Introduction to LinkedIn's Advanced Search

LinkedIn’s advanced search feature is an indispensable tool when you’re not quite sure who you’re looking for. While most of us are probably familiar with LinkedIn's basic search filtering tools for finding friends and colleagues, advanced search really unlocks LinkedIn’s potential. 

Lets take a quick look at both.

LinkedIn’s Basic Search

Basic search is ideal if you’re looking for someone specific. That’s because you can enter someone’s name and LinkedIn will return all profiles matching that name. While this is useful, I often find there are too many results.

The dropdown allows us to filter our searches by People, Jobs, Company, Groups, Universities, Posts, and our Inbox. 

I find this useful for example if I’m searching for all employees at a specific company. I can type in a company name and get a list of all their employees on LinkedIn. This is helpful, but again, it’s often too many results for me because it contains all different job functions.

But what if I don’t know who or what company I’m looking for? Say I’m only looking for specific job titles. Well, this is where advanced search can help.

LinkedIn’s Advanced Search

Often times I find myself looking for certain functions within a company. That’s because these are the decision makers within a company that I’m trying to reach.
For example, I’m currently working with a law firm and my primary contact is the Managing Partner. Advanced search allows me to specify the industry the I want to focus on, the legal profession in this case. I also add the job title of “Managing Partner” in the title field. I further narrow my search to just my local market too.

Now my list of results contains all the Managing Partners at law firms in my local area. I can see how I’m connected to them and reach out to them if I think there’s an opportunity. 

Having a premium LinkedIn account also enables additional search criteria like being able to search within specific Groups you may belong to. 

Advanced Search Use Cases

Use advanced search in the following scenarios:

• Prospecting for new sales clients
• Determining hiring managers by function for job searches
• Finding specific types of businesses in local markets
• Searching for local school or company alumni
• Finding potential donors for like non-profit initiatives

How-to Apply Advanced Search

Here are step-by-step instructions for accessing advanced search.

1. In the LinkedIn toolbar, click Advanced.
2. In the far left column, enter any Keywords, Job Titles, or Location specific information to narrow your results.
3. In the middle column, click titles to expand additional filters like Relationship, Location, Company, Industry, or other Interests. Click to select options.
4. In the far right column, click titles again to expand additional filters like Groups, Function, or Company Size. Click your options.
5. In the lower-left corner, click Search.
6. Review your results. At the top of the results page, click Reset to clear the results and start again.

Wrap-up

Leveraging LinkedIn’s advanced search is an easy way to find people when you’re not exactly sure who you’re looking for. I encourage you to try using advanced search today. 

And as always, feel free to reach out and connect with me.

About Scott Skibell
Scott helps salespeople, consultants, and trainers sell more by teaching more with video. In addition to doing his own videos, he assists individuals and small business owners in the Kansas City area with their own video presentations and marketing videos. His Professional iPhone Video course shows anyone how to create their own videos using nothing more than an iPhone. You can learn more about Scott at SkillCasting.com