LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the best B2B lead generation tool on the market.

But let me be honest with you: if you’re not using the search filters correctly, you will have a bad list of leads.

In this guide, I’ll show you exactly how to use every LinkedIn Sales Navigator search filter. Whether you’re new or experienced, you’ll walk away with a clear idea of how to build the perfect list of leads.

In this guide, you will learn:

• How to find your perfect leads

• How to target the right companies

• How to save your lists of leads or accounts

• 3 advanced techniques to go beyond the basics

Let's start!

🎥 If you want to master LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and its filters, you can check this in-depth tutorial:

LinkedIn Sales Navigator Lead Filters

Let’s start with the filters you’ll use to find decision makers — also known as leads.

To access these filters, go to your Sales Navigator homepage and click on “Lead filters.”

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.

For the lead filters, you have 7 categories:

• Company

• Role

• Personal

• Buyer Intent

• Best path in

• Recent updates

• Worfklow

Company Filters

You have 5 filters in the Company filters section:

1. Current company

2. Company headcount

3. Past company

4. Company type

5. Company headquarters location

Current company

This filter gives you the possibility to filter your leads by the current company they are currently working for.

For example, you can get leads who are working for Amazon:

You can include the company, or exclude if you don't want to get leads from specific companies.

Company headcount

This filter allows you to target companies based on their size.

This is one of the most useful filters because it allows you to segment your lead list.

For example, if you want to target big companies, you can select:

• 1,001-5,000

• 5,001-10,000

• 10,001+

Past company

This filter is ideal for finding people who used to work for a company.

Company type

This filter allows you to filter by the type of the company.

For example:

• Public

• Private

• Educational

• Etc

💡 Pro tip: Most of the time, you want to target "Privately Held" company. But of course, it depends of your use cases.

Company headquarters location

This filter allows you to target people who work for a company based on a specific location.

It could be a country, region or even a city.

💡 Pro tip: One of the best use case with this filter, is to target rich companies

🎥 You have this in-depth video tutorial on how to srape rich companies on LinkedIn Sales Navigator:

Role Filters

In the “Role” section, you’ll find 6 filters to help you narrow down your ideal leads:

1. Function

2. Current job title

3. Seniority level

4. Past job title

5. Years in current company

6. Years in current position

Function

This filter lets you target leads based on the function of their job — like marketing, sales, or operations.

The problem is: most of the time, it doesn't work properly. LinkedIn tries to guess the function based on job titles, but it's not reliable.

💡 Pro tip: Don’t use this filter. Use “Current job title” instead for more accurate targeting.

Current job title

One of the most powerful filters to build a targeted list of leads.

It lets you find people based on the job title they currently have. You can even use Boolean search to get more precise (e.g. "Head of Marketing" OR "Marketing Director").

But there’s a catch:

Sales Navigator pulls from every job marked as “Present” on a profile.

And some people… don’t update their LinkedIn properly. That means they might have multiple “Present” jobs — and not all of them are current.

So even with the perfect job title, you might end up with unqualified leads.

With GiveMeLeads, we solve this by double-checking each lead’s current experience, so you only get accurate, up-to-date results.

Seniority level

This filter allows you to filter a lead based on the seniority.

The problem is: most of the time, it doesn't work properly.

💡 Pro tip: Don't use this filter. Instead, use the "Current job title" filter

Past job title

This filter works the same way as "Current job title".

The only difference is that Sales Navigator will give you the experiences that are not "Present".

In this example, we have 1 "Present" experience, and 2 "Past" experience:

Honestly, this filter is not really useful.

Years in current company

This filter allows you to target leads based on how long they’ve been at their current company.

💡 Pro tip: If you're targeting CEOs (or decision-makers) who are more likely to have budget authority, select 1–2 years or more. These individuals are typically more stable in their role — and more likely to invest in new services or products.

Years in current position

This filter helps you narrow down leads based on how long they’ve held their current job title or role — not just their time at the company.

It's useful when you want to reach out to people who are settled in their position, not those just getting started.

Personal Filters

There are 8 filters in the "personal" section of LinkedIn Sales Navigator:

1. Geography

2. Industry

3. First name

4. Last name

5. Profile language

6. Years of experience

7. Groups

8. School

Let's dive into each of these filters.

Geography

This filter allows you to target leads based on their location — whether it’s a country, region, or even a specific city.

