Every platform asks for the same modest beginning: name, role, employer, skills, and a few connections. The footprint grows when you search quietly, pause on posts, import contacts, verify a workplace, join private rooms, message recruiters, or mark yourself open to work.
The important privacy question is not whether a service knows your resume. It is how many separate meanings the service can extract from your behavior: seniority, job intent, salary anxiety, competitor interest, influence graph, and the people most likely to vouch for you.
A work profile is not a static page. It is a living index of identity, attention, and leverage.
Use these chapters as a field notebook. Each page separates visible profile data from quiet telemetry, then ends with practical settings and behavior changes that reduce exposure without pretending you can opt out of professional life.