The LinkedIn Lookup app is a powerful tool that allows you to search for and view LinkedIn profiles without having a LinkedIn account yourself. It provides access to a wealth of information about professionals that is typically only available to LinkedIn members. With the LinkedIn Lookup app, you can search for people by name, company, job title, location, and more. It’s an invaluable resource for sales prospecting, recruiting, market research, and overall professional networking.
How does the LinkedIn Lookup app work?
The LinkedIn Lookup app is able to access and display information from LinkedIn profiles through web scraping. Web scraping is a technique that extracts data from websites through automated software scripts. The app sends requests to LinkedIn servers to pull profile data, mimicking the actions a human would take to view LinkedIn pages and profiles. It’s able to gather information that LinkedIn makes publicly available to search engines but not to unauthenticated users. This data is then formatted and displayed in the LinkedIn Lookup app interface.
So in summary, the LinkedIn Lookup app works by:
- Using automated scripts to mimic human interaction on LinkedIn
- Extracting profile data that LinkedIn makes available publicly to search engines
- Compiling and formatting the data into the app’s easy-to-use search and profile display
What information can you find through the LinkedIn Lookup app?
The LinkedIn Lookup app provides access to a wealth of professional information, including:
- Full name
- Employment history (companies, titles, dates)
- Education history (schools, degrees, dates)
- Location
- Skills and expertise
- Profile summary
- Posts and articles published
- Number of connections
Essentially, you can view almost everything on a person’s LinkedIn profile, except for their contact information. This gives you great insight into someone’s professional background and qualifications without connecting to them through LinkedIn.
What are the key benefits of using the LinkedIn Lookup app?
Here are some of the main benefits of using the LinkedIn Lookup app:
- Prospect research – Easily research prospects and leads to understand their work history, skills, and interests before reaching out.
- Recruiting – Source and vet candidates for open positions by looking up their qualifications.
- Business development – Identify key decision makers and stakeholders at a company to support sales efforts.
- Competitive analysis – Research executives and employees at other companies in your industry.
- Professional branding – See how you and your business appear from a 3rd party perspective.
- Career development – Get inspiration for building your professional brand and profile.
- No LinkedIn account required – Use the lookup functionality without having a LinkedIn profile.
- Privacy – Research discretely without alerting prospects and candidates that you viewed their profile.
What should you be aware of when using the LinkedIn Lookup app?
While the LinkedIn Lookup app provides useful lookup functionality, there are some important caveats to consider:
- Information may not be fully up-to-date if the profile owner does not actively maintain their LinkedIn profile.
- You are viewing a limited profile, not the full experience and functionality that LinkedIn members see when logged in.
- Some users choose to restrict public viewing of parts of their profile, so data may be missing or outdated.
- LinkedIn terms of service technically prohibit accessing private data without proper authorization.
In summary, treat the LinkedIn Lookup app as an useful but imperfect source of professional information, keeping in mind you may not have the full context or recent updates on an individual’s career.
How can sales professionals leverage the LinkedIn Lookup app?
The LinkedIn Lookup app is an invaluable tool for sales teams and business development functions. Key ways they can utilize the app include:
- Research prospects to identify the right decision makers and build target account lists.
- Source relevant background info to prepare for sales calls and meetings.
- Identify connections and similarities to establish rapport.
- Vet prospects and accounts to prioritize the most promising opportunities.
- Understand organizational charts and structures to sell effectively.
- Segment and categorize prospects based on characteristics like seniority, location, skills.
Having rich professional information at your fingertips enables sales teams to take a customized, strategic approach in their outreach. The LinkedIn Lookup app delivers quick and easy access to prospect data that would typically require many frustrating searches across the web.
Prospect research use case
Maria is an SDR at a software startup. She uses the LinkedIn Lookup app to research Acme Co, a prospect company she wants to reach out to. By quickly looking up employees in sales roles, she’s able to identify:
- John Smith, Sales Manager, likely the decision maker
- Jane Adams, Sales Representative, a good initial point of contact
- Mark Roberts, Director of IT, relevant stakeholder given the tech nature of the product
For each contact, Maria checks their job history, skills, interests, and recent posts to shape her outreach messaging. She also researches Acme Co’s technology stack based on the skills and backgrounds of their engineers. With relevant insights from the LinkedIn Lookup app, Maria crafts customized, strategic intro emails.
