LinkedIn search offers advanced search capabilities through the use of modifiers. Modifiers allow you to refine and focus your search to find more relevant people, jobs, companies, groups, schools, and content. While there are many useful modifiers available, there is one modifier that is not currently supported on LinkedIn search – excluding specific keywords.
LinkedIn search supports the use of modifiers to narrow down or expand your search results. Modifiers are added to a search query to include or exclude specific criteria. Some common examples include searching by location, company, school, industry, job title, and more.
There are two main types of modifiers used on LinkedIn:
- Field modifiers – used to search specific profile fields like skills, company, school, etc.
- Keyword modifiers – used to refine keyword searches, like “OR”, “NOT”, etc.
Most LinkedIn search modifiers are well documented and can easily be added to any search query. However, there is one common search feature that is not currently supported – the ability to exclude specific keywords.
For example, if you search for “project manager”, there is no way to exclude results with the word “construction” without doing multiple searches. On other search engines like Google, you could search for “project manager -construction” to remove construction project managers from the results.
So in summary, while LinkedIn offers robust search functionality through modifiers, the ability to exclude keywords is notably absent.
Commonly Used LinkedIn Search Modifiers
Here are some of the most commonly used modifiers supported on LinkedIn search:
Field Modifiers
- Location – search by location name or GPS coordinates
- Company – search by current or past company name
- School – search by school name
- Title – search by job title
- Skills – search by specific skills and expertise
- Language – search by language proficiency
- Industry – search by industry name
Keyword Modifiers
- “OR” – returns results that match either keyword
- “AND” – returns only results that match both keywords
- “NOT” – excludes results matching a specific keyword
- “” – searches for an exact keyword phrase
Using combinations of field and keyword modifiers allows you to conduct very customized people searches on LinkedIn. For example, you could search for “project manager AND PMP NOT construction site:sf”.
The Missing Keyword Exclusion Modifier
As mentioned previously, the one keyword modifier not supported on LinkedIn is the ability to exclude specific keywords using a “-” symbol.
For example, on Google you could search:
“project manager -construction”
And it would exclude all results mentioning the word “construction”.
But on LinkedIn, search does not currently support this exclusion modifier. So if you search for “project manager -construction”, it simply ignores the “-” symbol and shows all project manager results.
This limitation makes it difficult to refine keyword searches where you want to eliminate specific keywords from the results.
The only current workaround is to do multiple searches with and without the undesired keyword. For example, you would have to search for:
- “project manager”
- “project manager construction”
And then try to determine which results only appear in the first search but not the second. This is obviously more cumbersome than being able to exclude directly in the search.
Why Excluding Keywords is Useful
Here are some examples where excluding keywords would be beneficial on LinkedIn search:
- Searching for project managers but wanting to exclude construction project managers
- Searching for accountants but wanting to exclude certified public accountants
- Searching for programmers but wanting to exclude front-end developers
- Searching for marketing managers but wanting to exclude social media marketing
In all these cases, being able to exclude specific keywords would allow for more precise searching to find your ideal candidates or connections.
Alternative Approaches to Excluding Keywords
Until LinkedIn search adds direct keyword exclusion support, here are some alternative approaches:
Use Multiple Field Modifiers
Use field modifiers to narrow results by skills, title, company, school, etc. For example, instead of excluding “construction” you could search for project managers with PMP certification.
Filter Results After Searching
Do an initial broad search, then filter the results by company, title, skills etc. to try to narrow down the list. LinkedIn does provide filters on the results page.
Use Boolean Search Strings
Construct complex boolean search queries using AND, NOT, and “” operators to include and exclude results to simulate excluding keywords.
Keyword Stuffing
Some users engage in “keyword stuffing” on their profile, cramming in unnecessary keywords. Excluding keywords helps avoid these irrelevant profiles in search results.
Future Support for Keyword Exclusion
Hopefully LinkedIn will add direct keyword exclusion support in the future, as it is a common search feature on Google and other engines. This would provide more powerful search refinement capabilities.
For now, one will have to rely on workarounds and multi-step searching to simulate excluding keywords.
But LinkedIn search remains a robust platform, providing the ability to search over 774 million professionals with precision using the many field and keyword modifiers at your disposal.
Conclusion
In summary, while LinkedIn offers many useful modifiers to refine and focus your searching, the ability to exclude specific keywords is notably absent. This makes it challenging to eliminate unwanted results from keyword searches. The current workarounds require conducting multiple searches and manually filtering results. Hopefully LinkedIn will add direct keyword exclusion functionality in the future, as it would greatly enhance search capabilities. But for now, become an expert in using all the other supported modifiers to precision target your ideal candidates, companies, groups, and content.
