How To Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator For Recruiting (2026 Tutorial)

If you think LinkedIn Sales Navigator is only for finding clients, think again.

It's also one of the best tools to source and contact candidates, without paying for LinkedIn Recruiter.

LinkedIn Recruiter costs nearly 8 times more than LinkedIn Sales Navigator. And for many recruiters, it's simply not worth it.

The truth is, you can use Sales Navigator to find, qualify, and reach candidates effectively. You just need to adapt your search techniques a little.

In this guide, you'll learn how to:

• Find qualified candidates using LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters
• Identify active job seekers and reach out effectively
• Export candidate profiles with verified email addresses
• Find companies that are currently hiring
• Contact decision-makers to grow your recruiting business

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How to find candidates on LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Sales Navigator lead filters

LinkedIn Sales Navigator gives you access to more than 30 filters to narrow down your search.

When you're recruiting, a few filters are especially useful to find qualified candidates quickly:

1. Current job title – helps you target people with specific roles
2. Years in current company – to spot candidates who might be ready for a change
3. Years in current position – to spot candidates who might be open to new opportunities
4. Geography – to search by city, region, or country
5. Years of experience – to find junior, mid-level, or senior profiles
6. School – to filter by education background or alumni network

Let's look at a quick example.

Imagine you're hiring a Software Engineer based in the USA with at least 3 years of experience.

Here's how you could set up your filters:

Once you apply these filters, you'll see a highly targeted list of developers that match your ideal candidate profile — ready to connect or contact.

How to find job seekers on Sales Navigator

If you're looking for candidates who are actively searching for a job, there's one limitation to know: Sales Navigator doesn't have an "Open to work" filter.

But don't worry. There's an easy workaround.

You can use the "Keywords" filter to find people who mention they're looking for new opportunities in their LinkedIn profile.

Simply enter a boolean search like this in the Keywords field:

"open to work" OR "seeking opportunities" OR "looking for a job" OR "actively seeking"

This tells Sales Navigator to show profiles that include any of these phrases in their headline, about section, or experience description.

Using boolean searches helps you get more relevant results and quickly spot candidates who are open to new roles even without the dedicated "Open to work" filter.

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How to export candidates from Sales Navigator with their verified emails

Now that you've built a list of potential candidates, it's time to export them and get their verified email addresses.

LinkedIn doesn't let you export leads directly from Sales Navigator.

That's where GiveMeLeads comes in.

With GiveMeLeads, you can extract your Sales Navigator search results in just a few clicks and get a clean list of candidates with verified professional emails.

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Step 1: Go to LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Use filters to find your ideal candidates.

Then click "Extract leads" using the GiveMeLeads extension or paste the search URL on the platform.

Step 2: Download your list of candidates with verified emails

Once the export is complete, simply click on "Download CSV" to access your file.

This gives you the full file with all available data. For each candidate, you'll see extra info like:

• Whether they have LinkedIn Premium
• Their total years of experience
• Company details like size, industry, and location
• Etc

On top of that, GiveMeLeads automatically cleans your data:

• Fixes capital letters in names and job titles
• Removes emojis from job titles
• Removes legal suffixes in company names (like LLC, GmbH, etc.)

With GiveMeLeads, you get the verified professional email of every lead — even if they're in your 2nd or 3rd-degree connections.

Everything is ready for your next step: message your candidates!

How to send messages to your candidate list

Now that you've exported a list of candidates with all the right information, it's time to put that data to work.

Here are a few ways to use it effectively:

• Send LinkedIn messages to potential candidates (or even InMails)
• Send personalized emails
• Run multichannel outreach campaigns (LinkedIn + email)

1 - Send LinkedIn messages

Since your exported list includes each candidate's LinkedIn profile URL, you can easily reach out to them directly on LinkedIn.

This approach is great for starting genuine conversations before jumping into a job pitch. You can do it manually or use an automation tool like Heyreach to send messages at scale while staying within LinkedIn's limits.

Keep your message human and natural. You can mention something specific about their experience or profile, and focus on the opportunity, not the job title.

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2 - Send cold emails

Your exported list also includes verified work emails, which is perfect for launching targeted cold email campaigns to potential candidates.