How can recruiters utilize the LinkedIn Lookup app?
Recruiters can leverage the LinkedIn Lookup app throughout the hiring process:
- Sourcing – Find potential candidates for open roles based on keywords, companies, titles, locations, skills, schools etc.
- Vetting – Use quick professional profile lookups to screen candidates before contacting them.
- Researching – Thoroughly research shortlisted candidates to prepare for interviews.
- Verifying – Fact check resume details like employment dates, titles, education against the LinkedIn profile.
- Relationship building – Learn about candidates’ passions and interests to establish authentic rapport.
The LinkedIn Lookup app becomes a recruiter’s go-to talent database, enabling them to identify, vet, and engage the best candidates in a strategic, targeted way.
Recruiting use case
John is a corporate recruiter hiring for a Project Manager role. He uses the LinkedIn Lookup app to:
- Search for project managers in the right city and industry to source candidates.
- Look up profiles of applicants to screen for required skills and qualifications.
- Research shortlisted candidates to identify questions for interviews.
- Confirm employment history details match candidates’ resumes.
With the rich candidate insights from the LinkedIn Lookup app, John makes well-informed choices to advance the best applicants through the hiring process.
How can individuals use the LinkedIn Lookup app for their careers?
Professionals can use the LinkedIn Lookup app to support their own career development in several ways:
- Personal branding research – Look up your own profile to understand personal brand and areas for improvement.
- Job search – Research hiring managers and interviewers at companies you want to work at.
- Salary research – Lookup peers with similar roles and experience to benchmark salary.
- Networking prep – Research people you will meet at an event or conference.
- Interview prep – Study the backgrounds of your interviewers to identify topics of discussion.
- Career pathing – Research professionals with aspirational job titles or companies to inspire your career.
Essentially, tap into the lookup app to gain insights that will help you strategically manage and grow your career over time.
Job seeking use case
Sarah has an interview for a Product Manager role at ABC Company. To prepare, she looks up her interviewers using the LinkedIn Lookup app to learn about:
- Their own careers and background
- Skills and areas of expertise
- Products they’ve worked on
With tailored talking points for each interviewer, Sarah goes into the interview feeling confident she can establish rapport and highlight her relevant experience.
What are some alternatives to the LinkedIn Lookup app?
Here are a few alternative options for looking up LinkedIn profiles:
- LinkedIn Recruiter – LinkedIn’s official recruitment tool for sourcing candidates on the platform. Costs a monthly subscription fee.
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator – LinkedIn’s sales prospecting tool. Also subscription based.
- Chrome extensions – Browser extensions like LinkedPeek and LinkedIn Lookup provide basic profile lookup functionality.
- Google search operators – Use commands like “site:linkedin.com” and “inurl:pub” to surface profiles in Google search.
- Public LinkedIn profiles – Manually search LinkedIn to view public profiles that anyone can access.
The major pros of the LinkedIn Lookup app are convenience, depth of data, and smooth user experience. Alternatives may offer cheaper or free options but lack robust features and lookup power.
Is the LinkedIn Lookup app worth the price?
The LinkedIn Lookup app costs around $50 per month for the Pro plan. Whether the app is worth the price depends on how extensively you use professional lookup services.
For intensive business development and recruiting needs, the app can provide incredible value. Volume of high quality prospect and candidate research has a direct impact on sales and hiring results. In these cases, the LinkedIn Lookup app is well worth the price.
But for individual users or occasional lookup needs, the free alternatives may be sufficient. The premium features may not justify the cost if you only do light research.
In summary, evaluate your current and projected search volume and revenue potential driven by prospect research. This will determine whether the convenience and effectiveness of the LinkedIn Lookup app is worthwhile for your particular use case.
Conclusion
The LinkedIn Lookup app unlocks the informational riches of LinkedIn profiles without requiring an account. It empowers sales, recruiting, and other professionals to conduct targeted, in-depth research that would typically only be possible through LinkedIn Recruiter or Sales Navigator accounts. While pricing may deter some individual users, the app delivers immense value for organizations and teams through enabling more strategic, effective prospecting and hiring.
By leveraging the wealth of professional data on LinkedIn without some of the platform’s restrictions, the LinkedIn Lookup app delivers utility and convenience for a variety of key business needs. It makes once time-consuming prospect research quick and actionable.