Important: this filter is based on the lead’s LinkedIn profile, not the location of the company they work for.

💡 Pro tip: This is one of the most powerful filters in Sales Navigator. If you use it well, you can build highly targeted lead lists based on geography — which is key for localized outreach or market-specific offers.

Industry

This filter lets you find leads based on the industry listed on their personal LinkedIn profile.

Important: This industry is selected by the individual on their own profile — it doesn’t reflect the industry of their current company.

💡 Pro tip: This filter isn’t very reliable. Instead, use the "Industry" filter under the company section for better targeting.

First name

This filter allows you to target leads by their first name.

This filter is not useful.

Last name

This filter lets you target people by their last name.

Same as first name, this filter is not useful.

Profile language

This filter helps you target people based on the primary language of their LinkedIn profile.

It can be useful if you want to make sure your leads speak a specific language.

However, keep in mind that most people choose English as their primary language — even if it’s not their native one.

Years of experience

This filter lets you target people based on their total work experience.

It’s especially useful if you want to reach people who are likely 30+ years old — meaning they’re more likely to have the budget for your product or service.

In this case, select only "More than 10 years" of experience.

🎥 And by the way, if you're looking to target wealthier profiles using this and other smart filters, check out this video:

Groups

This filter lets you target people who are members of a specific LinkedIn group.

To be honest, it’s not a very useful filter in most cases.

Schools

This filter lets you target people based on the schools they attended.

It’s not very useful, unless you want to leverage your alumni network.

💡 Pro tip: This filter can be useful if you're looking to hire someone based on their education. For example, if you want candidates from top universities.

Buyer intent Filters

There are only 2 filters in the "Buyer intent" section of LinkedIn Sales Navigator:

1. Following your company

2. Viewed your profile recently

Let's check each of them.

Following your company

This filter shows you the people who follow your company.

This filter is very useful because you can get people who already know your company.

You can easily get warm leads by reaching out to these leads.

Viewed your profile recently

This filter shows you the people who visited your profile in the past 90 days.

Just like the "Following your company" filter, it helps you find warm leads because these people already know who you are.

🎥 If you want to leverage your profile viewers, you can check this video:

Best path in Filters

There are 4 filters in the "Best path in" section of LinkedIn Sales Navigator:

1. Connection

2. Connections of

3. Past colleague

4. Shared experiences

And now, it's time to check these filters.

Connection

The "Connection" filter lets you narrow down leads based on how closely they're connected to you.

On LinkedIn, you have 3 levels of connections:

• 1st degree: People you're directly connected with (really useful if you want to export your connections on LinkedIn)

• 2nd degree: People connected to your 1st-degree connections.

• 3rd degree: People connected to your 2nd-degree connections.

💡 Pro tip: If you want instant warm leads, go for 1st-degree connections — they already know you. If you're looking to expand your reach and meet new people, target 2nd and 3rd-degree connections.

🎥 If you want to learn more about 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree network, you can check this video:

Connection of

This filter shows you the 1st-degree connections of a specific person.

You can only access someone’s network if you’re connected with them on LinkedIn.

💡 Pro tip: Check out your competitors’ networks — you might find warm leads who are already educated about your market.

🎥 If you want to learn how to export the leads of your competitors, you can check this video:

Past colleague

This filter shows you people who used to work with you — either at your current or previous company.

They’re not your coworkers anymore, but you’ve shared a workplace in the past.

Now the real question is…Is this filter useful?

Honestly, not really. Unless you’re trying to reconnect with old colleagues for a specific reason, it won’t add much value to your lead generation.

Shared experience

This filter shows you leads who have something in common with you — like having worked at the same company (past or present), attended the same school, or joined the same LinkedIn groups.

Here, same as the filter "Past colleague", that's not useful.

Recent updates Filters

There are only 2 filters in the "Recent updates" section of LinkedIn Sales Navigator:

1. Changed jobs

2. Posted on LinkedIn

Let's check these filters.

Changed jobs

This filter gives you leads who’ve changed jobs within the last 90 days.

💡 Pro tip: If you target decision-makers, this is gold. People who just started a new role are often more open to new ideas, tools, or partnerships — they want to make an impact fast and may be more willing to try something new.

Posted on LinkedIn

This filter shows you people who’ve recently posted on LinkedIn.

💡 Pro tip: These leads are active on the platform and likely active online in general. That means you’ll have a much better chance of getting a reply. Prioritize outreach to people who are already engaged and visible.

