LinkedIn Sales Navigator Search Filters: Ultimate Guide 2026

LinkedIn Sales Navigator has over 30 search filters.

But most people use 5 of them. Maybe 6.

The rest? They either ignore them or use them wrong. And that's exactly why their lead lists are full of irrelevant contacts.

You set up your filters. You export your leads. And then you realize half of them don't match your target at all.

It's frustrating. And it's avoidable.

In this guide, you'll learn how every Sales Navigator filter works. Which ones are worth your time. And which ones you should skip completely.

By the end, you'll know exactly how to build a lead list that actually matches your ideal customer profile.

Here's what we'll cover:

• How to use lead filters to find the right decision makers
• How to use account filters to target the right companies
• How to save your lists the right way
• 3 advanced techniques to go further

Let's get into it.

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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:

1. Left side: All the filters you can use to narrow your search.
2. 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
• Workflow

Let's break down each one.

Company Filters

These filters help you target leads based on where they work.

You have 5 filters here:

1. Current company
2. Company headcount
3. Past company
4. Company type
5. Company headquarters location

Current company

This filter lets you target leads who currently work at a specific company.

You can include a company to find leads there. Or exclude it to remove companies you don't want (clients, competitors, etc.).

For example, you want to find everyone currently working at Salesforce. Just type the name and go.

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Company headcount

This is one of the most useful filters in Sales Navigator.

It lets you target companies by size. That means you can focus on the segment that actually fits your offer.

Here's a simple breakdown:

Pick the range that matches your ideal customer profile. Don't skip this filter.

Past company

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

It's useful if you're targeting former employees of a competitor. Or people who came from a specific industry background.

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Company type

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

For example:

• Public
• Private
• Educational
• Etc

Company headquarters location

This filter targets leads who work for companies based in a specific location. Country, region, or city.

Important: this is the company's location, not the lead's personal location. Don't confuse the two.

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Role Filters

Role filters help you find people with the right job title and level of seniority.

You have 6 filters here:

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.

LinkedIn tries to guess the function from the job title. It gets it wrong a lot. You'll end up with leads that don't match your target at all.

Use Current Job Title instead. It's more accurate and gives you better control.

Current job title

This is one of the most powerful filters in Sales Navigator.

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").

This gives you all three profiles in one search.

But there's a catch:

Sales Navigator pulls from every job marked as "Present" on a profile. And some people never update their LinkedIn. So they might have 2 or 3 "current" jobs at the same time.

That means you can still end up with the wrong leads, even with a perfect job title filter.

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

Seniority level

Skip this one too.

Same problem as the Function filter. LinkedIn guesses the seniority level based on the job title. The result is unreliable.

If you want to target senior profiles, use the Current Job Title filter with specific titles like "VP", "Director", "Head of", or "C-level."

Past job title

This works like "Current Job Title", but for previous experiences.

It's not very useful for most prospecting use cases. Unless you specifically need to find people who held a certain role in the past.

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

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.

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

These filters let you target leads based on who they are, not just where they work.

You have 8 filters here:

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 targets leads based on their personal location on LinkedIn. Country, region, or city.

Important: this is different from the Company Headquarters filter. This one is about where the person is located, not the company.

Industry

This filter targets leads based on the industry they've selected 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.

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 targets leads based on their total years of professional 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.

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Groups

This filter finds leads who are members of a specific LinkedIn group.

It's a hidden gem. Groups are niche by nature. If you find the right group, you'll find a very targeted audience.

For example: a group for SaaS founders, CFOs in fintech, or HR directors in healthcare.

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Schools

This filter finds leads based on where they studied.

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

Buyer Intent Filters

These 2 filters are often overlooked. But they're some of the most valuable in Sales Navigator.

Why? Because they show you people who are already interested in you or your company.

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.

These people already know you exist. They've shown interest. That makes them warm leads by definition.

Reach out to them first before going after cold contacts.

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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.

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Best Path In Filters

These filters help you find leads through your existing network.

You have 4 filters:

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.

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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.

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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.

Posted on LinkedIn

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

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.

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Account lists

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

For example, if you're targeting companies in the e-commerce industry, just build an account list with e-commerce companies — 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.

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People in CRM

This filter gives you people who are in your CRM.

Unfortunately, you need to have 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 "Messaged" filter:

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

This filter gives you access to all your saved leads and accounts in one place.

Use it to quickly revisit contacts you've already identified without redoing your full search.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator Account Filters

Lead filters help you find the right people.

Account filters help you find the right companies.

And in B2B sales, targeting the right company is just as important as targeting the right person.

To access account filters, go to your Sales Navigator homepage and click on "Account filters."

You'll see the same layout as lead filters:

• Left side: All available filters
• Right side: Your results in real time

You have 3 categories of account filters:

1. Company attributes
2. Spotlights
3. Workflow

Let's check all of them!

Company Attributes Filters

These filters help you define exactly what kind of company you want to target.

You have 10 filters here:

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 here's what you need to know: LinkedIn doesn't have access to real revenue data. The numbers are estimated based on company size, industry, and public signals.

So don't use it as your only qualifier.

