LinkedIn is a great tool for searching and connecting with prospects and strategic referral partners. Most people know that you can use the Advance Search feature to narrow you search by criteria such as location, industry, title, etc. While LinkedIn does not support wildcard searches (such as show me everyone who's first name begins with "br"), there are a number of search operators you can use to construct complex searches.
Quoted searches – use quoted searches when you want to search for an exact phrase, such as "estate planning attorney"
NOT searches - use NOT to create a search that includes one or more keywords while excluding others. For example, you could search for attorneys that do not practice estate planning law by entering the following criteria in the keyword box – lawyer NOT "estate planning"
OR – helpful when the position you are searching for may have a number of different titles – CEO OR Partner OR President
AND - going back to our estate planning example, I could search on lawyer AND "estate planning" in the keywords to find an estate planning attorney in my area.
Parenthetical – use to build complex searches, for example, to find a CPA or a partner in a law firm – CPA OR (lawyer AND partner)
Try using some of these search operators to help you find connections faster in LinkedIn.
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Bill Brelsford Small Business Marketing Consultant