Workflow Filters

There are 6 filters in the "Workflow" section of LinkedIn Sales Navigator:

1. Persona

2. Account lists

3. Lead lists

4. People in CRM

5. People you interacted with

6. Saved leads and accounts

Persona

This filter lets you choose from the personas you’ve previously created in your Sales Navigator account.

💡 Pro tip: I don’t recommend using this filter. Because the Persona feature relies on filters that aren’t always reliable — like "Function", where LinkedIn tries to guess someone's role. The result? You’ll end up with lots of leads that don’t match your ideal profile.

Account lists

This filter shows you leads who currently work at companies you've added to your account list.

💡 Pro tip: This is one of the most powerful filters if you want to target leads inside specific companies. You stay focused, save time, and go straight to the decision-makers.

For example, if you're targeting companies in the banking space, just build an account list with banks — and this filter will do the rest.

Lead list

This filter shows you leads you've already saved in a "Lead list".

It works exactly like "The account lists" filter.

People in CRM

This filter gives you people who are in your CRM.

Unfortunately, you need to have a Sales Navigator Advanced Plus to get this filter.

People you interacted with

This filter lets you find people you've viewed in the past 90 days or messaged in the last 2 years.

There is just one problem with the filter "Messaged":

The “Messaged” filter only tracks messages sent through the Sales Navigator inbox — not the regular LinkedIn inbox. So if you chatted in the regular LinkedIn messages, those leads won’t show up here.

Saved leads and accounts

Here you can add all your saved leads, and/or your saved accounts.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator Account Filters

If you want to access the account filters, you have to be on the homepage of Sales Navigator, then click on "Account filters".

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.

For the account filters, you have 3 categories:

1. Company attributes

2. Spotlights

3. Workflow

Let's check all of them!

Company attributes Filters

There are 10 filters in the "Company attributes" section of LinkedIn Sales Navigator:

1. Annual revenue

2. Company headcount

3. Company headcount growth

4. Headquarters location

5. Industry

6. Number of followers

7. Department headcount

8. Department headcount growth

9. Fortune

10. Technologies used

Let's dive into each of these filters.

Annual revenue

This filter lets you target companies based on their estimated annual revenue.

But be careful: LinkedIn doesn’t have access to actual revenue numbers. It’s just an estimation, often based on company size, industry, and other public data. So don’t rely on it blindly.

💡 Pro tip: Use this filter to qualify accounts roughly by size, but always double-check key targets manually.

Company headcount

This filter works exactly the same way as "company headcount" in the lead page.

Company headcount growth

This filter lets you find companies that are actively growing their team.

And growth usually means one thing: they have budget.

💡 Pro tip: Target companies with positive headcount growth — they’re more likely to be hiring, scaling, and open to new tools or services.

Headquarters location

This filter works exactly the same way as "Headquarters location" in the lead page.

Industry

This filter lets you target companies based on the industry listed on their LinkedIn company page.

It’s one of the most useful filters if you want to focus on specific markets.

💡Pro tip: Unlike the "Industry" filter for leads (which depends on what users write in their profile), this one is much more reliable — because it comes straight from the company page.

Number of followers

This filter allows to filter companies based on the number of followers they have on their company page.

Not very useful to be honest.

Department headcount

This filter helps you target specific departments like Sales, Marketing, HR, etc.

It’s super useful if your offer is relevant to a specific team.

For example, if you sell sales coaching, you probably want to target companies with at least 10 people in the Sales department. That way, you know the team is big enough to need — and afford — your service.

Department headcount growth

This filter is connected to the “Department Headcount” one.

It shows you if a department (like Sales, Marketing, etc.) is growing or shrinking.

If the headcount is growing, it usually means the company is investing money into that team — which is a great buying signal if you’re selling a product or service related to that department.

For example, if the sales team is growing, there’s a higher chance they’ll need sales tools, training, or coaching.

Fortune

This filter lets you target companies based on their Fortune ranking (e.g. Fortune 50, Fortune 500, etc.).

To be honest, it’s not the most useful filter unless you’re specifically targeting large enterprises with big budgets.

If you’re in enterprise sales, it might help — otherwise, you can skip it.

Technologies used

This filter is supposed to help you target companies based on the technologies they use.

Sounds great on paper… but in reality, it’s not reliable.

You can safely skip it — the data is often outdated or just plain wrong.

