Save Time on LinkedIn Searches: Keyboard Shortcuts Guide

Surely you're wondering, "How could this guide be useful to me?" Well, in short, when I search on LinkedIn, I really miss having quick access that takes me directly to the search box, without having to use the mouse, click, and then type the query. And even after that, having to apply filters manually is a bit tedious. After much reflection, I discovered something I had known for a long time: modern browsers, like Chrome and Brave, allow you to configure "search engines" according to your preferences and assign them a specific key combination.

For example, in Brave, some predefined shortcuts are already configured, but keep in mind that you must first select the address bar by pressing Ctrl + L or clicking on it. Once you're there, you can enter the following predefined shortcuts (Brave):

• :g ---> To perform a search on google.com
• :d ---> To do it in DuckDuckGo
• :b ---> To do it in Bing

Also, what's interesting is that when you start typing ":b", you'll see an option to press the TAB key or the space bar. By doing so, the address bar will transform into a search box, as if you were searching directly on the website. So, once you've typed your search and want the results to open in a new tab, instead of pressing Enter, you can use Alt + Enter.

Once you've logged in to LinkedIn, the goal is to create a keyboard shortcut that allows you to search directly in your browser's address bar for anything on LinkedIn, while automatically applying certain filters to the results.

Step 1:

The first step is to perform a generic search on LinkedIn.

Step 2:

Now, while you're viewing the results, I suggest applying the filters you desire, according to your preferences. In my case, I'm specifically looking for companies, so I'm not interested in people or groups, among others things. Therefore, I'll apply that particular filter.

Step 3:

After applying your filters, please go to the top of the address bar and copy the complete URL using Ctrl + C or by right-clicking with the mouse.

Step 4:

Now we will proceed to open the contextual menu in the address bar. Once opened, we'll look for the option that labeled 'Manage search engines and site search'.

Step 5:

A new tab will open in your web browser settings, specifically in the search engine section. Within this section, you will look for the option that allows you to add a new search engine. In my case, it is located in the 'Site search' section. Once there, we will select the 'Add' button to add it.

Step 6:

Alright, a dialog box similar to the one shown in the screenshot should open. It asks us for 3 things:

• The name of the search engine or website. In our case, you could simply put www.dhirubhai.net .
• A combination of characters. The colons (:) are not mandatory; you can put whatever you want. In my case, I used the letters: :lnkc.
• The URL we copied in step 3, but there's a detail: you'll need to take a moment to study how that URL is composed, especially which parts of it contain our query. This varies greatly depending on the website we've used, but in our particular case, it should be very similar to my example because we're searching on linkedin.com . So, you'll have to locate after ?keywords= and replace them with %s. The %s part depends on each browser, but it will probably clarify it in the same dialog box. In my case, in the screenshot, I have highlighted in blue what I need to replace. If you don't get it right the first time, don't be discouraged and try again until you find out exactly what you need to replace in the URL for it to work. You can go back to the same configuration section to edit it.

Step 7:

Once you have saved it, you can open a new tab, go to the address bar, and start typing the combination of characters you have chosen. In my case, it was :lnkc, and the browser will give you the option to search on the website associated with that combination. To activate it, you can press TAB or the space bar.

I hope this has been helpful. You can apply this method to any website where you want to perform a search.