recruiters, and partners act just like any crowd — they judge the cover first. 

Before they even think about accepting your request or considering your offer, they decide whether you look worth their time. Hence, when you view LinkedIn profile as others see it, you gain the upper hand — full control over what information about you actually goes public, namely: 

Catch Views With What Matters Most

When someone opens your page, they don’t read it — they scan it. You have about 5–7 seconds before they decide: stay or leave.

From your side, everything may look detailed and impressive. But the truth is, they only notice what’s immediately visible above the fold.

⚙️How To Fix?

After you view LinkedIn profile as others see it, optimize only what appears to pop up first: 

👉Rewrite Your Headline – Basic one-word headlines don’t grab attention — make sure yours clearly shows who you are and the audience you serve.

👉Review Your About Section – For better results, optimize your first two lines — LinkedIn truncates the About section preview, so visitors see only ~ 220 characters.

⚙️How To Fix?

The more concise and precise your About section is, the better — just make sure you don’t leave out the essentials.

👉Update Your Banner – Vague banners and generic imagery don’t help much either — use your banner/profile picture to plainly communicate your niche, your offer, or your positioning.

⚙️How To Fix?

Just apply basic common sense: stick to a clear, professional profile photo.

👉Check Your Featured Section – It’s not mandatory, but it is the first thing you notice when you view a LinkedIn profile as a visitor — a pinned selection of your best work, something that showcases what you do well or what you’re proud of.

⚙️How To Fix?

Don’t be modest here — people are looking for your value, so try showcasing the best of you in the Featured section:

💡Pro-tip! Your headline, About section, and Featured content aren’t there just to exist — they play a major role in how you get discovered in search. LinkedIn doesn’t really “understand” you — it matches you through keywords.

That means recruiters, prospects, and partners don’t find you because your profile sounds nice. They find you because your wording overlaps with what they type into the search bar.

Most of them don’t have time to run bulk searches, hence they resort to Dripify sales automation software.

It helps them find prospects at scale through keyword-based searches, organize profiles that best match their criteria, and automatically reach out via customized sequences of LinkedIn actions.

Prevent Silent Rejection

Many people don’t reject your connection request. They simply ignore it after checking your profile. No notification.  No feedback.

When you view a LinkedIn profile as public, you discover why outreach underperforms even when messages are good.

💡Pro-tip! Most often, the problem isn’t the message — it’s that your profile didn’t validate the message. 

For example, you write a great outreach note → they click your name → profile looks unclear → conversation never happens.

⚙️How To Fix?

Again, always try to view your LinkedIn profile as a visitor  — your profile can’t exist separately from your outreach. It is your landing page.

Align Your Profile With Your Goals

Different visitors come for various reasons. But your profile should serve one main objective. 

If you don’t view LinkedIn profile as others see it, it often becomes a mix of:  job search + personal blog + random posts + old experience.

As a result, nobody understands what you want.

⚙️How To Fix?

Define your target audience and remove anything that contradicts it. Clarity matters — especially in a 5–7 second glance.

Try Dripify LinkedIn Profile Makeover to Optimize LinkedIn Profile

Optimizing your LinkedIn profile for clarity, impact, and searchability can be a complex task. A structured approach can help you systematically enhance every section, from your banner image to your bio, work experience, and other profile content. 

If you’re not sure whether your profile looks polished or professional enough, consider using the Dripify LinkedIn Profile Makeover service. Our LinkedIn experts will review your profile, identify weak areas, and rebuild it for maximum impact.

Why You Need Dripify’s LinkedIn Profile Writing Service

• Get 2x more LinkedIn views – Your LinkedIn profile content will be completely rewritten, structured, optimized, and filled with relevant keywords, which significantly increases profile views;
• Fascinate your audience – Push boundaries with your custom background banner designed in your corporate colors and style, along with your eye-catching headline and creatively written LinkedIn summary and other profile sections, will grab the attention of your profile viewers from the very first seconds (500+ connection requests weekly);
• Increase conversion rate by 200% – According to statistics, 75% of prospecting efforts on LinkedIn depend on the quality of the LinkedIn profile. Your newly updated LinkedIn account will bring you more connection requests from prospects and convert your profile viewers into paying customers at a much higher rate!
• Improve retention – Your “Experience” and “Skills & Endorsements” sections will be rebuilt to enhance your professional reputation and add credibility to your LinkedIn profile.