Use the data from Sales Navigator, such as job title, company name, or years of experience to make your message feel relevant and increase your reply rate.

For example:

Tools like Smartlead can help you automate and manage your outreach safely while keeping your email deliverability high.

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3 - Multichannel outreach (mail + LinkedIn)

The most effective recruiting strategy often combines LinkedIn and email.

Start by connecting or engaging with your candidate on LinkedIn. A simple like, comment, or short message can make your name familiar. Then, follow up with a personalized email a few days later.

This mix helps build trust and familiarity, making candidates more likely to respond since they've already seen your name on LinkedIn.

Tools like Lemlist can help you automate and coordinate this multichannel approach while keeping your outreach natural and compliant with LinkedIn limits.

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How to find leads on LinkedIn Sales Navigator for your recruiting business

Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to find leads with LinkedIn Sales Navigator:

How to find companies currently hiring on LinkedIn

If you want to find companies that are actively hiring, head over to the Account filters section in Sales Navigator.

You will have this page.

On the left part of your screen, you will have all the account filters.

On the right part of your screen, you have the results of your filters.

Here, you'll find a wide range of filters to help you narrow down your search and identify the right organizations for your recruiting business.

One of the most useful filters is the "Hiring on LinkedIn" filter.

It lets you target companies that have recently posted job openings on LinkedIn. A strong signal that they're currently expanding their team.

Then, you can then refine your search even further by adding additional filters such as:

• Company headcount
• Company headcount rate
• Headquarters location
• Department size
• Department growth
• Industry

Combining these filters helps you build a highly qualified list of companies that are actively recruiting on LinkedIn — ideal for targeting businesses that may need your recruiting services.

How to create an account list

Once you've found companies that match your criteria, it's time to organize them into an account list.

In Sales Navigator, you can easily do this:

You can save specific accounts in a list by clicking on the box next to the account:

Or you can click on "Select all" to select the 25 accounts of the page:

Then, you click on "Save to list", "Create new list":

To create an account list, choose a List name, list description and click on "Create and save":

If you want to add an account in the list, you just need to select the account and select your new list.

You will have the number of accounts in it.

You have to go on the next page to add the next 25 accounts.

Unfortunately, you have to repeat this process page by page :/

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How to find decision makers

To find the right decision makers, go to the Leads page in Sales Navigator.

Once you're there, you'll see two main sections:

• Left side: All the filters you can use to narrow your search.
• Right side: The results based on the filters you apply.

It's your lead-hunting control panel, and once you know how to use it right, you can easily find your best leads.

Now, if you want to find the leads inside the companies you've selected before, you need to use the "Account list" filter:

Then one of the best ways to find decision makers in the lead filters, it's to use the "Current job title" filter.

You can use this boolean search to use this job title filter trick:

"CEO" OR "Founder" OR "Co-Founder" NOT "Assistant"

✅ This boolean search finds founders whether they write "CEO", "Founder" or "Co-Founder".

With this way, you will get decision-makers in companies currently hiring on LinkedIn.

At the end, I get all the CEOs (or founders) who are working in the companies in my Tier 1 account list:

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How to export leads from LinkedIn Sales Navigator with verified emails

Once you've identified the decision makers, you can export your leads using a tool like GiveMeLeads.

This not only saves you time but also provides verified email addresses for each lead — perfect if you plan to run cold email campaigns or other outreach.

With GiveMeLeads, you get a clean, ready-to-use list of contacts, making it easy to start connecting with the right people quickly.

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LinkedIn Sales Navigator VS Recruiter: What Is The Best Option for Recruiting?

If you run a recruiting business, LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a powerful tool you should consider. It allows you to find both candidates and clients, making it much more versatile than LinkedIn Recruiter, which is limited to sourcing candidates only.

Sales Navigator also gives you more search filters than Recruiter, making it easier to pinpoint the right candidates quickly and efficiently.

Another big advantage is cost. Sales Navigator is significantly cheaper:

This means the ROI on Sales Navigator is much higher, especially if you use it not only for recruiting candidates but also for finding clients and supporting your sales operations. It's a tool that works double duty, saving money while boosting efficiency.

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