LinkedIn has become the world’s largest professional networking platform, with over 722 million users as of April 2022. With its massive database of profiles, LinkedIn can be a great place to find information about people you want to connect with professionally. A common question is whether it’s possible to find someone’s LinkedIn profile using just their phone number. The short answer is maybe, but it’s not straightforward.
There is no direct way to search for LinkedIn members using a phone number. LinkedIn doesn’t allow users to search its directory this way. However, there are some indirect methods you can try to locate someone’s profile using a phone number as a starting point. With some clever searching and a bit of luck, you may be able to discover the LinkedIn profiles associated with a given phone number.
Why You Can’t Search LinkedIn by Phone Number
LinkedIn doesn’t allow phone number searches for both practical and privacy reasons.
On the practical side, allowing phone number searches could open the floodgates to spam and abuse. Anyone could potentially query LinkedIn’s 722 million members by inputting numbers. This could place a heavy burden on LinkedIn’s servers.
Privacy is an even bigger concern. Many LinkedIn members wouldn’t want their profiles exposed to anyone with their phone number. Connecting phone numbers to LinkedIn profiles in an unrestricted way raises privacy issues.
While some professional networking sites like Repler allow searching by phone, LinkedIn has clearly prioritized privacy and anti-abuse measures over open searchability by phone number.
How to Search for Someone on LinkedIn by Phone Number
While you can’t directly search for LinkedIn members by phone number, some creative indirect techniques may help uncover profiles associated with a given number. Here are a few methods to try:
1. Google the Phone Number
Start by googling the phone number in quotation marks (e.g. “123-456-7890”). See if the results surfaces any pages that mention both the phone number and the person’s LinkedIn profile. Sometimes the phone number and LinkedIn link will be mentioned together on sites like marketing lead lists, business directories, etc.
You can also try searching for just the number without quotation marks. Browse through the results to see if LinkedIn is mentioned on any pages related to that phone number.
2. Check People Search Sites
There are many free and paid people search sites like Spokeo, Intelius, and PeopleFinders that aggregate public records and data. Search for the phone number on some of these sites. If there’s a match, the person’s name, location, age, employment, and other info may be shown. Some of these sites may list known LinkedIn profiles associated with that name and number.
3. Look Them Up on Facebook
Since many people list the same mobile number across social media platforms, you can try looking up the phone number on Facebook. Go to the Facebook search bar and enter the phone number. If there’s a match, you’ll see the person’s profile. Oftentimes people who have Facebook accounts also have LinkedIn accounts. Once you identify the name via Facebook, you can search LinkedIn to see if they have a matching profile.
4. Check Their Email Signature
If you have the person’s email address, check the email signature. Many professionals include a link to their LinkedIn profile in their signature. Simply look up their email on sites like RocketReach or EmailHippo to discover their signature. If the phone number and LinkedIn profile link are both present, you have a match.
5. Cross-Reference Business Directories
Search for the person’s phone number on both traditional and online business directories, including YellowPages, WhitePages, AnyWho, and 411.com. If the phone number is listed, the associated name and company may be provided. Take that info and search LinkedIn to uncover a matching profile.
Advanced Techniques to Find Someone’s LinkedIn by Phone Number
The methods above focus on taking a phone number and trying to trace it back to a name and LinkedIn profile through search engine results, public records, and business listings. For some expert-level options, consider these more advanced techniques:
Paid Background Check Services
Paid background check sites like TruthFinder, Instant Checkmate, and BeenVerified can check phone number ownership and provide detailed reports listing associated names, employment history, known emails/usernames, social media accounts, and more. The background reports from these services may directly list any known LinkedIn profiles connected to that phone number.
Email Verification APIs
There are email verification APIs like NeverBounce and ZeroBounce that let you instantaneously validate if an email address actually exists. If you have a name but need to find their email, these APIs can tell you if emails based on the person’s name + company are real. Once you have a valid business email, search it on publicly viewable email directories to uncover their signature and LinkedIn profile link.
Public Record Lookup Services
Paid aggregators of public records like LexisNexis and TLOxp provide information linking people’s names, phone numbers, addresses, employment history and more. With an enterprise account, you may be able to search just by phone number and get associated names and employment info. Use those details to lookup the person on LinkedIn.
