With 800 million profiles LinkedIn is one of the biggest sources of talent worldwide.

However, many people think they need to be using LinkedIn to find LinkedIn profiles. That’s not correct. Almost all LinkedIn profiles are public and that means that those profiles are accessible through other solutions than LinkedIn itself.

Just like you can find websites and content in Google search, you can find LinkedIn profiles in search engines made for finding talent.

Talent search engines have some additional benefits over recruiting in LinkedIn. Mainly that they are more affordable, find profiles from other platforms as well (next to LinkedIn profiles) and they are usually more user friendly.

This is how to find LinkedIn profiles without LinkedIn Recruiter:

1. Find a talent search engine

There are several talent search engines on the market. 

It’s good to check if the tool you’re using can find all LinkedIn profiles and is not reliant on any (local) databases, because if they do, this will significantly limit the amount of profiles you can find.

For this how to we are using HeroHunt.ai as an example because HeroHunt.ai can find any LinkedIn profile online with real-time search.

You can sign up for HeroHunt.ai for free here.

2. Include your job description to build your search

There is a lot of information in your job description already. HeroHunt.ai takes your job description and automatically turns it into a search. The automated search is completely customizable, so you can optimize it based on your understanding of the position to be filled.

You can also build your own search when you don’t have a job description for example.

3. Screen the best matching candidates and reach out

An additional advantage of HeroHunt.ai is that it finds contact details for you. With the ‘Get contacts’ button you can get the email address and social links of the candidate so you can reach out to them. This gives you an edge because most recruiters won’t use other contact details than LinkedIn (InMail). You can still also choose to navigate to the LinkedIn profile so you can reach out to the candidate there.