Boolean Searching on LinkedIn! ??

Do you wish you could afford the ￡69.99 monthly fee for Sales Navigator? Or maybe you are a business or department leader wishing the SLT would give you a budget to allow your team to use Sales Navigator? Either way, here is a hack that will allow you to do advanced searching FOR FREE.

Last week, I made a short TikTok video about 'Boolean Searches' on LinkedIn and was shocked when in less than 24 hours it had over 6k views and close to 80 people had saved the video to their favourites! So I thought I best come and share this little gem on LinkedIn too!

I wasn't going to write an article about it, as in all honestly this is such a great hack that I didn't think LinkedIn would like me posting it but as one of my TikTok followers kindly pointed out, LinkedIn have a help article on their Boolean Search feature too, so I guess it's OK for me to share (I will share that below).

There is a way within your standard and free version of LinkedIn that you can do advanced searches and it's called BOOLEAN SEARCHING.

Now, I am not saying Sales Navigator isn't worth it as if you can afford it, its great and makes searching LinkedIn so much easier, but as a new business owner I know first-hand that sometimes it just isn't possible to spend ￡69.99 a month. I also know what it's like to be in a leadership role and have SLT tell you that you can't have the budget for something like this.

Boolean searching on LinkedIn allows you to filter your LinkedIn search results without paying for the premium features.

Here is how it works:

• AND - Use AND to include multiple criteria. For example, 'Marketing AND Manager' will show profiles with both terms.
• OR - Use OR to include either of the criteria. 'Marketing OR Sales' finds profiles with either term.
• NOT - Use NOT to exclude certain terms. 'Marketing NOT Sales' excludes profiles that mention sales.
• Quotes - Use quotes for exact phrases. '“Content Marketing Manager”' finds profiles with that exact title.
• Parentheses - Combine terms using parentheses. '(Marketing OR Sales) AND Manager' refines your search further.

If you'd like to use this, just head over to your LinkedIn search bar as I have shared below in the picture. I have used Marketing "AND" Sales as an example here.

Then you can use the other free search features to refine this even further which I have also shown below.

• Click 'People' which will show those on LinkedIn that have a Marketing and Sales job title
• Click 'Locations' and add your desired location i.e. Portsmouth

BOSH.

You've then got a list of people within Sales and Marketing who are in your target area! You can take this even further by using the 'All filters' button shown on the right in the picture below too.

Here are the other search options you'll also see when you then click on 'All filters'

• Connections 1st 2nd or 3rd
• Locations
• Current Company
• Connections of
• Followers of
• Past Company
• School
• Industry
• Profile Language
• Service Catagories
• Keywords

So there you have it. This will allow you to really step up your LinkedIn search FOR FREE when you are looking to advance your connections here on LinkedIn!

Remember, LinkedIn is a digital networking platform. In my view, it's not a direct sales platform and we don't like pitch slapping around these parts so please don't abuse features like this to pester people!

Enjoyed this and found it useful? Please share to help me keep growing my little one-woman brand! And come follow me, I am sharing lots of useful LinkedIn hacks to help people just like you!

Interested in training your team to use LinkedIn better? I am your girl. I am training teams in leading UK brands on the importance of being present on LinkedIn and how to use it as an added revenue stream that costs ￡0 but can seriously help your growth. All without sending spammy DMs. If you'd like to more about this, lets chat: [email protected]

You can read LinkedIn's article on Boolean here: LinkedIn Boolean Searching

I would also recommend you take a look at this one too: LinkedIn Searching