Should Pastors Pay for LinkedIn Premium When Changing Careers? A Smart Guide to Your Ministry To Marketplace Job Search

♟️ STRATEGY SHIFT: Let’s break down the numbers. Is LinkedIn Premium worth it?

So how does this impact your LinkedIn Premium decision? When you sign up for Premium, you’re probably going to sign up for Premium Career, which is $29.99/mo. It boasts a lot of features, but which ones actually help you based on your strategy decision?

Applying Cold

If you’re applying cold, Premium is going to…

• Help you understand the competitive nature of the job you’re applying for

• Push you to the recruiter as a featured applicant if you have strong alignment with the job description

• Give you advanced filters for finding the right open jobs

• Suggest LinkedIn Learning to upskill with certifications

• Provide profile enhancement tips

  
  

I couldn’t tell you what the average time to offer is for someone coming out of ministry if they are applying cold - but oftentimes I’ll hear 9 months, 12 months, 1.5 years…

Let’s say that with Premium, you are closer to 2% chance of getting an offer than the 0.1% chance.

$29.99 x 9 months = $269.91 for a 2% chance.

Networking Strategy

If you’re networking, Premium is going to…

• Do everything mentioned above, plus allow you to send 5 free messages a month to people you aren’t connected with (hiring managers and others)

• Help you draft messages when reaching out to people with their AI tool. Disclaimer, I’ve never tried this, so I don’t know how effective it is. We have our own message templates that we’ve written for people to copy and paste in the Interview Accelerator.

• Show you who has viewed your profile so you can connect with them more easily.

• Increase your monthly profile search limit from 300 profiles per month to 6,000 profile searches per month. 

• Increase your daily profile search limit from 80 per day to between 100-150 per day.

  
  

If you’re networking, you have about a 15X increased chance of getting interviews through introductions (assuming those introductions are high quality). 

Using Premium, you can more easily find the people you want your connections to help you network with more searches than you would likely need.

Let’s say it still takes, on average, 9 months with networking. $29.99 x 9 months = $269.91 for a 30% chance. 

30% is better than 2%.

The Verdict

This is a cost analysis problem.

• If you’re passively searching or not ready to get a job in the next 3-6 months, then Premium probably doesn’t make sense for you.

• If you’re actively searching and using the cold application method only, Premium may not be worth it, considering there is no limit to the number of jobs you can search or apply for (though I don’t recommend applying through LinkedIn - the organization’s career page is much more effective). It might be worth it for competitive insights, but that’s it.

• If you’re actively searching and using the networking method, Premium might be worth it if you are trying to network with people you are not yet connected with, and the search and outreach functions are going to be a primary method of the job search. 

• If you’re actively searching and using the networking method, Premium might not be worth it if you have a small network and plan on only networking through those and leveraging the “2nd connection” and “current company” search features, which are available to all free members.

  
  

In the Interview Accelerator, we recommend that clients do not get Premium until LinkedIn notifies them that they have hit their limit, then get the one month free trial LinkedIn provides, or use our two months free trial.

My recommendation to you: find a process that works for you first before spending money that you may not need to spend. Then, when you hit the limits doing what works, you can weigh the cost-benefit.