After years of telling candidates not to sweat LinkedIn's never-ending requests for profile verification...
The day has finally come:
🚨 LinkedIn just gave recruiters a NEW filter.
It's called the "Verified Applicant Spotlight" - and recruiters can now toggle it on to show ONLY applicants who've been verified by LinkedIn.
In a world where 14,200 applications are submitted EVERY. SINGLE. MINUTE. - most of them blasted out by AI bots - recruiters are desperate for any signal that says: "this is a real human." 🤯
Verified is now that signal.
Here's how it works:
✅ LinkedIn members can verify their identity 3 ways:
👉 Government-issued ID
👉 Workplace email domain
👉 Education email domain
✅ Verified members get a small badge next to their name on every application.
✅ Recruiters can filter their entire applicant pool to ONLY show verified people.
This is huge.
Because for the first time, your identity is becoming a ranking factor in the hiring process. Not your skills. Not your resume. Your verified, real-human status.
So here's what we need to do as coaches:
Tell every single one of our students to do the same. Before their next application goes out.
Here's how: https://www.linkedin.com/help/recruiter/answer/a1359065?trk=vca_smartconversations
Bottom Line: In an AI-flooded job market - where real, verifiable signals of trust matter more than ever - this little badge just became one of the highest-leverage things a candidate can earn. ;)
What do you think - smart move by LinkedIn, or just another way the system tilts toward people who play the LinkedIn game best?
PS: And as mentioned earlier this year, here's how we make sure that we can trust the veracity of the jobs we see as coaches and job-seekers - https://www.thejobinsiders.com/blog/how-to-avoid-fake-and-ghost-jobs-on-linkedin