The Only LinkedIn Boolean Search Guide You’ll Ever Need

What Is LinkedIn Boolean Search?

Let's cut the fluff. LinkedIn Boolean search is just a fancy way of telling LinkedIn’s search bar exactly what you want. It’s a type of search that lets you combine keywords with special commands called operators—like AND, OR, and NOT—to get more specific and relevant results.

Instead of just typing "sales manager" and getting a tidal wave of 11 million profiles, including every intern who once sat near a sales manager, you can use a Boolean query to find, say, a "Sales Manager" who works in the "SaaS" industry in "New York" but is NOT an "Assistant."

It’s the difference between yelling into a crowded stadium and whispering directly into your ideal prospect's ear. One is a waste of breath; the other gets you a meeting.

Why Boolean Search Matters for Sales and Recruiting

Sure, you can get by without it. You can also get by with a flip phone and a rolodex. But why would you? Sales reps spend a staggering amount of their time—around 21%—on prospecting. If you're spending that time scrolling through irrelevant profiles, you're not selling; you're just clicking.

Mastering LinkedIn Boolean search is a non-negotiable skill for any modern sales or recruiting team. Here’s why:

• Hyper-Targeted Leads: Stop wasting time on leads that are a “sort of” fit. Boolean logic lets you zero in on your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) with spooky precision. Find people by title, industry, company size, location, and keywords—all in one go

• Save Absurd Amounts of Time: The less time you spend sifting through bad-fit profiles, the more time you have for outreach, demos, and, you know, actually closing deals. Better targeting means a shorter path to a qualified lead

• Uncover Hidden Gems: Sometimes the best prospects don't have obvious job titles. With a smart Boolean search on LinkedIn, you can find people based on keywords in their profile summary or experience, uncovering decision-makers who fly under the radar

• Build Better Prospecting Lists: A high-quality list is the foundation of any successful outbound campaign. Boolean search is the fastest manual way to build one from scratch, ensuring your outreach is relevant from the first touchpoint

Boolean Search Operators Explained

Alright, let's get to the good stuff. These five operators are your new secret weapons. Memorize them. Use them. Thank us later.

Basic Operator Syntax: AND, OR, NOT

These are the big three. They do exactly what they sound like they do. A quick heads-up: always capitalize them. If you type "and," LinkedIn thinks you're looking for the word "and." If you type "AND," it knows you're giving it a command.

AND

• What it does: Narrows your search by telling LinkedIn that all the keywords must be present

• Example: `"Head of Marketing" AND "SaaS"` will only show you people who have both "Head of Marketing" and "SaaS" in their profile

OR

• What it does: Broadens your search by showing results that include at least one of the keywords. Perfect for titles with multiple variations

• Example: `"VP of Sales" OR "Sales Vice President"` will find people with either title, so you don't miss anyone trying to be fancy

NOT

• What it does: Excludes specific keywords to clean up your search results. This one is a game-changer

• Example: `"Director" NOT "Assistant"` finds you all the directors and filters out their assistants. No more awkward outreach to the wrong person

Using Quotation Marks and Parentheses

If AND, OR, and NOT are your building blocks, quotes and parentheses are the mortar that holds your masterpiece together.

Quotation Marks " "

• What they do: Force LinkedIn to search for an exact phrase. If you search for Head of Sales without quotes, you’ll get profiles with "Head" and "Sales" anywhere, like a "Head of Operations" at a company that sells sales software. Not ideal

• Example: `"Chief Financial Officer"` ensures you only get people with that exact multi-word title

Parentheses ( )

• What they do: Group parts of your search query together to create more complex searches. It’s like telling LinkedIn, "Figure this part out first, then combine it with the rest." It follows the order of operations you half-remember from middle school math

• Example: `("VP" OR "Director") AND ("Marketing" OR "Growth") NOT "Intern"` This beautiful string looks for anyone who is a VP or Director of either Marketing or Growth, while making sure no interns sneak into your results

Step-by-Step: How to Build Boolean Queries on LinkedIn

Ready to put this into practice? Let's build a search from the ground up. We're going to use the main LinkedIn search bar for this, but the same principles apply to Sales Navigator (which just gives you more filters to combine with your Boolean strings).

Step 1: Start with a Core Title

Open LinkedIn and click on the search bar at the top. Begin by searching for the exact title you want. Don't forget the quotes.

Example: `"Head of Engineering"`

Step 2: Add Variations with OR

People love getting creative with their titles. To catch them all, group the variations in parentheses using the OR operator.

Example: `("Head of Engineering" OR "VP of Engineering" OR "Engineering Director")`

Step 3: Narrow by Industry or Skill with AND

Now, let's get specific. Use the AND operator to add a required skill, technology, or industry. This is how you separate the signal from the noise.

Example: `("Head of Engineering" OR "VP of Engineering") AND "Fintech"`

Step 4: Clean Up Your Results with NOT

Finally, remove the profiles you don't want. Are you getting a lot of co-founders, assistants, or people from the wrong department? Use NOT to boot them out.

Example: `("Head of Engineering" OR "VP of Engineering") AND "Fintech" NOT "Co-Founder"`

After you run your search, remember to click the "People" filter to see a list of profiles. From there, you can use LinkedIn's other filters (like Connections, Location, and Current Company) to refine your list even further.

Advanced Boolean Techniques and Edge Cases

You've got the basics. Now let's move on to the fun part. This is how you go from competent to lethal with your prospecting.

Boolean Search Examples for Sales Prospecting

Let's say your ICP is a decision-maker in the HR department at a mid-sized tech company who might be looking for a new payroll solution.

The String: `("VP of HR" OR "Head of People" OR "Chief Human Resources Officer") AND ("SaaS" OR "Tech") NOT ("Recruiter" OR "Talent Acquisition")`

Why it works: This query targets senior HR leaders, includes variations of their titles, focuses on the tech sector, and—crucially—filters out recruiting-focused roles that likely don't deal with payroll decisions. For a deeper dive into building a repeatable outbound process, see our guide on what prospecting means in sales and proven techniques for 2025.

Boolean Search Examples for Recruiting

Imagine you're a recruiter looking for a senior full-stack developer with experience in specific technologies.

The String: `("Senior Software Engineer" OR "Lead Developer") AND "React" AND "Node.js" NOT ("Manager" OR "Director")`

Why it works: It finds individual contributors with the exact technical skills you need (React and Node.js) while excluding managers and directors, who are likely too far removed from hands-on coding for the role you're filling.

Unsupported Operators and LinkedIn Quirks

Here's a bit of insider info that other guides often miss. LinkedIn's search has its own personality and doesn't support every Boolean trick in the book.

• No Wildcards: LinkedIn does not support wildcard searches using an asterisk (*). You can't search for `Manage*` and expect to get Manager, Management, and Managing. You have to spell them out with an OR operator: `("Manager" OR "Management" OR "Managing")`

• Title vs. Keyword Search: Be aware of where you're searching. On Sales Navigator, you can apply a Boolean string specifically to the "Title" field. On the free LinkedIn search, your string searches the entire profile. This can be powerful but might also pull in irrelevant results if a keyword appears in someone's "About" section from a job they had ten years ago

• Character Limits: LinkedIn search has a character limit. It's generous (around 2,000 characters for Sales Nav), but if you build a monster string with dozens of OR conditions, you might hit it. Keep it potent and focused

Common LinkedIn Boolean Search Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)

If your search isn't working, it's probably one of these common slip-ups. Don't worry, we've all been there.

• Mistake 1: Not capitalizing operators. `"sales" and "director"` will search for people with those three words in their profile. `"sales" AND "director"` is a command. It's a small detail, but it's everything.

• Mistake 2: Forgetting quotation marks for multi-word titles. Searching for `Vice President of Marketing` will give you anyone with "Vice," "President," and "Marketing" scattered across their profile. Searching for `"Vice President of Marketing"` gives you the actual VPs.

• Mistake 3: Making your search too narrow. A string like `"CEO" AND "Microsoft" AND "New York"` is probably only going to find one person (or zero). If your search yields no results, try removing the most specific term first.

• Mistake 4: Making your search too broad. A search for `"Marketing" OR "Sales"` is going to return millions of people. That's not a prospecting list; it's a phone book. Add more specific AND or NOT operators to focus your results.

• Mistake 5: Overusing the NOT operator. Be careful what you exclude. `NOT "Manager"` might remove a "Senior Product Manager" who is your perfect prospect. Use it surgically to remove specific, unwanted terms like "Assistant" or "Intern."

Conclusion: The Next Step Beyond Manual Search

Congratulations. You now know more about LinkedIn Boolean search than 99% of the people using the platform. You have the manual skills to build incredibly targeted prospect lists, find hidden candidates, and stop wasting your most valuable resource: time. This is the absolute best manual way to do prospecting.

But here's the kicker. Once you've mastered finding people based on their title, the real question becomes: what's next? The evolution of prospecting isn't just about who people are; it's about when to reach out. The next step is finding them based on buying signals—like their company just raised a funding round, hired a new CRO, or started posting jobs for a new department. That's where intelligence meets automation. For a comprehensive look at how AI can supercharge your sales prospecting and help you act on these signals, check out our LLM playbooks for every stage of the funnel.

Mastering Boolean search is step one. Step two is putting that intelligence on autopilot. Instead of you spending hours searching for leads, imagine an AI SDR that does it for you, enriching them with contact data and delivering them right to your inbox, complete with the reason why they're a good fit right now. That’s how you get ahead. That's how you build a pipeline that never runs dry.