The three settings, and who each one reaches
LinkedIn describes “All LinkedIn members” like this: “This also includes recruiters and people at your current company. It also adds the #OpenToWork photo frame.” That sentence is doing a lot of work. The green frame is not a separate decision you make later — it arrives with this setting, and so does everyone in your office.
“Recruiters only” is described as “People using LinkedIn Recruiter only.” No frame appears on your photo. Inside LinkedIn Recruiter, your status shows up as an “Open to work” Spotlight that a recruiter can click to narrow a search to candidates who have signalled they are looking. That is the whole point of the setting: you become easy to filter for, without announcing anything on your profile.
“Visible only to you” shows your preferences to nobody. LinkedIn's help page says your job preferences are used for LinkedIn to tailor your job recommendations. It is not a stealth job-search mode — it is a recommendations setting. If you pick it, no recruiter search is going to surface you because of it.
Open to Work visibility — the three options in the dropdown
Wording from LinkedIn Help, “Let recruiters know you're Open to Work”. Only the first option adds the green photo frame.
All LinkedIn members — includes recruiters and people at your current company, and adds the #OpenToWork photo frame.
Recruiters only — shown to people using LinkedIn Recruiter. No frame on your photo.
Visible only to you — nobody is shown it; LinkedIn uses your preferences to tailor your job recommendations.
What LinkedIn will not promise
Here is the sentence to read twice, from LinkedIn's own help page: “To protect your privacy, we take steps to prevent LinkedIn Recruiter users who work at your company from seeing your shared career interests. We take the current company on your LinkedIn profile marked as I am currently working here to know who to hide your Open to Work status from, however, we can't guarantee complete privacy.”
Two things follow from that, and both matter if you are employed. First, the hiding is keyed to one piece of data: the company on your profile that you marked as your current job. If your current role is not marked as current, or it is attached to a generic or duplicate company page instead of your employer's real one, LinkedIn has nothing to match against. This is common in India, where people work through a staffing firm at a client site, or pick the wrong page out of three with the same name.
Second, the exclusion is built around your current and related companies. A recruiter who is not affiliated with those companies is outside it by design — an external agency your employer has hired to fill roles is still a third party on LinkedIn. And LinkedIn stops short of a guarantee. It says “we take steps”, not “we prevent”. Treat “Recruiters only” as a strong reduction in risk, not a wall.
The India-only fields recruiters see whatever you choose
If you set Open to Work in India, the form asks two extra things: your notice period or availability to join, and your expected annual salary. LinkedIn's help page says this information is visible to recruiters only, regardless of your Open To Work visibility setting.
So the expected salary you type in is not a private note to yourself. Fill it in the way you would answer the same question on a call — a number you can defend, not an aspiration and not a lowball you will be held to. If you are not ready to answer it, leaving it blank is a real choice.
Which setting fits your situation
There is no universally correct answer here. There is a correct answer for your situation, and it changes the day your situation does.
Turn it on last, not first
This is the mistake that quietly costs the most. People hear that Open to Work gets them found, switch it on that evening, and only then start fixing the headline, the About section and the experience bullets over the next three weeks.
The order is backwards. Once you are in a recruiter's “Open to work” Spotlight, recruiters see your card — photo, name, headline, current title — and decide in a second or two whether to open the profile. Switching the signal on while the profile is half-finished spends your best first impression on a version of you that is not ready. Recruiters who skip you today do not come back next week to check whether you rewrote your About section.
Do it in this order: finish the profile, then switch on Open to Work, then set up job alerts for your target companies, then start reaching out. If you want a second opinion on whether the profile is ready before you flip the switch, our free LinkedIn profile score reads your own “Save to PDF” export and scores it out of 100 against the role you are targeting — which is the same question this section is asking: is this profile worth putting in front of a recruiter yet?
Turning it off, and what you lose
To switch Open to Work off, click the Edit icon on the Open to Work box on your profile and choose Delete. One detail worth knowing before you do it: LinkedIn's help page notes that your previous preferences are not retained if you turn it back on later. The job titles, cities, start date and the India salary and notice-period fields all have to be filled in again.
If you are toggling it off for a fortnight because a round of interviews at your own company is happening, screenshot the form first. It takes thirty seconds and saves you re-typing five job titles from memory.