Look up every interviewer before the call and read for three things: their path to the current role, what they own now, and any genuine common ground — then use what you learned to ask better questions, not to recite their biography back at them. And yes, by default they can see you viewed their profile, which in this context works in your favor: it reads as preparation.
Start with trajectory: how long they have been at the company and where they came from. An interviewer who joined eight months ago from a bigger competitor gives you a live question — what surprised you moving here — and tells you the team is absorbing outside DNA. A ten-year veteran signals deep institutional knowledge and probably strong opinions about how things are done. Either way you now know which questions land.
Then read scope: their headline, current role description, and recent activity tell you what they own and care about, which is usually what they will probe in the interview. An engineering interviewer posting about reliability will likely dig into how you think about production quality. Finally scan for honest common ground — shared employer, city, university, mutual connections — usable as a light warm-up line, never as a forced bond.
The research surfaces as better questions, not as flattery. I saw the team's been growing - what's the biggest thing that breaks when a team doubles? beats any recital of their career. If a mutual connection is strong, a single natural mention is fine; if the common ground is thin, let it go. The line between prepared and unsettling is whether you are using the information to serve the conversation or to demonstrate surveillance — quoting their five-year-old posts is the wrong side of that line.
Research the company through its people too: browse the team you would join. Tenure patterns, backgrounds, and how the company describes roles versus how employees describe them are all visible in aggregate, and a question built on that reading — I noticed the team blends people from banking and from startups, how does that mix play out? — signals judgment, which is the thing interviews exist to detect.
LinkedIn shows people who viewed their profile unless the viewer browses in private mode, so assume your interviewer can see your visit. Before an interview this is harmless-to-positive — candidates are expected to prepare, and your view says you did. There is no need to toggle private mode for interview prep; save that for confidential searching where a view could tip off your current employer.
Remember the mirror: interviewers look you up too. The same afternoon you research them, glance at your own profile with their eyes — headline current, recent roles carrying real outcomes, activity consistent with the person your resume claims. Interview prep includes the surface they will prep from.
By default, yes — profile views are visible unless you browse in private mode. Before an interview that is fine and even favorable, since it signals preparation. Reserve private mode for research you genuinely need to keep quiet.
Their path to the role, what they currently own, and their recent activity — these predict what they'll probe and give you material for genuinely good questions. Note honest common ground, but use it lightly or not at all.
Mentioning current, professional, public things — their team's growth, a recent post about their work — reads as prepared. Reciting their career history or digging up old content reads as surveillance. Use research to ask better questions, not to prove you did research.
Put your profile through the optimizer: the score and the full problem list are free, and paid plans rewrite it line by line.