Spotlights Filters

There are 3 filters in the "Spotlights" section of LinkedIn Sales Navigator:

1. Job opportunities

2. Recent activities

3. Connection

Let's check that!

Job opportunities

This filter shows you companies that are currently hiring on LinkedIn. Meaning they have at least one job offer active on LinkedIn Jobs.

It’s very useful if you want to target growing companies — hiring usually means they have budget and momentum.

Recent opportunities

This filter helps you identify leadership changes — which is great, because new leaders often want to try new products or services to get quick wins.

As for funding events: don’t rely too much on it. LinkedIn’s data here is limited and not always up to date.

Connection

This filter shows you companies where you have at least one 1st-degree connection.

It’s super useful if you want a warm intro — you can ask someone you already know to introduce you to the right person.

Workflow Filters

There are 3 filters in the "Spotlights" section of LinkedIn Sales Navigator:

1. Companies in CRM

2. Saved accounts

3. Account lists

Let's check these filters!

Companies in CRM

This filter gives you the companies that are in your CRM.

Unfortunately, you need to have a Sales Navigator Advanced Plus to get this filter.

Saved accounts

This filter gives you access to all the companies you’ve saved in your account lists.

It’s perfect if you want to focus your search on a pre-qualified list of target accounts.

Account lists

This filter shows you all the account lists you've previously created.

It’s helpful for targeting specific groups of companies you’ve already organized, making it easier to build your list of leads.

How to Save Your List

Now that you are the master of all the LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters, it's time to save your search in a list.

Saving your lists makes it easy to revisit leads or accounts later, without redoing the filters every time.

How to Save Your Lead List

Once you’ve filtered your search with some filters, it's time to save your leads list.

You can save specific leads in a list by clicking on the box next to the lead:

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

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

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

If you want to add leads in the list, you just need to select the leads and select your list.

You will have the number of leads in it.

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

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

🎥 If you want to check the complete tutorial on how to create and save your leads into a list, you can check this video:

How to Save Your Account List

Once you’ve filtered your search with some filters, it's time to save your account list.

The process is exactly the same as the lead list.

You can save specific account 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 :/

🎥 If you want to check the complete tutorial on how to create and save your accounts into a list, you can check this video:

3 Advanced Techniques When You Use Sales Navigator Search Filters

Here are 5 advanced techniques to help you build qualified leads lists on LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

1 - Find Better Leads with Boolean Search

Sales Navigator boolean search is very useful if you want to target specific job title.

You have 5 boolean operators:

• AND

• OR

• NOT

• "Quotes"

• (Parentheses)

Here is exactly how they work:

If I take a real example, let's say I want to target 2 types of leads:

• Head of Marketing

• Head of Sales

With Boolean search, you can combine both roles in one search like this:

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

This tells LinkedIn: “Show me profiles that have either of these exact job titles.”

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

As you can see, I get people who are either "Head of marketing" OR "Head of sales".

🎥 If you want to learn how to perfectly find your best leads using boolean operators, you can check this video tutorial:

2 - Blacklist your client and competitors from your search

Don’t want to reach out to your competitors or current clients? You can exclude them by creating a blacklist in Sales Navigator.

This way, your lead lists stay clean—and you avoid awkward conversations.

Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Find your competitors or clients

Use filters to search for companies you want to exclude.

You can select a few, or just click “Select all.”

Then click “Save to list.”

Step 2: Create a new list

You just need to click on "Create new list"

Step 3: Name your blacklist

Name it something like “Blacklist” (simple and clear).

Then click “Create and save.”

Step 4: Exclude your blacklist list

Go back to your lead search page.

In the “Account lists” filter, select your Blacklist list and click “Exclude.”

🎥 You can learn how to create the perfect blacklist list by watching this video:

3 - Find verified emails with GiveMeLeads

Follow the 7 steps to export your leads from LinkedIn Sales Navigator with their verified emails:

1. Create a GiveMeLeads account

2. Download the Chrome Extension

3. Select your target on LinkedIn Sales Navigator

4. Add Intent Data (Optional)

5. Launch your export

6. Schedule Your Leads Export (Optional)

7. Download your leads file

Let's dive in!

Step 1: Create a GiveMeLeads account

Go on GiveMeLeads. Then click on "Get first 10 leads for free".

Then, you have to write your:

1. First Name

2. Last Name

3. Email

4. Password

And click on "Create account".

