How To: See Who Has Viewed Your LinkedIn Profile Without Paying

When LinkedIn first arrived on the scene, I thought it was a great resource for staying connected and getting in touch with those people in your desired career path. Keyword: Thought. Like most businesses, money and shareholders seem to have taken over the driver's seat, pushing the company towards a business-first, users-second approach.

And nothing makes this more apparent than the lack of usability for those with a free account. Plus, the pricing for a paid membership is pretty hefty.

You can view the full list of prices and features here (you must be logged in to view them). If you have a free account, there really isn't much you can do with it. In order to send a message to someone that is outside of your network, you'll need to upgrade your account. If you want to view the full profile of someone outside your network—yup, you've gotta upgrade for that, too.

And worst of all, you cannot see who exactly viewed your own profile. Now that's weak sauce.

The free accounts are provided with a list of people that have viewed your profile, but iIf someone outside of your network viewed your profile, it will say something like this:

"An Account Coordinator at XYZ has viewed your profile."

Now, if you click on that profile you will be given a list of 10 people that may or may not have viewed your profile. 1 of those 10 people actually viewed your profile. It will say, "One of these people viewed your profile." Now it's your job to guess who it was—or pay to find out.

But thanks to one slick Reddit user, benjimusprime, there is now a pretty simple way to get around this little "paywall."

Cheating the System

Benjimusprime notes that the other nine profiles shown are regenerated every day. So, theoretically, if you were to take a screenshot of that list of people one day, and then go back and check out the list the following day, you would be able to see who actually viewed your profile by a simple process of elimination.

Just compare and contrast your screenshot with the page the following day. It's as easy as that.

NOTE: If you set your profile to anonymous (in case you're a stalker), you will not be able to see who's viewed your profile.