How to Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator Boolean Search (2025 Guide)

You want to improve your leads search?

A boolean search helps you get more relevant profiles on LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

And at the end, get a better list of qualified leads.

Here is what you will learn in this guide:

• How to Use Boolean Search in Sales Navigator

• Where to Use Boolean Operators in LinkedIn Sales Navigator

• The Best Practices when using your Boolean Search

• How to Target Decision Makers using Boolean Operators

• The Limits of Boolean Search

• How to Export your Leads

📺 You prefer to watch a video to learn how to use boolean on LinkedIn Sales Navigator? Here is the link:

How to Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator Boolean Search?

Boolean search lets you filter results using operators like AND, OR, and NOT.

It’s simple. But powerful.

Here’s a quick breakdown:

1. How to Search the Exact Expressions with "Quotes"

Use quotes to match the exact title.

Example:

"Chief Marketing Officer" → "only" exact matches.

Without quotes, LinkedIn returns more inaccurate leads.

2. How to Combined Expression with OR

Use OR to include multiple titles or roles.

Example:

"Head of Marketing" OR "Head of Sales" → profiles with either term.

(Note that I use "quotes" to get better results)

3. How to Search Keywords with AND

You can use AND to narrow down your search to leads with all terms.

Example:

"Founder" AND "CTO" → both terms must be present.

4. How to Exclude Keywords with NOT

It filters out what you don’t want.

It's useful if you see a lot of inaccurate results in your search.

For example if you want to target "CMO", you will get a lot of people who are "fractional CMO".

To remove "fractional CMO", you can use NOT.

Example:

"CEO" NOT "Fractional" → removes Fractional

5. How to Combined Boolean Operators with (Parentheses)

Mix "quotes", AND, OR and NOT together for precise targeting.

Example:

("VP" OR "Head") AND "Marketing" NOT "Assistant"

You can check in the best practices how to combined properly boolean operators with parentheses.

Where to Use Boolean Operators in LinkedIn Sales Navigator

On LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can use Boolean logic in 3 filters:

1. Current job title

2. Search keywords

3. Company filters

1. Current Job Title

It's perfect for targeting decision-makers with variations like:

("VP" OR "Head") AND "Marketing"

2. Search Keywords

You can use the boolean operators in the "Search Keywords" section.

It will search through:

1. About Section

2. Job experiences

3. Education

4. Skills

5. Recommendations

6. …

3. Company filter

You want to include or exclude specific companies? Boolean works here too.

But to be honest, it's not really useful…

Best Practices to Use Boolean Operators

Before writing your boolean search, think about your ideal customer.

Start with:

1. The position,

2. Then the function,

3. Finally exclude some keywords

Step 1: How to Target a Position (VP, Head, Founder)

If you want to target a specific position, you can use:

"VP" OR "Head" OR "Founder"

Step 2: How to Target a Function (Marketing, Sales, HR)

Then, if you want to target a specific function, you can use:

"Marketing" OR "Sales" OR "HR"

Step 3: How to Exclude

Finally, if you see that some LinkedIn Sales Navigator are not relevant for you, you can exclude them:

NOT "Assistant" NOT "Intern"

This removes junior or irrelevant titles.

Concrete Example

Now if you want to use the position, function and the exclude keywords, you need to use all the boolean operators.

Here’s a full search you can use:

("VP" OR "Head") AND ("Marketing" OR "Sales") NOT ("Assistant" OR "Intern")

How To Target Decision Makers with Boolean Operators

In this section, I will cover:

1. How to Identify CEO/Founder

2. How to Identify Chief Marketing Officer

3. How to Identify Head of Sales

How to Identify CEO/Founder

If you want to target CEO/Founder, you can use this job title filter:

"CEO" OR "chief executive officer" OR "founder" OR "co-founder" NOT "Assistant"

This boolean search finds founders whether they write “CEO,” “Founder,” or both and remove the assistants

📺 If you want the details on how to identify a "CEO/Founder", you can check our YouTube video:

How to Identify Chief Marketing Officer

If you want to target Chief Marketing Officer you can use this job title filter:

"CMO" OR "chief marketing officer" OR "head of marketing" NOT "Fractional"

This boolean search finds Chief Marketing Officer whether they write “CMO,” “Chief Marketing Officer" or "Head of Marketing,” and remove "fractional" CMO.

📺 If you want the details on how to identify a "Chief Marketing Officer", you can check our YouTube video:

How to Identify Head of Sales

If you want to target Head of Sales you can use this job title filter:

"Head of Sales" OR "Sales Director" OR "VP Sales" NOT "Manager"

This boolean search finds "Head of Sales" whether they write “Head of Sales,” “Sales Director" or "VP Sales,” and remove "Manager".

📺 If you want the details on how to identify a "Head of Sales", you can check our YouTube video:

The Limits of Boolean Operators on LinkedIn Sales Navigator

The boolean search helps a lot to find your ideal customer. But it’s not perfect.

• Results often include irrelevant profiles (even with "quotes" and NOT)

• People write their job titles in different ways

• You’ll still need to filter manually

Example:

You search for "Head of Sales", and you get a bad result.

That's why it's a must to have a tool like GiveMeLeads that double check your results.

How to Export Your Sales Navigator Boolean Search Results?

Once your search is ready, it's time to export your leads.

Use GiveMeLeads to do it in 1 click.

1. Make your Sales Navigator search

2. Export the leads

3. Get a clean list with verified emails

With GiveMeLeads, we make sure your boolean search is respected. If a lead doesn't match your filter, we notify you that the lead does not match perfectly your filters.

📺 If you want to export your Sales Navigator boolean search results, you can check our YouTube video: