You add every filter, the list looks perfect, and only about 60% of the people in it are actually who you wanted. We explain why that happens and then build the fix on screen. LinkedIn runs on self-reported data, and one person can list as many job titles at as many companies as they want, which LinkedIn never matches back together, so words scattered across four unrelated roles combine into the exact search you typed. The answer is not better inclusions, it is exclusions on current company, current job title, and industry, which is where anyone tired of scrolling past consultants, board members, and retired investors should start.
What you will learn
- Why the bad fits appear at all, shown through one real profile that turned up in a vice president of sales search because his four current roles supplied the words vice president, sales, and professional services separately.
- The page eight test: LinkedIn front-loads the strongest results, so click to the last page of your search to see what your filters are really letting through.
- The current company exclusions we start every list with: freelance, consulting, self, stealth, and retired.
- The job title exclusions that kill most false positives: coach, consultant, freelancer, freelance, intern, student, board member, investor, advisor, and assistant, plus fractional and outsourced that we catch while spot checking.
- How quotes and boolean change your list size: the exact phrase vice president of sales took a search from 17,000 down to 11,000, and when we want more range we use vice president AND sales instead.
- Using your own results as the feedback loop: scroll the list, note the words that make someone a bad fit such as marketing, support, commercial, regional, partnerships, and operations, then add them to the exclusions and save the search.
- Industry exclusions: the Microsoft industry codes list maps to the roughly 20 umbrella industries in Sales Navigator, so you can keep professional services and drop a sub-industry like graphic design.
If you would rather hand the list building over, book a call and we will build the targeting around your market.
