Most LinkedIn Premium subscribers pay for features they never touch.
You probably know that LinkedIn Premium exists. You might even have a subscription. But unless you’re actively selling or recruiting, you’re likely leaving significant value on the table—especially if you’re not aware of what your membership actually includes beyond the basic profile visibility upgrades.
The platform keeps rolling out new capabilities, and LinkedIn doesn’t exactly trumpet them in your inbox. That means even paying subscribers miss features designed specifically to save time, improve your visibility to decision-makers, and help you track professional momentum. Here’s what you should be using right now.
## Who Viewed Your Profile Insights Go Further Than You Think
The “Who viewed your profile” feature is the most obvious perk of LinkedIn Premium, but most people use it passively. They glance at the thumbnail grid once a week and call it done.
What you should actually be doing: filtering by job title and company size. LinkedIn Premium shows you not just that someone viewed your profile, but their industry, job title, and company. If you’re in sales, this is intelligence. If you’re job searching, this tells you which recruiters are actually interested. If you’re building authority in your field, this shows which senior leaders are paying attention to your content.
The real power is noticing patterns. If you see five people from the same company viewing your profile in a month, that’s a signal. Someone there is probably talking about you internally. That’s your cue to reach out directly or engage with their content.
## InMail Credits Are a Direct Line You’re Wasting
InMail credits come with most LinkedIn Premium tiers. These are direct messages that land in someone’s primary inbox, not their connection requests folder. They bypass the noise entirely.
Most Premium subscribers either forget they have these or use them poorly. Sending a generic “let’s connect” message defeats the purpose. Instead, use InMail when you need a response from someone you can’t reach any other way—a hiring manager for a specific role, a potential client in an industry where you have no warm introduction, or an executive you want to interview for a research project.
A well-written InMail that references something specific about the recipient’s recent activity or posts gets response rates above 25% because it’s rare. Most people don’t even try. You should be using your monthly allotment strategically, not hoarding them.
## Save Posts and Articles—Then Actually Organize Them
LinkedIn Premium gives you the ability to save posts, articles, and jobs into custom folders. Most people don’t realize this exists. Even fewer use it.
Create folders for different use cases: “Industry trends,” “Competitor insights,” “Hiring tips,” or “Content ideas.” When you see something useful, save it instead of hoping you’ll remember to find it later. This becomes your personal knowledge library on LinkedIn itself, and you can search it when you need it.
If you’re in content marketing, this is a content research tool. If you’re in sales, this is competitive intelligence. If you’re in recruitment, this is a way to track hiring trends and salary discussions in your field. The feature takes five minutes to set up and saves hours of searching later.
## Learning Courses Have Certificates That Matter
LinkedIn Learning comes with most Premium plans, and it’s genuinely useful, but the certificate feature is what changes things professionally. When you complete a course, you can add it to your LinkedIn profile and share it with your network.
Certificates are small but visible social proof. They signal that you invested time in a skill. If you’re upskilling in data analysis, project management software, or a new platform your industry is adopting, the certificate goes straight on your profile where peers can see it. This works especially well in technical fields and for people making career transitions.
The courses themselves are taught by industry practitioners. The quality is solid. And unlike buying a certificate online, these actually reflect that you sat through the material and passed an assessment.
## Search Filters Let You Find the Right People Without Guessing
LinkedIn Premium’s advanced search filters are the backbone of serious prospecting, recruiting, and relationship building, but they’re buried in the interface.
You can filter by years of experience at a company, posting activity in the last month, specific skills, seniority level, and whether they’ve engaged with your content. That last one is powerful: you can find people who’ve actually interacted with your posts, making your outreach immediately warmer.
Sales teams use this to build target lists. Recruiters use this to source passive candidates who are active on LinkedIn (activity is often a proxy for job openness). Content creators use this to find engaged audience members to build relationships with directly. The feature saves the guesswork and the time spent scrolling.
## Salary Insights Show You What You’re Actually Worth
LinkedIn Premium includes real salary data for roles across industries, companies, and geographies. If you’re negotiating a job offer or considering whether to ask for a raise, this is concrete information instead of guesses.
You can filter by company size, years of experience, and geography. The data comes from LinkedIn members who’ve shared their salary information, so it’s actual market rate, not theoretical. Before any compensation conversation, this is your first research step.
## What’s Next
Start with one: check who’s viewed your profile this week and actually read their job titles. Use one InMail credit this month on someone you genuinely want to reach. Create three folders to save useful content. Do one thing, make it routine, then expand.
LinkedIn Premium is only valuable if you use it. Most subscribers are paying for convenience they ignore. The features above exist to save you time and make you visible to the people who matter to your career. That’s worth the subscription cost, but only if you actually activate them.
Have you discovered a LinkedIn Premium feature that’s actually changed how you work? Share it in the comments. If you’re a practitioner with insights on professional networking strategies, consider submitting a guest post to LinkedIn Daily.