Company headcount

Same filter as in the lead section. It targets companies based on their total number of employees.

Use it to stay focused on your ideal company size.

If you sell to SMBs, filter for 11-200 employees. If you target enterprise, go for 1,000+.

Don't try to target everyone. A focused list always outperforms a big one.

Company headcount growth

This filter shows you companies that are actively growing their team.

Growth is one of the strongest buying signals in B2B sales.

When a company is hiring, it means:

• They have budget
• They're scaling
• They're open to new tools and services

Headquarters location

This filter targets companies based on where their headquarters is located. Country, region, or city.

It works exactly like the Headquarters Location filter in the lead section.

Industry

This filter targets companies based on the industry listed on their LinkedIn company page.

This is one of the most reliable industry filters in Sales Navigator.

Why? Because it comes from the company page itself, not from what individual users write on their profiles.

Here are some common industry mappings that confuse people:

Number of followers

This filter targets companies based on how many followers they have on LinkedIn.

Honestly, it's not very useful for prospecting.

A company can have 100,000 followers and zero budget. Or 500 followers and a $10M ARR.

The number of followers doesn't tell you much about fit or buying intent. Skip it.

Not very useful, to be honest.

Department headcount

This filter lets you target companies based on the size of a specific department: Sales, Marketing, Engineering, HR, Finance, etc.

It's one of the most underrated filters in Sales Navigator.

Here's why it matters: the size of a department tells you a lot about whether a company needs your product.

This way, you know the team is big enough to need your solution, and large enough to have a real budget for it.

Department headcount growth

This filter is directly connected to the Department Headcount filter.

It shows you whether a specific department is growing or shrinking.

A growing department = investment. And investment usually means budget for new tools.

Combined with Department Headcount, this is one of the most powerful filter combinations in Sales Navigator.

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 let you target companies based on the tech stack they use.

In theory, it's a great idea. In practice, the data is often outdated or incomplete.

Spotlights Filters

Spotlights filters are different from Company Attributes.

Instead of filtering by what a company is, they filter by what a company is doing right now.

That's what makes them so powerful for timing your outreach.

You have 3 filters here:

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 active job listing.

It's a strong signal for two reasons:

1. They have budget. Companies don't hire when they're in trouble. If they're posting jobs, money is moving.

2. They're growing. Hiring means new projects, new teams, new needs.

Recent opportunities

This filter helps you identify companies going through leadership changes or funding events.

Leadership changes are particularly powerful buying signals.

A new VP of Sales, a new CMO, a new CEO — these people want to move fast. They want quick wins. They're much more open to trying new tools and vendors than someone who's been in the role for 5 years.

Connection

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

It's your warm account list.

Workflow Filters

These filters connect your account search to the lists and tools you've already set up.

You have 3 filters:

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.

It's useful for two things:

1. Avoid duplicates. Don't waste time prospecting accounts that are already in your pipeline.

2. Re-engage existing contacts. Find new decision makers at companies you already have a relationship with.

Unfortunately, you need to have 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 all the account lists you've previously created in Sales Navigator.

You can have multiple lists for different use cases:

• A list of target accounts by industry
• A list of accounts currently in your pipeline
• A blacklist of competitors and existing clients

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 :/

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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 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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3 Advanced Techniques When You Use Sales Navigator Search Filters

Here are 3 advanced techniques to help you build qualified lead lists on LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

1 - Find Better Leads with Boolean Search

Sales Navigator boolean search is very useful if you want to target a 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".

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2 - Blacklist Your Clients 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."

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3 - Find Verified Emails with GiveMeLeads

Find Verified Emails with GiveMeLeads

Follow the 6 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. Launch your export
5. Schedule your export (Optional)
6. Download your leads file

Let's dive in!

Step 1: Create a GiveMeLeads account

Go on GiveMeLeads. Then click on "Get first 20 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

To get started, install the GiveMeLeads Chrome extension from the Chrome Web Store.

Once installed, it integrates directly into LinkedIn Sales Navigator, allowing you to extract your leads instantly while browsing your search results or saved lead lists.

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). Like decision makers for example.

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

Step 4: Launch your export

Your target is set up. Now it's time to export your leads. For that, click on "New Export".

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

• The number of leads you want to export
• If you want to get the verified emails (of all leads or filtered leads only)
• If you want to schedule this export on a weekly basis

Then click on "Export Leads".

Step 5: Schedule your leads export (Optional)

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

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.

Step 6: 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:

• matches_filters / invalid_reason
• 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 a B2B 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, and company details like size, industry, and location.

GiveMeLeads also 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. Leads that don't fit are tagged in the matches_filters column with the reason they're invalid (like "Invalid job title" or "Wrong company size"). That way, you keep full control of your data.

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

Conclusion

You now know every Sales Navigator filter. How they work. Which ones to use. And which ones to skip.

That's already more than most users ever figure out.

But here's the truth: filters alone won't fill your pipeline.

You still need to reach out. And to do that, you need emails.

That's where GiveMeLeads comes in. Export your Sales Navigator leads with verified emails, clean data, and no duplicates. Ready to use in minutes.