Tips to save time and sanity on LinkedIn

Linkedin Nugget

Finding contacts with a common name...

We all have those people in our network that have a common name. I happen to know a John Smith and a James Bond – really, I do! When it comes time to try to locate these people on LinkedIn, it can present a real challenge.

In a recent search for “John Smith”, there are 46,968 profiles to sort through. Paging though all of these profiles could be a long day. What’s a girl to do? There are a couple of quick ways you can narrow the list.

HIGH-LEVEL SEARCH

The easiest way to search for a specific person quickly is to use your top search box.

Drop the arrow down and select the drop down for people so you are only getting actual profile results.
Then, put information you know about John Smith in the search field – maybe you know that John does something in marketing at Newell Rubbermaid.
You can add the search terms “John Smith”, marketing, “Newell Rubbermaid”. Separate the terms with commas. Adding the quotes around the multi-word terms will ensure they appear together in the search.

When I searched in this method, the results for “John Smith” were only 2 – much more reasonable. Here’s a screenshot:

ADVANCED SEARCH

Another method to try is an advanced search.

Go to the top search field again and drop down the arrow on the left hand side.
Then to the right of the search box, select the “advanced” link. This will bring you to an advanced search where you can get very specific with the search criteria.
Maybe you know that John Smith went to the University of Georgia and is doing something in marketing, but you have no idea where he works now.
You can fill out the key word field with marketing, the first name field with John , the last name field with University of Georgia. That narrows your choices down to only 12 – a much easier number to sort through.