Social Media Cross-Referencing
There are tools like Socx that cross-reference social media profiles across networks. Upload a list of phone numbers and Socx will check them against connected social media accounts on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Any matches with LinkedIn profiles will be shown.
LinkedIn Recruiter
LinkedIn Recruiter allows searching LinkedIn by phone number – but only as a premium feature for talent scouts and HR professionals. If you have a Recruiter account through your company, you can directly look up LinkedIn members by inputting phone numbers through Recruiter’s search tools.
Is Scraping LinkedIn by Phone Number Allowed?
Some programmers may consider scraping, indexing, or datamining LinkedIn by phone number to enable reverse phone lookups. However, this violates LinkedIn’s Terms of Service.
LinkedIn explicitly bans scraping and unauthorized data collection from their site. They can detect and punish bulk data extraction attempts with measures ranging from blocks to lawsuits.
For ethical reasons, it’s also best not to violate people’s privacy expectations by datamining their info. So scraping methods are not a viable option.
Caveats When Searching LinkedIn by Phone Number
While the tactics above may help uncover LinkedIn profiles from phone numbers, there are some important caveats:
– Success is not guaranteed. There’s a chance the phone number may not be findable on public sources.
– The phone number might be listed under someone else’s name (a spouse, coworker, etc).
– The person may not have a LinkedIn account at all.
– If they do have a profile, their number may not be publicly visible on it.
– People can lie or enter false info on public records and directories. So matches could lead to incorrect profiles.
– Searches will turn up many irrelevant results to sift through. Finding the right profile takes effort.
– Some utilities like email verification APIs and public record databases have usage limits or may charge fees.
So while uncovering a LinkedIn profile from a phone number is possible in some cases, there’s no perfect process. Expect to invest some time – and even then success is not assured.
Should You Connect with Someone on LinkedIn You’ve Only Looked Up by Phone Number?
If you manage to locate someone’s LinkedIn profile using the tactics above, should you then connect with them? That depends.
If you have no prior relationship with this person, it would likely feel creepy and intrusive for them to suddenly receive a LinkedIn connection request out of the blue from a stranger. Proceed with caution.
However, if you do have a legitimate professional reason to connect, a phone number search can be seen as part of reasonable due diligence. As long as you’re upfront in your connection invite about how you discovered them, it may be acceptable. But expect a decent percentage not to accept invitations from people they don’t know.
An alternative is to use the LinkedIn profile you’ve found to look up their company and colleagues. See if you’re connected to anyone familiar with them who could provide a warmer introduction.
In summary, “cold call” connecting after a phone number search on LinkedIn can feel uncomfortable without existing familiarity. Build on the search to create a less abrupt, more natural connection opportunity.
Legal and Ethical Considerations
When leveraging public data to search for LinkedIn profiles by phone number, be aware of legal and ethical considerations:
Data Privacy Laws
Depending on your location, data privacy laws may restrict the use of consumer data like phone numbers. For example, the EU’s GDPR limits processing personal data without consent. Check your local regulations.
Opt-Out Preferences
Some people have explicitly opted out from data aggregation services. If discovered, their info should be avoided.
Terms of Service
Abusing tools like email verification APIs or public record lookup services for bulk lookups may violate their terms. Use responsibly.
Personal vs. Professional Number
A personal mobile number can imply stronger privacy expectations vs. a published business contact number. Consider if your search crosses any reasonable privacy boundaries.
Establish Legitimate Interest
When connecting with someone identified through their number, have a clear, good faith professional rationale. Avoid contacts based solely on intrusive data searches.
In summary, just because a phone number search yields profiles doesn’t always mean you should connect. Evaluate the context and exercise good judgement.
Conclusion
While LinkedIn doesn’t allow searching by phone number directly, crafty research across search engines, directories, social media, public records, and email verification services can sometimes connect phone numbers to LinkedIn profiles. However, there are no guarantees of finding a match, and care should be taken if reaching out to make connections. With persistence and some luck, it’s possible to locate LinkedIn members from phone numbers – but daunting hurdles remain. Proceed ethically and set expectations appropriately when leveraging phone numbers to search LinkedIn’s professional networking platform.
