How to remove the birthday notifications on LinkedIn.

Heath Evans
3 min readFeb 2, 2017

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Updated: Since writing this article, LinkedIn have introduced an easy way to turn off any notifications. Click here.

Original article below:

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I recently found myself questioning why on earth LinkedIn insisted on advising me of every single birthday, and furthermore why there was not an easy option to remove these notifications.

Certain I was not alone, I turned to google to find a solution only to discover a swarm of frustrated individuals who were fuming that no such option existed.

Now obviously I could remove my birthday from my account so as not to inflict this unnecessary function on others, but this would actually only solve half the problem. It may also actually send a mixed message to LinkedIn who could interpret this as me not wanting to share my personal details.

Now I’m not one for mixed messages, so I’ll cut to the chase and introduce you to a quirky idea I’m calling #TAKETHELEAP.

Having discussed this with others on LinkedIn, one very clever individual — Achint Gupta — came up with the brilliantly simple suggestion of changing our birthdays to February 29 (hence #taketheleap).

Since 2016 was our last leap year we have until 2020 for LinkedIn to remove this unnecessary feature, and nothing will send a clearer message than this mass response from the people.

Now I know by now half of you are reading this and thinking “wow, what a jerk” whilst the rest of you are high fiving the screen and yelling “hell yeah my brother, power to the people!”, so let me assure you I realise this certainly falls into the category of #firstworldproblems. However, I always love seeing how consumer behaviour can quickly impact business decision so I’d love you all to get on board.

To join this plight see instructions below and leave a comment on this LinkedIn post so we can hopefully watch it spread.

How to change your birthday to Feb 29 on LinkedIn.

1. Move your cursor over Profile at the top of your homepage and select Edit Profile.

2. Scroll to the Additional Info section.

3. Click the Edit icon in the Personal Details section.

4. Change your information under Birthday and/or Marital status by clicking the dropdown icons.

5. Click Save.

Thanks for hearing me out. Hopefully it’s a bit of fun and I wish all of you a very very happy birthday for years to come, or worst case in three more years when the calendar ticks to Feb 29 2020 and our accounts are bombarded like never before!

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Heath Evans

Marketing & Communications Manager at Melbourne Accelerator Program (MAP) | Director at Future Talent | Seth Godin's altMBA Coach. www.heathevans.com.au