LinkedIn is the number one B2B database, with no real competitor. The network has passed the one billion member mark. Mastering LinkedIn’s codes is now a key skill, whether for sales prospecting, social selling or recruiting candidates.
Sales reps and recruiters, I’ve written this guide to help you sharpen your advanced LinkedIn search and filter results. With a few techniques and tips, you’ll quickly build quality prospect lists and make the most of the relevant information available on every profile page.
The different sources of information on LinkedIn
Here are the different sources of information you can find on LinkedIn, each allowing targeted searches by industry and by the features available.
- People: this option lets you search for specific individuals on LinkedIn from the search bar. It’s particularly useful for identifying and contacting relevant professionals in your industry and filtering profiles by specific criteria.
- Posts: posts give you an overview of current discussions and trends across industries, letting you engage with content and increase the visibility of your own profile.
- Companies: this section gives access to company pages, with detailed information on organizations, their offers, news and relationships with employees.
- Jobs: this feature is essential for recruiters and job seekers, with an overview of current job openings. It’s also useful if you’re a sales rep and want to start from the customer’s need to target the right roles and profiles 😉
- Groups: groups let you join communities of professionals with shared interests, making it easier to network, build relationships and share knowledge in your industry.
- Products: exploring products lets you discover companies’ specific offers, which can be useful for buyers and sellers who want to use the platform’s features to the full.
- Services: this section is ideal for finding professional services offered by individuals or companies, and for spotting business opportunities.
- Events: keeps you informed of upcoming professional events, such as conferences or webinars, and lets you prospect attendees.
- Courses: this option helps you find courses and training to improve specific skills, strengthening your LinkedIn profile.
- Schools: searching for schools can help you connect with alumni of certain institutions, expanding your professional network.
- All filters: a feature in its own right, because it stacks with all the others. It lets you combine different search criteria to refine results, use the platform’s features to the full and target more specific information.
For each type of source, you’ll therefore get different data, such as profiles, industry information and job openings. It’s worth using all of them, with advanced filters, to run precise searches and get better results.
For example, in the “Jobs” tab, if you’re a recruiter looking to place a candidate, there’s nothing better than starting by defining the need precisely, by role and target industry, then clicking “Search”.
In the same way, if you’re a sales rep, LinkedIn “Courses” give you extra information that no ordinary database could provide. Knowing that your potential prospect has taken an Excel course lets you target the profile precisely and refine your prospect list according to the specific terms and needs found in their training history.
MirrorProfiles dedicated LinkedIn accounts have the same search features as any other LinkedIn account, and nothing stops you from activating a Sales Navigator subscription on one of them: one Sales Navigator subscription, on a single account, is enough to build the lists your other accounts then work.
So always know where your information comes from and how it was collected. Sales reps and recruiters often focus only on data such as job title, email, LinkedIn URL, education, and so on. Yet the origin of the data in each search field can give you differentiating information for your outreach and your offers when you make contact. Take the time to search for key terms and use filters to improve your results.
Now that we’ve covered everything LinkedIn offers, let’s look at how to optimize every search using targeted profiles and advanced filtering techniques.
Tips to optimize your advanced LinkedIn searches
Tip 1: Boolean operators
LinkedIn’s Boolean search operators come down to these 4 elements, essential for refining your searches:
- OR
- AND
- NOT
- Parentheses and quotation marks
These Boolean operators are used directly in the LinkedIn search bar. “OR” is a classic “or” that broadens your search by including several terms. “AND” and “NOT”, on the other hand, are exclusive: they let you filter profiles precisely and avoid irrelevant prospects. Parentheses are useful for combining these operators and building complex search expressions.
Let’s take a concrete example:
In plain language, here’s how you’d phrase the search:
“I want every LinkedIn post where people talked about marketing or prospecting in the context of LinkedIn. But I don’t want posts that mention ads or advertising.”
On LinkedIn, here’s how you set up that search in the search bar:
- Go to the “Posts” tab
- In the search bar, type: LinkedIn AND (Marketing OR Prospecting) NOT ads, to filter results as precisely as possible
This works very well in the “People” tab, because it goes further than the job title. Combining search terms and keywords with Boolean operators gives you almost surgical precision when filtering profiles. Keywords are like a CTRL+F on a LinkedIn profile. With Boolean operators, it’s as if you were running several CTRL+F searches across LinkedIn profiles in bulk, making your prospecting far more efficient.
Tip 2: “Followers of”
This tip is little known, yet it’s formidable. With the rise of social selling on LinkedIn, every niche your company operates in has a few key influencers. If you don’t know them, you can rely on the Favikon ranking, which lists these influencers by industry, making it easier to identify relevant prospects and build solid business relationships.
Once you’ve found the influencer, whether or not you’re connected with them, you can export the profiles of the people who follow them, and who are therefore interested in the content that influencer publishes, letting you find and add qualified prospects to your list.
