THE SEARCH FUNCTION ON LINKEDIN

Geschrieben am 22.12.2022
von Stanlay Forker

Linkedin is today the world's largest social network for finding and maintaining business contacts. In the German-speaking region of Europe alone, the platform now has over twelve million members. The comparison with Facebook is obvious, but in the professional sector of the business world, Linkedin often results in fundamentally different dynamics than platforms used in leisure time. This primarily relates to self-presentation about your personal profile as well as the intuitive approach to professional networking. In addition to the human component, the algorithm plays an additional crucial role in the background of the databases. But what exactly has to be considered when searching for LinkedIn? How do you use the network as profitably as possible for yourself?



How does the search work on LinkedIn?
The LinkedIn search starts in the central search window, such as a search engine. Auto-completion suggests a number of suitable search results when you first enter a term. The LinkedIn search is category-based. This means you can restrict your LinkedIn search using a number of filters to get more accurate results.

The Linkedin search offers you the following categories for pre-selection in the search form:

  • jobmarket
  • persons
  • undertakings
  • posts
  • groups
  • schools
  • events
  • courses

It is better to invest a little more time in a professional social network than in a private context to make the search for keywords or names of people and companies as effective as possible. The LinkedIn search offers all sorts of options, some of which are initially visually hidden. Basically looking at the range of functions at the beginning will help you in the long term. According to the principle: quality instead of quantity in LinkedIn search.

Use Boolean search on Linkedin
The LinkedIn search offers the possibility of using so-called “Boolean logic”. Internationally valid operator terms from English such as “AND,” “NOT,” and “OR” allow you to specifically combine results when searching for multiple keywords or exclude them from each other in advance.

NOT stands for the general exclusion from the totality of all desired search results. AND is used when you want to get two search terms in the same result. A vivid example would be the LinkedIn search for a person who holds two training titles in combination. The OR operator ensures that a wider range of results is offered in the LinkedIn search. For example, you are looking for companies of related services within the same region.

Find people and jobs faster with the Linkedin search
Precision is particularly important when looking for a job. Until a few years ago, the LinkedIn search offered some functions exclusively for users of the premium service. Today, most of these are also available to you as a regular member in LinkedIn Search. Furthermore, the algorithm of the LinkedIn search has learned a lot over the years. Sometimes you don’t even have to know exactly how a fleetingly known person spells himself. Despite any typos, LinkedIn can find it for you by automatically detecting your joint business relationships — even across multiple corners. If you are looking for a vacancy, the intelligent LinkedIn search nowadays automatically suggests jobs that you search internally on the Linkedin company page of an individual company using the appropriate term.

Search for jobs on LinkedIn
The LinkedIn search allows you to proactively search jobs by keyword, qualification and region in detail. But sometimes you certainly approach the job search differently. Jobs are not always found through an official title, but often also through a description of a person’s personal skills required for the job. The LinkedIn search helps you to find relevant advertised positions that match your communicated qualifications. It should also be mentioned that LinkedIn offers the platform internal opportunity to apply directly to registered companies for an offered position. Potential employers who have activated the “simply apply” option can immediately get an idea of you as an applicant and give you feedback. Make sure you have a professional and meaningful profile to make a good impression.

Company pages in search results
Are you an entrepreneur and want your registered business to be easy to find using the LinkedIn search? By understanding some basic aspects, this shouldn’t be a problem. The LinkedIn search algorithm works according to the principle of the so-called naming convention on the one hand, other factors such as “text making” (maximum matching of search terms and company name) are highly relevant on the other. As an entrepreneur, you should avoid (additional) generic words for the company title when creating a LinkedIn company page. This keeps the name visually concise and makes your company easier to find technically.

But here too, in the LinkedIn search, the algorithm for content-independent parameters works for you. For example, if there is a lot of activity on your company’s LinkedIn page, be it updates or interaction with other users, your company automatically becomes more relevant when searching for linked keywords.

How can I find posts on LinkedIn?
Of course, LinkedIn does not only consist of person and company profiles. Groups and, above all, articles in similar form that can be found via the LinkedIn search, offer the added value of a social network. In the meantime, there’s even a selected circle of so-called “Linkedin influencers,” a global top 500 of influential thinkers and makers in the business sector, whose highly informative posts you can find using the Linkedin search. When searching for posts, the network lets you filter targeted results using the “published by”, “published on” and “industry sector” search options, among other things.

Filter and search for messages from your inbox
Social networking means interaction. Interaction means communication. Of course, the news function cannot be missing from a social network. The LinkedIn search also plays an important role here. After a few months or even years, your message folder is probably bursting at the seams and makes it necessary to be able to search for individual conversations using filter settings. You can choose from various sub-items via the LinkedIn search after selecting the “News” icon. If you don’t want to see an overview of all messages, you can filter for “my contacts”, “archived” or messages from the premium “InMail” feature, for example. This feature also allows you to connect with people on LinkedIn with whom you are not (yet) connected.

Search relevance on Linkedin
Relevance (definition: importance in a particular context) is crucial in LinkedIn search to appear among the first results as a person or company and thus be found quickly in broad or specific searches. Relevance in a LinkedIn search is controlled by a so-called “proprietary algorithm”. This means that the calculation scheme is pre-programmed in the background of the system. The operators of the platform promise to form relevance for every profile without exception in LinkedIn search, unlike common metasearch engines. A good indicator that you can see yourself in your account is the number of views your profile page gets from other members’ searches.

 

On the other hand, relevance is also generated in the proactive process of LinkedIn search. The algorithm constantly analyzes your search behavior, recognizes patterns and tries to predict your future Linkedin search. This also means showing more relevant search results first. Unlike search engine optimization (SEO) of web content for Google and co, it is not beneficial for LinkedIn search to overfill your site with keywords (key terms). Having a profilecthat is as complete and appealing as possible with fewer, but all the more concise keywordscwill get you a lot of organic traffic. This in turn makes you rise in the ranking in the LinkedIncsearch. So, less is more.