LinkedIn App Review: The Professional Network That Everyone Complains About and Still Uses

LinkedIn is the app people keep on their phone but rarely admit to enjoying. It’s a job board pretending to be a social network, a professional profile pretending to be a resume, and a feed pretending to be Twitter for people with jobs. This LinkedIn app review is about what it’s actually useful for, which paid tiers are worth the money, and how to use it without letting it turn your evenings into cringe.

What LinkedIn is actually good for

Finding a job. This is still the primary reason to have LinkedIn. The Jobs tab pulls from most tech, professional, and corporate hiring, integrates with recruiter outreach, and lets you filter by location, salary, and remote status. It’s the best single-app job search in most industries.

Being findable when someone Googles you. Your LinkedIn page usually ranks in the top three Google results for your name. This is the reason a well-maintained profile matters even if you don’t post — future colleagues, clients, and dates will find it, and a bare or outdated profile looks worse than none.

Reconnecting with people. Old classmates, former coworkers, someone you met at a conference — LinkedIn is where those loose ties live. Message them, wish them happy birthday, notice they changed jobs. Weak ties are surprisingly useful for career opportunities and LinkedIn is where they live.

The feed — the part people complain about

The LinkedIn feed has developed a specific texture. Motivational posts about grinding, humble-brags about promotions, engagement-bait polls, AI-generated corporate wisdom, “I was fired and now I run a $10M company” origin stories. Some of this is entertaining. Most of it is noise.

Two fixes that actually help: mute (not unfollow) accounts that post low-value content — they still see you in their network but you don’t see their posts. And use the “See fewer posts like this” option on individual posts to train the algorithm. Within two weeks the feed gets noticeably better.

Premium tiers — which one is worth it

LinkedIn Premium Career is around $30/month. It gives you InMail (message people who aren’t your connections), see who viewed your profile in the last 90 days, and “featured applicant” status on jobs. Useful only if you’re actively job searching. Cancel when you’re not.

LinkedIn Premium Business is around $60/month with more InMail and business insights. Useful if you’re in sales or recruiting. Otherwise ignore.

LinkedIn Learning is separate — a Coursera-like library of courses on business skills, tech, design, and management. Worth it if you’ll actually watch courses. Most people who subscribe don’t.

Notifications — the setting worth fixing on day one

Default LinkedIn notifications are overwhelming. Someone endorsed you. Someone had a work anniversary. Someone in your network posted. Someone commented on a stranger’s post. Turn off almost all of these — Settings → Notifications → In-app → toggle off everything except “Messages” and “Job alerts.”

Posting on LinkedIn — should you?

Depends what you’re after. If you’re building a brand in a specific niche (developer, designer, consultant, founder), consistent posting gets clients and opportunities. If you’re just employed and don’t want to job-search, you don’t need to post — a good profile is enough.

If you do post, keep it professional-with-a-personality. The “LinkedIn lunatic” phenomenon (dramatic personal stories used as business lessons) is well-mocked at this point. Genuine, specific insights from your actual work perform better than manufactured emotion.

Direct messages

InMail (paid) or connection messages are how recruiters reach out, how sales prospecting happens, and how you can reach people outside your network. Also the source of most LinkedIn spam. Turn on message screening in privacy settings so you don’t see cold pitches unless you accept them.

Privacy — the part LinkedIn hides in settings

LinkedIn shares your activity with a lot of third parties by default and uses your data for ad targeting on LinkedIn and via Microsoft’s ad network. Go to Settings → Data privacy → and turn off “Data for research,” “Use of your data for research,” and “Personalized ads” for a cleaner experience. Your visibility settings for profile updates default to “Everyone” — change them if you don’t want random ex-colleagues seeing every tweak.

Should you use LinkedIn?

Yes, keep a profile. Update it every 6-12 months even if you’re not job hunting. Turn off almost all notifications so it’s not pinging you constantly. Only pay for Premium during active job searches. Post if you want to build a brand, don’t if you don’t. And check the feed once every few days at most — daily LinkedIn scrolling is a productivity sink and the platform is not worth it.