A conversation on Twitter evolved, in which someone expressed a wish not to see certain people suggested to them as possible connections on LinkedIn. It was merely a matter of a person having former colleagues she loathed, but it brought up an interesting idea.
Can you block people on LinkedIn? And if so, how?
You certainly can block people! If you are connected to them, you will disconnect and they will no longer be able to see your profile or updates nor you theirs. It’s like you’ve ceased to exist for them! Unless, you know, you run into them on the street or in a coffeeshop. I can’t help you with that.
But I can help you escape them on your social network for business. Here’s how:
- Navigate to the person’s profile. If you don’t want them to see that you have looked at their profile, first go to Settings –> Privacy –> then scroll down to How Others See Your LinkedIn activity and change Profile Viewing Options to Private Mode for the rest of this activity.
- When you’re on the person’s profile, click the More… box to the right of the Message box.
- Scroll down to select Report or Block and then a box will open, asking you what you want to do. Here’s where you can select Block, if that’s the most appropriate response.
Congratulations! You are now more free of that person than you were previously. Enjoy replacing them with a better, more worthy business connection.
Hi Kim,
If you don’t know them and feel like it’s an inappropriate, lack-of-context cold call, I think it’s OK to choose “I don’t know this person.” What that does is prevent that person from sending you multiple invitations to connect. If you’re getting repeatedly pinged by a specific person, consider using that option. If a person is in the practice of sending invitations to several people they don’t know and a number of people click “I don’t know this person” in response, that person will have their account suspended. It helps keep the spammers down. Thanks for the comment!