You can also stack your own filters on top, as seen in tip 1. That gives you a database of prospects or candidates with a ready-made opener, personalized to the profile. For example: “I also think X’s content is great! Since you’re interested in Y, I offer a premium solution along those lines that lets you Z.”
Never forget that knowing where your data comes from gives you the keys to good copywriting. By combining profile information with precise search terms, you make full use of the platform’s features. And if you’re interested in the secrets of good copywriting, here are the 10 golden rules of good copywriting.
Tip 3: Events
Did you know that you can export the attendees of a LinkedIn event, such as a webinar, even if you’re not the organizer? This is pure gold for your sales prospecting. Prospecting webinar attendees is very effective. It’s a method we use regularly to build precise, targeted prospect lists.
Tip 4: Using advanced filters
To go deeper and refine your searches, it’s crucial to use LinkedIn’s advanced filters. They narrow results down by precise criteria such as connection level, location, industry, school or company. Activate them by clicking “All filters” in the search bar to target your searches precisely and get highly relevant prospect profiles.
Tip 5: Fuzzy search and external search
LinkedIn offers a fuzzy search feature that finds terms close to the exact words you typed. You can also use Google to search for specific keywords across the whole of LinkedIn, with queries like “site:linkedin.com”. This lets you find profiles or companies that might not show up in a standard LinkedIn search, widening your prospecting field and giving you access to a broader set of data.
There are plenty more, but it wouldn’t be much fun if I revealed them all 😉 You already have enough to get started. If you master every LinkedIn source and the five tips I’ve just given you, you’ll have an abundant list of quality data to work with. First, you’ll need to export the relevant profiles. Then, you’ll need to use that data properly to strengthen your business relationships and refine your offers.
Making use of the databases you’ve built
Now that you have dozens, or even hundreds, of databases, you’ll need a good number of LinkedIn profiles to work them quickly. Speed is the name of the game (after data). Basing your export on one of the LinkedIn tabs, such as webinar attendees, lets you build a targeted prospect list. But your prospecting message will have to draw on where that list came from, personalizing your offers to the profiles, and you shouldn’t wait too long before contacting them. Otherwise, prospects won’t understand your opener and you risk losing their attention.
Yet, as you know, LinkedIn limits each account in terms of search volume and connection requests: a LinkedIn account is limited to 100 to 120 connection requests per week. Hard to move fast with such a limit, especially if you’re targeting many profiles or companies.
That’s why we launched MirrorProfiles, a rental service for dedicated LinkedIn accounts, manually warmed up over 4 months and ready for automation. With 5 MirrorProfiles accounts, you multiply your sales prospecting capacity by 5, which means 500 to 600 connection requests per week: the volume is proportional to the number of accounts. Today, having several LinkedIn accounts to diversify the profiles and offers you put forward is as essential as giving one of your employees a computer. Renting LinkedIn accounts is the Growth solution for 2026.
In conclusion, mastering LinkedIn has become essential for sales prospecting and recruitment. Your LinkedIn searches can be greatly improved by using the variety of information sources available on the platform, such as profiles, companies and events. To refine your queries, remember to use Boolean operators, make clever use of features like “followers of” and events, and apply advanced filters. These techniques will help you qualify prospects precisely by industry and by profile.
On top of that, managing the databases you’ve built and using several accounts, as MirrorProfiles offers, amplifies your sales prospecting capacity by diversifying profiles and giving you more filters. It’s also crucial to choose the right LinkedIn subscription for more precise prospecting and access to premium features that will sharpen your offers and professional relationships.
FAQ
How does LinkedIn search work?
LinkedIn search works with keywords typed into the search bar, showing results across various profile fields, including people, companies, jobs, schools and content. To refine results, you can use advanced filters such as location, industry and current company, and Boolean operators such as AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks and parentheses to target your searches precisely.
How do I know who is searching for me on LinkedIn?
To know who is searching for you on LinkedIn, you need a LinkedIn Premium subscription, as this feature isn’t available on free accounts. With LinkedIn Premium, you can see who has viewed your profile in the “Who viewed your profile” section of your dashboard.
Who can see LinkedIn searches?
Your LinkedIn presence is visible to several groups, including your network of contacts, recruiters and the companies you target. The larger and more engaged your network, the more visible your posts and profile will be. Hashtags and interactions (likes, shares, comments) also increase the visibility of your content to a wider audience.
How do I view my search history on LinkedIn?
To view your search history on LinkedIn, follow these steps:
- Go to the search bar at the top left of the page.
- Your previous searches appear with a “Clear” option.
- Alternatively, go to “Me” or your profile picture, then “Settings” or “Settings & Privacy”, then “Data privacy”, and click “Search history”.
