Sales Navigator and Recruiter search builder

Why it matters: most recruiters type one job title into Sales Navigator or Recruiter and miss the people who use a different one. Agency recruiters doing business development often search for the wrong person entirely, messaging a recruiter instead of the engineering director with the open headcount. This builder gives you the title variants, the Boolean string for each box and the filters to set, for candidates or for the managers who hire them.

Which Sales Navigator boxes take Boolean?

Keywords, Current job title and Company accept AND, OR, NOT, quotes and brackets. Sales Navigator caps a query at 15 operators, per this Boolean limits guide, so the builder counts them for you and warns you when you go over. LinkedIn Recruiter takes the same operators in its Keywords and Job titles fields.

How do agency recruiters find hiring managers in Sales Navigator?

1. Pick the role family you recruit for and choose Hiring managers in the tool.
2. Build an account list first: your location, industry and company size, with growing headcount in the department you recruit for and “Hiring on LinkedIn” turned on.
3. Search leads at those accounts with the hiring manager titles the builder gives you, at Director, VP and CXO level.
4. Run a second search for talent acquisition contacts at the same accounts, so you know who else is involved.
5. Start with people who changed jobs in the last 90 days or posted in the last 30. New leaders often build teams, and active posters read messages.
6. Save both searches so new matches arrive as alerts.

Which filters should you set for candidates?

Filter names are as of October 2026. LinkedIn renames filters from time to time; if one has moved, look for the closest match. Seniority belongs in the Seniority filter, not in the title string, so the builder keeps titles plain and tells you which level to pick.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need Sales Navigator or Recruiter to use this?

No. The title string also works in free LinkedIn search. Free search has fewer filters and limits how many profiles you can view, so for a Google based search use the LinkedIn X-ray search builder, and for strings across other sites use the Boolean search string builder.

Why are some titles in quotes?

Quotes keep a title together, so “Site Reliability Engineer” matches that exact phrase instead of any profile that mentions site, reliability and engineer separately.

My role is not in the list. What do I do?

For candidates, leave the family blank and type the exact job title; the builder uses it as the title search. For hiring managers, pick the closest family, because a title alone does not tell the builder who manages that role.

Is what I type saved?

Only on your own device. Nothing is sent to Work Insiders or LinkedIn.

Next steps: check your first message with the LinkedIn message checker, then compare LinkedIn outreach tools, sourcing tools and lead generation tools, or browse all our free tools.