The Complete Guide to LinkedIn Boolean Search (2024)

You are reading a boolean search guide for LinkedIn. In this guide, we will provide you with tips and tricks to optimize your boolean search results so that you can find the job candidates that best match your specific needs. 

As social media continues to grow in importance, LinkedIn is no exception. As the largest online recruiting platform in the world, it's important for businesses of all sizes to be using LinkedIn Boolean Search techniques to uncover qualified candidates quickly and easily. While there isn't one definitive way to achieve great boolean search results on LinkedIn, following these tips will help you get started.

The 5 Linkedin Boolean Search Operators

You can narrow your searches on LinkedIn using the following 5 boolean search operators:

1. Quotes
2. AND
3. OR
4. NOT
5. Parenthesis

1. Quotes

Quotes make it possible to look for specific words or phrases like:

- A few words

- Punctuation

If you're looking for a phrase with many words, place the phrase within quotation marks. For example: “Marketing Manager”, “IT Specialist”, “Sales Representative”.

If you do not include the quotation marks around Marketing Manager, LinkedIn will search for "Marketing AND Manager."

In the screenshot above, you can see that certain search results are irrelevant.

However, if I put quotation marks around "Marketing Manager," the results will be exactly what you're searching for. 

You can easily see the distinction between adding and forgetting the quotations now.

2. AND

If you wish to look for profiles that have two or more keywords, use AND to split them.

For example: IT AND Marketing.

If you enter two terms without quotation marks, the search tool will believe they are connected by an AND.

3. OR

You can use OR to divide the terms you wish to search for in order to identify profiles that contain one or more of them.

When looking for similar-sounding phrases or different spellings, OR is most frequently employed.

For example: “Vice President” OR “V.P.”

4. NOT

If you wish to omit a specific term from your filter, write NOT before it. 

Any account that contains that keyword will be excluded from your search results.  For example: Director NOT Executive NOT Sales.

5. Parentheses

If you want to do a complex search, you can combine terms and modifiers.

For example: Assistant AND (Marketing OR Sales). This will look for profile containing: Assistant AND Marketing, Assistant AND Sales.

Where Can I Use LinkedIn Boolean Search?

There are 3 areas you can use LinkedIn's boolean lookup:

1. Linkedin Basic
2. Linkedin Sales Navigator
3. Linkedin Recruiter

The boolean search is available in all of these search engines and can be applied to:

1. The job title field
2. The keyword search field
3. Company field
4. School field

1. LinkedIn Basic Search

On LinkedIn's basic search, boolean search operators can be used on:

1. The general search
2. First Name
3. Last Name
4. Title
5. Company
6. School

You may conduct searches similar to this one. 

The keyword filter examines certain fields, but the general search bar analyzes the entire profile:

• - job titles
• - job description
• - school
• - skills
• - recommendation
•  

However, quotes cannot be used in the standard search on LinkedIn. If you attempt to add more than one phrase between quotes, the following notice will appear: 

 It's odd that LinkedIn claims they can't handle your request. Definitely, a tactic to get you to purchase Sales Navigator.

2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Same thing for Sales Navigator. The global keyword search will look for the keyword in the whole profile:

1. Description
2. About Section
3. Job experiences
4. Education
5. Skills
6. Recommendation

Only your keywords will be used in the Current job title search to examine your candidates' prior employment histories.

Additionally, you can utilize boolean search to look up previous job titles. In other words, all of the "Present" tag experience. 

Moreover, you can fill boolean search fields as School, Current Company and Past Company fields.

3. LinkedIn Recruiter

Similar to Sales Navigator, you may use LinkedIn Recruiter's boolean search in the:

1. Keyword search
2. Job title search
3. Company search
4. School search

How To Make a Super Targeted LinkedIn Boolean Search?

A highly tailored boolean search can be created in 4 easy steps:

1. Establish your ideal client profile
2. Examine your current clients
3. Type your boolean expression outside of LinkedIn
4. Continue iterating

1. Establish your ideal client profile

Before you start messing about with LinkedIn filters and boolean search, you need have a good notion of who your potential clients are.

There's no need to haste. First, make a document out of everything. Develop a persona, then attempt to convert it into LinkedIn filters.

2. Examine your current clients

Examining the profiles of your current clients or prospects is a smart place to start when creating your first boolean inquiry.

Select the job titles and keywords that appear the most frequently in the profiles and incorporate them in your boolean search.

3. Type your boolean expression outside of LinkedIn

Writing a big boolean query on Linkedin search engines is excruciatingly unpleasant. You can't see the entire statement you're writing, and it frequently gets deleted.  It's far easier to type your boolean search in a notebook first, then paste it into Linkedin.

This allows you to immediately identify potential errors. When you start a boolean search that is 10 or more lines long, mistakes are common.

4. Continue iterating

Your boolean query is a tool that will develop as your company expands and learns more about its target clients. Every time you conduct a search, you may come across accounts that you deem irrelevant. Use NOT to add them to your blacklist.

You can come across fresh keywords or job titles that you hadn't considered before. Using OR, add them to your chosen keyword lists. Your boolean expression is not something. It is alive and should change as you discover something new about your target.

LinkedIn Boolean Search Template You Can Use

You can use the following model for your boolean searches: 

(Position Keywords) AND (Field Keywords) NOT (Blacklist) 

This template is quite useful for staying organized when your boolean query grows in size.

The Shortcomings of LinkedIn Boolean Search

The Linkedin boolean search is an excellent tool, but the Linkedin database contains numerous issues that can degrade the quality of your searches:

1. People do not accurately update their employment experiences.

2. A keyword search examines the entire profile.

3. Your boolean queries are verified twice automatically by Scrupp.

Fortunately for you, Scrupp can identify these "false positives."

1. People do not accurately update their employment experiences

When you perform a boolean search in the "Job Title" column, Linkedin will scan all accounts with recent perspective.

It's labeled "Present" on the job experiences.

Some people, though, fail to "close" their previous experience when they begin a new one. This means that Linkedin still considers many old events to be current. This issue causes a large number of false positives in your search. In a search for Head of Sales, for example, you can end up with HRs.

2. A keyword search examines the entire profile

The second challenging aspect of boolean search is that it searches the entire profile when using keywords. Some pertinent fields include:

1. Headline
2. Summary
3. Current job description
4. School description
5. Recommendations
6. Past job description

Using boolean search in the keyword search filter may result in a large number of false positives.

3. Your boolean queries are verified twice automatically by Scrupp

We recognized that this issue was wasting a lot of time for Linkedin users. And that's why, with Scrupp, we created an algorithm to double-check if your leads truly match your search filters.

We verify such issues:

• - Whether the position listed on Linkedin is the actual one that is in effect.
• - If the keyword appears in a specific field.

So don't waste your time and use the verified Sales Navigator scraper Chrome Extension.