How to View LinkedIn Profile as Public?

First, understand how LinkedIn’s privacy and visibility settings actually work — they determine WHO can see your profile and WHAT they are allowed to see. 

LinkedIn offers several visibility modes:

• 👉Public mode — your profile is visible to anyone online, which is great for networking and getting discovered, but it also means you’re sharing the most information. If you’re checking how to view LinkedIn profile as others see it, this is the version that shows your full public exposure.
• 👉Connections mode — only your direct connections can see most of your details. It’s a middle ground: you stay network-friendly while keeping some personal information restricted.
• 👉Private mode — shows only minimal profile information. Best if you want discretion and a low profile, while still understanding how others perceive your LinkedIn presence.

Now you might be wondering how to preview LinkedIn profile across different modes and devices.

How To View Your LinkedIn Profile as Someone Else On Desktop

On a desktop, you can access different options to view a Linkedin profile as a visitor by clicking your profile picture at the top of the LinkedIn homepage and going to Settings & Privacy.

Once in Settings, open the Visibility tab — it’s dedicated to managing how your profile appears across LinkedIn features.

💡Pro-tip! The quickest way to preview LinkedIn profile is to click “Edit your public profile.”

In the Public profile settings, you can customize your profile URL, edit content in your About and other sections, and, of course, adjust your visibility — you can turn it on or off.

💡Pro-tip! If the public profile visibility toggle is OFF, your profile is completely hidden from search engines and anyone else who isn’t logged into LinkedIn.

But once the LinkedIn public profile visibility toggle is ON, you can preview different versions of how to view your LinkedIn profile as someone else. 

⚠️Attention⚠️You can manage WHAT people see publicly using the settings just below the toggle.

You can make your profile:

👉Completely public — any LinkedIn member, or even someone searching your name online, can see your information, from your photo to your recommendations. 

*You can manually turn off certain elements, but by default, most details are visible in this mode.

👉Visible to all LinkedIn members — your information is available inside the platform as you allow it, but it won’t appear in external search results.

👉Visible to your network — connections up to three degrees away will see your profile photo and basic public details – your name, follower count, and location – plus any additional elements you choose to enable in the settings below.

👉Visible to 1st-degree connections only — only people directly connected with you on LinkedIn can see your profile photo and the information you choose to share.

👀Try it! If you set visibility to 1st-degree connections only, this is how your profile appears to people outside your network — no photo, just basic information.

How To View Your LinkedIn Profile As Someone Else On App

The app doesn’t differ much — the steps are pretty similar. Here’s how you can view Linkedin profile as others see it on the LinkedIn mobile app:

👉Open the LinkedIn app, tap your profile icon, and go to Settings (located at the bottom of the menu).

👉From Settings, open Visibility and select “Edit your public profile.”

👉In the Public profile settings, you’ll find the same toggles to enable or disable your public presence, as well as options to choose how widely others can view your profile.

👉At any time, you can tap “Preview your public profile” at the bottom of the screen. The page will show how your LinkedIn profile appears to visitors or to people who aren’t logged into the platform.

💡Pro-tip! On a desktop, you see how others view your profile update in real time as you adjust privacy settings. On mobile, the preview appears only after you tap “Preview your public profile.”

How to View Your LinkedIn Profile in Private Mode

Some people think LinkedIn private mode lets them view their own profile as someone else — but that’s not how it works. Private mode simply allows you to browse other profiles without revealing your identity.

It’s not “spying”; it’s just a research tool. It’s useful when you want to check potential employers, prospects, or competitors without notifying them that you viewed their profile.

Here’s how to view a Linkedin profile as others see it in this context: go to Visibility, then select “Profile viewing options.”

LinkedIn lets you choose how your profile views appear to other people when you visit their pages. You can select:

• 👉 Your name and headline — they see exactly who viewed their profile. 
• 👉 Profile characteristics  — limited details, such as your industry or workplace, are shown. 
• 👉 Private mode — complete anonymity; you appear as an “anonymous LinkedIn user”.