How to Use Boolean Search on LinkedIn to Find Targeted Clients
LinkedIn represents an incredibly useful resource for job-seekers and professionals across different industries. Thousands of opportunities are waiting to be snapped up if you know where and how to find them.
Using LinkedIn’s Boolean search tool can help you accurately narrow down opportunities and professionals that can be useful to your job search or career growth. Here’s how to go about it.
What Is LinkedIn’s Boolean Search?
The LinkedIn Boolean search is an advanced search feature that allows you to find specific people by filtering out unwanted information. Boolean search allows LinkedIn users to launch a targeted search for profiles matching a certain industry, expertise, job title, or location by using logical operators. The Boolean operators you can use to refine a LinkedIn search are:
How to Use Boolean Search Operators on LinkedIn
Here’s how to use the different Boolean search operators on LinkedIn:
1. Using “Quotes” in LinkedIn Search
The quotation wrapped around a keyword or phrase helps you capture profiles of people who match the keywords or phrases in the specific order entered.
For example, a search for a SaaS content writer, without the quotes, on LinkedIn would pull up any profile that has any combination of SaaS, Content, and Writer in it. A search for"SaaS content writer"would only pull up profiles of people whose profile is an exact match in that specific order.
2. Using the AND Operator in LinkedIn Search
The AND operator allows you to search for two or more combinations of keywords at once. Using AND between phrases or words in a search query pulls up only profiles that contain all the provided keywords or phrases.
For instance, if you are a writer looking to find a writing gig, you may be in search of HR managers or talent acquisition specialists in the writing field. This means you may need to find profiles who are both in the writing field and are also talent acquisition specialists.
In such a case, a search term liketalent acquisition specialist AND writerwould do the job. The results would present only profiles who are talent acquisition specialists and are related to the writing field. This could be very useful for identifying the right people forpitching your freelance services on LinkedIn.
3. Using the OR Operator in LinkedIn Search
Entering OR between two or more phrases in your search query pulls profiles that match one or more of the words or phrases you provide. So, if you need profiles of HR managers or Sales reps, you could use a search query likeHuman resources manager OR Sales Rep.
4. Using the NOT Operator in LinkedIn Search
you may use the NOT operator to exclude a phrase or keyword from your search results. For instance, if you’re on the hunt for managers but not managing directors, you can typeManagers NOT Managing Directorsas your search query to exclude managing directors from your search result.
5. Using Parentheses () in LinkedIn Search
As your search becomes more complex, using parentheses helps organize your results in a logical order. With the help of parenthesis and LinkedIn, you can combine multiple operators, which will process them as a single search.
A parenthesis is commonly used with the OR operator in most advanced searches. For instance, if you want to search for copywriters and content writers but need to exclude authors and speakers from the search, you’d use something likecopywriter AND “content writer” NOT(Author OR Speaker).With this query, LinkedIn will pull up profiles of people who are both copywriters and content writers, but exclude those that are also authors or speakers.
There are several other scenarios where it could come in handy. You could, for instance, leverage a combination of operators and parenthesis to narrow down andmessage admission officers for a school you’d love to attain. To get the best results from LinkedIn Boolean search, it’s important to note the following:
Narrow Down Your Target Profiles
LinkedIn’s Boolean search is an important tool for reaching out to your target audience. It’s easy to use, but powerful enough to save you the time and frustration of sorting through irrelevant results.
Simply being a LinkedIn user won’t guarantee you a job. Leverage LinkedIn’s numerous tools to narrow down your prospects and increase your chances of getting hired.
If you want to use LinkedIn to its full potential you need to get the basics right first. And that include creating the best headline to help you get noticed.
My iPhone does it all, but I still need my dumb phone.
You can’t call this offline, Notion.
I gripped my chair the entire time—and then kept thinking about it when the screen turned off.
You’re not getting the most out of what you pay for iCloud+.
Don’t let aging hardware force you into buying expensive upgrades.
