Quick reference
| Operator | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Quotation marks | Matches an exact phrase | “product manager” |
| AND | Both terms must appear | designer AND fintech |
| OR | Either term can appear | recruiter OR “talent acquisition” |
| NOT | Removes results with a term | engineer NOT intern |
| Parentheses | Groups terms so the logic runs in the right order | (marketing OR growth) AND “head of” |
Type AND, OR and NOT in capital letters so LinkedIn reads them as operators rather than ordinary words. They work in the keyword box for people search and job search, and Sales Navigator supports them as well.
Building a string, one step at a time
Job titles are messy. One company says “customer success manager,” another says “account manager,” a third says “client partner,” and they all mean roughly the same work. A plain keyword search either misses most of them or drowns you in loosely related profiles. Boolean search lets you cover the variations in one query.
Here is how we would build a search for sales leaders at health tech companies.
Step 1. List the titles. Write every version of the role you can think of and join them with OR. Quotes keep each title together.
“vp sales” OR “head of sales” OR “sales director”
Step 2. Group them and add the must-have. Wrap the titles in parentheses, then require the industry with AND.
(“vp sales” OR “head of sales” OR “sales director”) AND (healthcare OR “health tech”)
Step 3. Remove the obvious misfits. Recruiters who hire sales leaders often have those same titles in their headlines. NOT takes them out.
(“vp sales” OR “head of sales” OR “sales director”) AND (healthcare OR “health tech”) NOT recruiter
Step 4. Let filters do the rest. The keyword string handles titles and topics. Use location, current company and connection degree filters for everything else, rather than cramming it all into the string.
Small mistakes that break a search
- Lowercase operators. Written as “and” or “or,” they may be treated as plain words.
- Missing quotes. Without them, head of sales matches any profile that uses those three words anywhere.
- Unbalanced parentheses. Count the opening and closing ones before you run the search.
- Too many NOTs. Each exclusion can quietly remove people who fit. Add them one at a time and check what disappears.
What to do with the results
Save the strings that give good results in a note, with the date and what you were looking for, so you can rerun them later.
Then keep the list short. A focused list of people who clearly fit is easier to research and write to properly than a long list of strangers. When it is time to reach out, plan the touches with the free Outreach Sequence Builder, and use the Personalization Tool to fill in names and companies in messages you send yourself. The LinkedIn lead generation guide covers the full process, and the Sales Navigator guide explains the extra filters that product adds.