Do you have a LinkedIn account which you access infrequently and might have trouble remembering the password?
Here’s a tip from Dawn Westerberg whose LinkedIN account was linked to her old work email address.
When she left her job she had forgotten her LinkedIN password.
Without access to her old work email address she was unable to perform a standard password reset which would have sent a link to her (old) email enabling her to login to LinkedIn.
It turns out that if you forget your password and cannot access your registered email address (in Dawn’s case this was her old work address) then LinkedIn will not – (a) reset your password, (b) update your account or (c) transfer/merge account information to another account.
Their solution? Create a new account and re-invite your connections.
Seriously. That’s the best solution that LinkedIn has to offer?
Think about the time when you are changing jobs. That’s typically when you need to use LinkedIn the most.
And if for some reason you’re unable to remember the password or gain access to your old work email address – you’ll be potentially shut out of important LinkedIn connections!
To be safe, use a primary email address that YOU own to sign up for LinkedIn – and not an employer email that you would lose access to when changing jobs.
LinkedIn allows you to enter in additional email addresses (such as work) so that people can still send invitations by knowing your work email.
Change your primary email address in: Settings – Personal Information – Email Addresses.
AprylHanson says
May 11, 2010 at 12:28 amWayne,
Glad that you posted this. It is useful information. I had the same experience when I left my former employer (Sage) and luckily, after several tries, I remembered my password. I vowed that I would NEVER do that again, because that close call was enough to scare me into having an e-mail address just for this purpose.
Wayne Schulz says
May 11, 2010 at 12:32 amI tried to go to LinkedIn to see if they would truly only send a verification email to one address.
While it seems like you can have multiple addresses with LinkedIn – when I tried to get a password reset it told me that the reset would only go to the email that was used to create the account.
I think you can go into LinkedIn and switch between emails and make another the primary — however that's obviously problematic if you don't have access to your LinkedIn to begin with…
Odd that they don't have a security question or other secondary verification to get around what must be a very common problem.