Are you trying to find the perfect LinkedIn profiles, but struggling with LinkedIn's basic search? We've got the solution!
In this article, we'll talk about LinkedIn X-Ray Search, a powerful search technique used by recruiters and professionals. LinkedIn X-Ray uses Google's advanced search features to boost your search results.
So, let's journey into the world of LinkedIn X-Ray Search!
"LinkedIn X-Ray is our secret weapon for finding the best talents hidden in the LinkedIn network. It's a must-have tool for skilled recruiters."
In this article, we'll uncover what LinkedIn X-Ray is, how it works, and how you can use it effectively. By the end of our guide, you'll not only understand LinkedIn X-Ray search but also possess the skills to navigate LinkedIn's network efficiently + find emails of those thousands of leads. Ready? Let's jump in!
What is Linkedin X-Ray Search ?
Imagine having the capacity to find LinkedIn profiles without the need for LinkedIn itself, or even aLinkedIn account! Sounds incredible, doesn't it? This is precisely the power of X-Ray searches. It empowers you to look up LinkedIn profiles straight from... yes, Google.
Wondering how Google can help locate LinkedIn profiles?
Simply, Google's main job is to find and pull data from various websites - this includes your blogs, Facebook profiles, and yes, LinkedIn profiles too.
By using the right Google search, you can effortlessly find thousands of LinkedIn profiles.
The LinkedIn X-Ray Search has become afavorite for recruiters, job seekers, and marketing professionals. It uses amethod called 'Boolean Search' to help users explore LinkedIn more efficiently.
Boolean Search uses key words or phrases and special commands like 'AND', 'OR', 'NOT', as well as tools such as quotation marks or brackets to generate specific search results.
Whether you're arecruiter searching for potential candidates or amarketer conducting research, the versatile LinkedIn X-Ray Search has alot to offer.
This advanced tool is agame changer for job searching or market research, as it can be used straight from your browser's search bar.
In the next sections, we'll show you astep-by-step guide on how to use LinkedIn X-Ray effectively. So get ready, we are about to delve into the world of professional searching.
Step-by-Step Guide: How to Use LinkedIn X-Ray
Don't worry, LinkedIn X-Ray isn't as scary as it sounds. With afew easy steps, you'll master it in no time!
Step 1: Begin with abasic Google search. Surprised? LinkedIn X-Ray is actually using Google to find LinkedIn profiles. Start your search with the phrase "site:linkedin.com/in", which tells Google to target results from LinkedIn profiles.
Step 2: Next, add your search terms. This could be aname, job title, specific skill, company name or location.
For instance, if you're looking for software engineers in Boston, your search might be: "site:linkedin.com/in software engineer Boston". The more detailed your search terms, the more focused your results will be.
Note: that here we are not using "" around software engineer Boston. Which means that we do not search for the exact term. If we use "" then Google will return profiles that contain the exact sentence in that exact order.
Step 3: Explore the results. Google will show you alist of LinkedIn profiles that match your search terms.
Click on the ones that catch your eye to see more details on LinkedIn.
It's important to be thoughtful and polite when contacting people you find through LinkedIn X-Ray search. It's apowerful tool; use it responsibly!
But what if you want to make a more advanced search ? Like searching for people in a specific location and in with a specific job etc. More advanced searches need search operators. Let's dive in the next part ! ⬇️
Linkedin X-Ray Search Operators
LinkedIn X-Ray search operators are operators you can use to improve your search on Google.
An operator you'll often use is the site: command.
This operator tells your search engine to keep the search within aparticular site -here, that's LinkedIn.com.
So, if you're looking for marketing managers, just type site:linkedin.com/in "Marketing Manager" into the search bar. Here we use quotation marks to get the exact words "Marketing manager" in this exact order.
What you'll get are LinkedIn profiles with the job title "Marketing Manager".
You can also couple your search with the intitle: operator, which narrows down your search to LinkedIn profile titles only.
To do this, type site:linkedin.com/in intitle:"Marketing Manager".
If aperson's location is important to you, you can use the inurl: search operator.
It helps filter your search results by location. For example, types inurl:au.linkedin.com/in "Marketing Manager" to find all LinkedIn profiles for marketing managers in Australia.
Using quotation marks right is crucial too. When you put phrases in quotation marks, the search engine will show results containing that exact phrase. Without quotation marks, the words in the result may not relate to each other as closely.
Here is a Breakdown of the Boolean operators you can use in a Linkedin X-Ray Search:
| Search Operator | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
site: | Limits the search results to a specific site or domain. | site:linkedin.com/in |
intitle: | Searches for specific text within the title of a webpage. | site:linkedin.com/in intitle:"product manager" |
inurl: | Searches for specific text within the URL of a webpage. | site:linkedin.com/in inurl:"san-francisco" |
intext: | Searches for specific text on the webpage itself. | site:linkedin.com/in intext:"google" intext:"marketing" |
"-in" | Excludes results containing a specific term, especially useful for filtering. | site:linkedin.com/in "software engineer" -inurl:"dir" -inurl:"pub" |
" " (Quotation) | Searches for an exact phrase or sequence of words. | site:linkedin.com/in "software engineer" "san francisco" |
* (Wildcard) | Acts as a placeholder for any unknown or wildcard terms. | site:linkedin.com/in "product manager" * "new york" |
OR | Searches for pages that might use one of several words. | site:linkedin.com/in (intitle:"software engineer" OR intitle:"developer") |
Examples:
- Finding Product Managers in San Francisco:
site:linkedin.com/in intitle:"product manager" "san francisco"- This search will find LinkedIn profiles in the "in" directory, which typically represents individual profiles, with "product manager" in the title and "san francisco" somewhere on the page.
- Searching for Google Employees in Marketing:
site:linkedin.com/in intext:"google" intext:"marketing"- This will search for profiles that mention both "Google" and "marketing" on their LinkedIn pages.
- Excluding Directors and Public Profiles:
site:linkedin.com/in "software engineer" -inurl:"dir" -inurl:"pub"- This search aims to find software engineers while excluding directory pages (e.g., company employee listings) and public profiles that are not individual user profiles.
- Finding Professionals with Experience in Multiple Fields:
site:linkedin.com/in "business analyst" OR "data analyst" "new york"- This search looks for profiles listed as either "business analyst" or "data analyst" based in New York.
- Using Wildcard for Broader Searches:
site:linkedin.com/in "product manager" * "new york"- This search uses a wildcard (*) to find product managers who have any word between "product manager" and "new york", making it useful for finding profiles that might mention a specific skill, tool, or qualification between those terms.
By using these operators, you can refine your searches on Google to find LinkedIn profiles that meet very specific criteria without the need for specialized tools or LinkedIn Premium accounts.
LinkedIn X-Ray operators are flexible and quite useful in refining your search. The more you play around with these operators, the better you get at using LinkedIn X-Ray. Just keep in mind that practice makes perfect. So, go ahead and start using your X-Ray superpower!
Why use Linkedin X-Ray Search instead of Linkedin Search ?
LinkedIn X-Ray Search uses Google's advanced search capabilities to deeply search LinkedIn’s database. Whether you're arecruiter scouting for specific skills, asalesperson seeking leads in acertain industry, or auser trying to find old colleagues, it's auseful feature.
"LinkedIn X-Ray Search broadens your ability to find key details and individuals that usual search methods might miss."
LinkedIn X-Ray Search stands out thanks to select search operators that relate to specific fields or details on aLinkedIn profile. It lets you search using different factors like location, keyword, title or company. This is aleap from the general results offered by the basic LinkedIn search.
- Location: You can target people in specific cities, regions, or countries.
- Keyword: You can carve out specific skills or qualifications.
- Title: Great for spotting individuals in certain job roles.
- Company: Ideal for sales reps looking for potential leads in specific companies.
With these operator functions, you can efficiently carry out athorough search using the LinkedIn X-Ray. Dive deep into LinkedIn's broad professional network with Google X-Ray Search.
Linkedin X-Ray Searches also allows you to find Linkedin profiles that are not in your network while using regular Linkedin search you can only view 1st and 2nd degree relations.
Members from 3rd degree connections won't show up or will only show up as "Linkedin Member" without any additional information.
LinkedIn X-Ray can bypass the limitations of a basic LinkedIn account, which restricts the number of profiles a user can view.
Another important thing if you want to do some Linkedin scraping using X-Ray search, is that Linkedin X-Ray does not violate any privacy settings as it only displays information that users have chosen to make public on their profiles.
Cons of using Linkedin X-Ray Searches
LinkedIn X-Ray has its benefits but it's right to also consider the downsides. Like every tool or method, it's crucial to know the possible limitations to understand if it's the best choice for you. Now, let's get straight to this talk about the less pleasant aspects of LinkedIn X-Ray Searches.
Missing information: Most of the time only the bio, the name and the job title of the lead are shown on Google, so you can't get their history of jobs, education, certifications, posts etc.
IP Restriction: Scraping Google can present its own set of challenges like the risk of your IP address being flagged. The solution to prevent this is to use Proxies which may result in a price increase.
Privacy Restrictions: X-Ray Searches will not uncover the profiles of Linkedin users who have opted to stay hidden from search engines within their LinkedIn privacy preferences.
How to find emails of people found with an X-Ray search ?
Finding leads is great and it the first step of most approach. But the second time is often to find emails.
Step 1 : Construct an X-Ray search URL
Now that you've got your potential leads from LinkedIn X-Ray, the next step is to take this information and make it usable. But where do you start? Let's dive in.
Usually, you would write down all the important details like names, job titles, and where they're from. This works, but it can take along time and sometimes mistakes happen.
A quicker and easier way to do this is to use an extraction tool or software.
These are programs that pull the information off web pages for you and put them into alayout you can work from, like aspreadsheet.
This way, you don't have to worry about copying over the information yourself, which takes less time and is more accurate.
Unfortunately most tools like recruitmentgeek.com orrecruitin.net do not offer any export feature.
Recruitmentgeek ( Not worth it )
LinkedIn X-Ray is atool that enables Google X-Ray searches. While it may seem impressive, it's important to note that it merely integrates aGoogle search within its interface. So, don't be under any misconceptions. The search results that you get are no different than what you'd receive if Google was your direct point of search.
Recruitin ( Worth it )
Recruitin on its side is a tool that create search Urls. You just fill in a form and then you copy past the URL to google.
It's free and it I will help us to extract our search with a SERP extractor.
So the first step is to go to Recruitin, and create a search URL.
Fill in the form and click on "Find the right people on Linkedin", then "Open in Google".
Step 2 : Export Google search results (Serps to CSV)
The second step is to install a Chrome extension called Google Serps Extractor Tool.
In essence, this tool allows you to turn a search into a CSV file, without costing you a single penny!
Once installed go back to your Google search and launch the Chrome extension and click on "Download CSV file".
And tadaam ! We now have a CSV file that contains our leads.
Pro Tip: At the end of your URL you can add "&num=100" to force Google to show you 100 results at a time.
Step 3 :Import leads to useArtemis
Create an account on useArtemis.co .
Grab the CSV file you've recently created with the Chrome extension, and let's import it.
Once you've done that successfully, all that's left is clicking the "Find emails" button. This way, you'll unlock the email addresses associated with these LinkedIn profiles.
Extra Hint: useArtemis performs best when "company name", "firstname", and "lastname" fields are filled. However, the default file format won't be perfectly set up if you're using Recruitin.
We will use ChatGPT to organise the file correctly, ensuring it has columns for "Name", "Company name" and "Linkedin URL".
When you finish this, just copy and paste the results from ChatGPT into anew CSV file, then upload this file back to useArtemis.