Step 2: Download the Chrome Extension

The GiveMeLeads Chrome extension allows you to export your LinkedIn Sales Navigator leads with one click.

It's not mandatory to use it — you can also copy and paste the Sales Navigator search URL directly into the platform.

However, using the extension makes the process faster and easier, especially if you're just getting started.

Step 3: Select your target on LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Go to LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

Use filters to find your ideal leads (like job title, company size, or location).

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

Step 4: Add Intent Data (Optional)

Depending on your GiveMeLeads plan, you can add intent data to your searches.

It’s a great way to find warm leads — people who are more likely to reply or book a call.

Let’s say your LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters are:

• Company size: 51–200 employees

• Job title: “Head of Sales”

• Location: San Francisco Bay Area

On top of that, GiveMeLeads will look for people who match these filters and show intent, such as:

• 1st-degree connections

• People in your competitors’ network

• People who follow your company page

• People who viewed your LinkedIn profile

Once you’ve selected your intent data sources, click “Save Changes”

💡 Pro tip: You can set priorities for each source. For example, you can give more weight to 1st-degree connections than profile viewers.

💡Pro tip #2: If you work with multiple sales reps (or co-founders), you can use all of their LinkedIn accounts to get more and better leads. Each account brings its own network, 1st-degree connections, and profile viewers — which means more warm leads for your team.

Step 5: Launch your export

You target is set up. Now it's time to export your leads.

For that, click on "New Leads Export".

You will get a pop-up where you can select:

• The number of leads you want to export

• If you want to schedule this export on a weekly basis.

Then click on "Export Leads".

Step 6: Schedule Your Leads Export (Optional)

GiveMeLeads lets you schedule lead exports. Pick the day you want, and you’ll receive fresh leads weekly.

Once set up, you'll get a fresh list of leads every week — automatically.

Each lead is unique, and the system ensures there are no duplicates. This saves you time and keeps your CRM clean, so you can focus on outreach, not data cleaning.

Then, you’ll automatically receive new leads every week — no manual work needed.

You can focus 100% on what really matters: sending emails, starting LinkedIn conversations, and booking meetings.

💡 Pro tip: With scheduled exports, you can easily build lead files with more than 2,500 fresh, qualified contacts delivered straight to your inbox every week.

Step 7: Download your leads file

When your export is finished, you’ll receive an email with a download link.

You can also download your file directly by clicking the "Download" button in your dashboard. You’ll see two options.

1. "Open in Sheets"

This gives you a simple version of your lead list.

You have:

• Source (Sales Navigator, 1st-degree, profile viewers…)

• First Name

• Last Name

• Profile picture

• Company name

• Job title

• Headline

• LinkedIn URL

• Email

It doesn’t include all the data, but it’s perfect if you just want to import leads into your CRM or outreach tool like Lemlist or Expandi.

2. "Download CSV"

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

• Whether they have LinkedIn Premium

• Their total years of experience

• Company details like size, industry, and location

• Etc

Here's all the informations you can have:

💡 Pro tip: Don’t forget to scroll horizontally — there's a lot of valuable data in your lead file, including job titles, company size, verified emails, and even intent signals.

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.)

GiveMeLeads also checks if each lead matches your LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters.

If a lead doesn’t fit — for example, they have:

• An invalid job title

• Invalid location

• Wrong company size work

• Etc

We tag them in the column "filters" with the reason they’re invalid (like “Invalid job title” or “Wrong company size”).

That way, you keep full control of your data and don’t waste time guessing why a lead doesn’t match your targeting.

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

💡 Pro tip: No need to use separate tools to find or verify emails. Everything’s already cleaned, verified, and ready to go.

🎥 Learn how to find verified emails for your leads by watching this video:

Conclusion

You now know how to use every single filter on LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

As you’ve seen, some filters are gold, while others… well, not so much.

But mastering these filters is the key to building highly qualified lead lists—without wasting time.

If you want to learn how to master LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can check this article.

FAQ

How Can I Export the Leads Into an Excel File?

LinkedIn doesn’t let you export directly. But tools like GiveMeLeads can do it for you, complete with names, emails, and LinkedIn URLs.

How Can I Save My Search?

Yes, you can save your search.

At the top right of any search page, click “Save search” You’ll be able to name it and set up alerts for new matches.

🎥 If you want an in-depth video on how to save your search on LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can check this video: