LinkedIn boolean search: operators, rules and limits
The LinkedIn search box accepts boolean operators in the People results. The rules below come from the LinkedIn help pages. Where LinkedIn publishes no number, the guide says so.
What LinkedIn accepts
- AND, OR and NOT. Type them in upper case. LinkedIn help: "you must type them in uppercase letters for the search to work correctly".
- Quotes for an exact phrase, for example "product manager".
- Parentheses to group terms, for example (Java OR Kotlin).
- LinkedIn reads the string in this order: quotes, parentheses, NOT, AND, OR.
What LinkedIn does not accept
- The + and - operators are not officially supported. Use AND instead of + and NOT instead of -.
- Braces { }, brackets [ ], angle brackets < > and the wildcard * do not work.
- Curly quotes do not work. Use straight quotes ".
Limits
LinkedIn limits the number of boolean operators in one search on the free search. LinkedIn does not publish the number.
LinkedIn does not publish a character limit either. A blog reports about 2,000 characters for LinkedIn Basic and Premium, and "No results found" for a working string that is too long. We have not confirmed these reports.
A free account also has a monthly limit on searches for commercial use. LinkedIn does not publish the number.
A short string is safer: one group of titles, two or three must-have skills and a few exclusions. Set the location with the Locations filter, not in the string.
Example
LinkedIn search
("Product Manager" OR "Product Owner") AND "B2B SaaS" AND (SQL OR "A/B testing") NOT intern