LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 660 million users worldwide. With its powerful search functionality, LinkedIn is a great place to find and connect with professionals in your industry or with specific job titles. Whether you are looking to network, recruit for an open position, or do research on competitors – LinkedIn’s advanced search makes it easy to find the right people.
In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through the various ways to search for people by job title on LinkedIn.
Why Search by Job Title on LinkedIn?
Here are some of the key reasons you may want to search LinkedIn by job title:
- Networking – Connecting with people who have similar job titles allows you to build your professional network. You can reach out to them for career advice, industry insights or even job opportunities.
- Recruiting – If you have an open position to fill, searching for people by job title is an easy way to discover relevant candidates. You can then connect with them or send an InMail to gauge their interest.
- Sales prospecting – Identifying leads by searching for job titles like “Director of Sales” or “VP of Marketing” lets you pinpoint the right decision makers to pitch your product or service to.
- Market research – Looking at what titles your competitors’ employees have provides useful intelligence on their organizational structure and strategic focus areas.
- Career research – Checking out job titles similar to your own gives you data points to compare compensation and responsibilities as you navigate your career.
So whether your goal is to hire, get hired, research a market, or further your own career – searching LinkedIn by job title provides targeted access to the right people.
How to Search LinkedIn by Job Title
Here are step-by-step instructions on how to search for LinkedIn members by job title:
1. Go to the LinkedIn Search Bar
Start by navigating to LinkedIn’s homepage. At the top of the page, you will see a search bar. This is where you can enter keywords to search for LinkedIn members.
2. Enter the Job Title
In the search bar, type in the job title you want to search for. For example, “Project Manager” or “Social Media Manager”. You can search for broad titles like this or get more specific with variations like “Senior Project Manager” or “Social Media Marketing Manager”.
3. Select “People” from the Dropdown Menu
As you begin typing in the job title, a dropdown menu will appear below the search bar. Make sure to click on the option for “People” rather than jobs, companies, content, etc. This will focus your search specifically on people profiles.
4. Hit Enter to Run the Search
Once you’ve entered the job title and selected the “People” filter in the dropdown menu, hit enter to run the search. LinkedIn will then display results related to people who have that job title listed on their profile.
5. Filter Your Results Further
LinkedIn’s left sidebar provides additional filters to narrow your people search results even more. You can filter by location, company, school attended, industry, profile language, relationship level, and more.
For example, you may search for “Project Manager” and then filter for only those located in Sydney, Australia who work at a software company. The filters let you easily drill down to find the most relevant profiles.
6. Connect with Your Target Searches
Once you’ve found the right people, it’s time to connect! Click the “Connect” button on their profile to send an invite. Adding shared connections in your message helps increase acceptance rate.
You can also communicate without connecting by using LinkedIn InMail if you have a premium account. Another option is upgrading to a Premium account for up to 30 days and InMailing all your prospects while downgrading back to free afterwards.
Either way, searching by job title and connecting with relevant professionals is a proven LinkedIn strategy to build your network and achieve your goals.
Tips for Effective Job Title Searches on LinkedIn
Here are some additional tips to optimize your job title searches on LinkedIn:
- Try job title abbreviations – Search “Dir. of Marketing” rather than just “Director of Marketing” to potentially get more results.
- Test multiple variations – Try versions like “Social Media Mgr” and “Social Media Director” to cover all bases.
- Use LinkedIn’s autocomplete suggestions – As you type in the search bar, LinkedIn will suggest common job titles that you can simply click on.
- Sort by keywords – After running your search, sort results by keywords on profiles to surface the most relevant people.
- Refine with geography/industry filters – Use the filters in the left sidebar to narrow your results to your target locations and industries.
- Send customized connection requests – Increase your chance of acceptance by personalizing your invites to explain why you want to connect.
Leveraging these search tips will help you spend less time sorting through irrelevant profiles and more time connecting with the right people.
Searching for Company Employees by Job Title
In addition to searching LinkedIn broadly by job title across the full network, you can also use job titles to find employees within a specific company.
Here is the process for searching for people by job title within a company:
- Go to the Company Page – Search for and visit the LinkedIn page of the company you want to search within.
- Click “See all employees” – On the right rail of the company page, click this link to see all of the company’s employees on LinkedIn.
- Use the filters – On the left side you can filter employees by location, seniority level, department, and more.
- Enter a job title – Type in the job title you want and hit enter to filter for employees with that title.
- Connect with your targets – Review the filtered list and connect with relevant employees at the company by job title.
This approach lets you go straight to employees at a particular company in your desired role. Useful for discovering leadership, HR contacts, engineers, designers, and other key roles within an organization.
Premium Search Tools on LinkedIn
LinkedIn Premium subscriptions provide additional capabilities to search for people by job title and other filters. Here are some of the premium features that can enhance your job title searching:
- Boolean search – Combine keywords and filters using AND/OR/NOT operators to create precise searches.
- Look up by name – Input a specific name to search for their profile and job title.
- Saved search alerts – Get notifications whenever new profiles match your customized searches.
- Contact info with InMail – Message people and see their full contact details without connecting first.
- Profile labels – Easily tag and organize your search results for future reference.
- Candidate insights – See stats on how in-demand a candidate’s skills are to assess competitiveness.
So if you search LinkedIn extensively, the premium tools can supercharge your job title searching and save you time in the long run.
Using Recruiter to Search Job Titles
LinkedIn Recruiter is LinkedIn’s dedicated recruiting platform paid for by employers and staffing agencies. It offers powerful features to search, filter, and connect with candidates by job title.
Key capabilities Recruiter provides for job title searching include:
- Find Candidates by Title – Boolean search for current or past job titles on profiles.
- Title/Company Filters – Use filters like “current title = x AND previous company = y”.
- Suggested Titles – See other suggested titles based on your initial search to uncover more candidates.
- Recruiter Reports – See data on the most common titles among your search results.
- OpenCandidate – Message people who aren’t actively job seeking but open to opportunities.
- TeamLink – Collaborate with your hiring team by sharing promising talent.
With Recruiter’s specialized toolset, recruiters can quickly drill down to find qualified candidates for open positions based on job titles and career history.
Conclusion
Searching LinkedIn by job title is a simple yet powerful way to connect with relevant professionals, discover talent, and gain market insights. Whether researching an industry, recruiting for a role, or expanding your professional network – using job titles as keywords delivers targeted, actionable search results.
Combine broad title searches with location/industry filters and company employee searches to narrow your focus. Connect with your most promising finds through personalized invites. For frequent searchers, LinkedIn’s premium and Recruiter subscriptions provide additional capabilities.
Now that you know how to maximize LinkedIn people searches by job title, you can more easily accomplish your hiring, networking, and marketing goals.