Linkedin Profiles That Get Found

Greg Wyatt • June 11, 2026

What follows is an updated chapter for the Summer 2026 edition of A Career Breakdown Kit, due for release in July. It explains why you may have a strong profile yet be invisible to recruiter searches - and what you can do about it.

If you've already bought a copy, DM me with your receipt and I'll DM you the latest version - that will always be my commitment and where this book is unlike others on the market.

A few weeks back I published the follow up chapter - "LinkedIn profiles that convert". You see it's not good enough to only get found, you must also convert readers into action. Unless, I suppose recruiters rely on only the most basic searches and don't want evidence of suitability.

Indeed I had a couple of comments on that article... "Greg getting found is far more important!", which is true, though it highlighted they didn't read the article. It is indeed true that you can't convert if you aren't found, but the two go hand in hand.

So this chapter fixes it. I publish the update now due to my LinkedIn Live with Simon Ward on Wednesday, where I prove a simple truth that confounds much LinkedIn advice:

If you believe your Headline is the only thing to rely on, you are wrong.

We'll use this simple leetspeak term "h34dl1n3" to show what LinkedIn Recruiter looks for in searches. I use that term because no one else on LinkedIn has, so it shows point for point what results are brought from searches.

Here's the Link for Wednesday 10th June at 2pm BST: Job hunters helpdesk. If you can't make it the recording is available in the same place.

Or you can read the following:

36 - LinkedIn profiles that get found

 

Whatever you think of LinkedIn, you shouldn’t overlook its nature as a data repository for recruiters. Many of us rely on this data to fill our vacancies. That data is you and your competition.

This chapter shows how recruiters use the LinkedIn Recruiter Licence to enable us to search for potential candidates, how this reflects other CV databases, and how this might help you improve the odds that your profile can be found.

If you didn’t know, Recruiter Licence is an expensive resource for recruiters and one which many rely on as a core part of their hiring approach.

We do this sometimes at the same time as advertising, sometimes instead of.

I’m a member of a private recruiter group on LinkedIn. We’re all small independents, and it was set up for recruiters who both care about candidate experience and are skilled in their craft.

In preparation for one of my LinkedIn Lives, I asked them in our WhatsApp group what their common frustration with LinkedIn profiles is. These were their replies:

‘Headlines are always shit’

‘CVs not matching LinkedIn profiles are a big no, especially in targeted roles like sales’

‘Job titles that don't make sense’

‘No personal profile’

‘Don't have your current job title as 'looking for work', put the job title you are aiming for and change your headline to e.g. 'Software Developer looking for their next role in X where I can add X value'‘

‘Profiles in my domain all look exactly the same. It’s all job titles, qualifications and nothing to differentiate them.’

Common issues I see too.

It’s worth pointing out that this exercise was solely on LinkedIn Recruiter.

Recruiters have different ways of finding candidates:

  • Their own CV database of previously registered candidates
  • Subscription CV databases off the back of job boards (in the UK), e.g. Indeed, Reed, Totaljobs, CV Library or more specialist ones in your area of expertise
  • ATS-style software that scrapes candidate data from LinkedIn and other sources
  • Real-life networking, referrals
  • Headhunting through market mapping, prospect companies and people in viable roles

When it comes to searching data, these are based on Boolean search and filters.

It’s the same way we might search through a high volume of applicants, such as on an ATS.

I recently did an experiment with my co-host, Simon Ward, on our weekly LinkedIn Live.

Simon is an exceptional Job Search Coach in the UK. He chose this title to define his services because, from his perspective, it was the most relevant description of what he does.

If I were to ask you what does someone do who can coach you through finding a job, what would you answer?

My guess would be Career Coach or maybe CV Writer.

And if you searched on those terms for Simon, you wouldn’t have found him. If you took the ‘lazy recruiter’ approach to sourcing you wouldn’t find him under ‘Job Search Coach’ either.

LinkedIn Recruiter works much in the same way as Amazon. You run a general search for your item of choice, then filter by various elements - in this case by industry and location.

One of the features of LinkedIn Recruiter is that we can filter by ‘Open to Work’, if you have that turned on in your profile, it should be to your advantage.

I don’t use it, because I have better means of contacting out-of-work job seekers.

When I look at my dashboard, these are the basic search fields that come up:

  • Job Title
  • Locations
  • Skills and Assessments
  • Companies
  • Schools Attended
  • Industries
  • Keywords

I use Job Title, Location, Industry and Keywords for general searches, as well as Companies if I know they might be incubators for candidates.

There are also advanced filters. For the purpose of this chapter, it’s about getting the basics right.

These search fields map point for point with how you fill out your profile. Play around with editing your profile and you’ll see the same options.

The problem with Simon is that he defined himself as a Job Search Coach in his headline.

If I search for this specific term as a Job Title, he won’t come up, whereas 37 other credible results do.

It’s only if I search on this term in Keywords that he comes up.

Headlines don’t have a specific filter to search on them - they only get found in a Keyword filter search, in an advanced operator search, or when that term is also specified in a primary search filter like Job Title. See A note on headlines below for why this matters.

What if you were an HR Manager who was a 100% fit for a Head of People vacancy, yet the recruiter didn’t find you because you didn’t use that explicit job title?

As a recruiter I would build up a Boolean string of comparable job titles, then expand or reduce depending on the volume of results.

Which might be:

(‘HR Manager’ OR ‘Human Resource Manager’ OR ‘Human Resources Manager’ OR ‘Head of HR’ OR ‘HR Director’) etc

I’d use every iteration of HR above and (‘People Manager’ OR ‘Head of People’), maybe I’d even go old school with Personnel.

I do this because of the arbitrariness of job titles, and because an HR Director in one business might be a Head of People in another.

As well as other curiosities like People Business Partner, which might be any and all of those titles.

Once I have a comprehensive list, I can save this for future reference and build it iteratively if I come across any weird job titles in the wild.

If I need to further fine-tune, I’d bring in relevant qualifications, memberships and skills for that role.

MCIPD AND ‘Employee Relations’ AND FMCG… might be an example, although these are separated on LinkedIn by individual fields.

If you’re wondering about the capitalisation - AND OR NOT and others are Boolean operators that allow us to specify or separate data.

Sometimes I’ll even search on typos, because I know these aren’t searched for by many, but only if it’s a hard role to fill: ‘HR Manger’ (I realise HR isn’t obscure)

I do what it takes to find the right people.

It won’t help if you are a suitable candidate for the above and your job title is ‘Assistant to the Senior Manager, HR, Business Partnering.’ A real job title I once came across.

I explain in the ATS chapters (p29) that one area AI is enhancing work is through automating Boolean searches - this makes it easier for a less skilled recruiter to find candidates. If you have the basics above nailed, things will only improve.

For now, a skilled search will uncover candidates better than automation.

Here’s the first takeaway:

Ensure the keywords, job titles, skills and qualifications that reflect the job you want are explicitly stated on your profile and in the right fields. Ensure Industry is best fit with your ideal career industry (a specific filter we use, which can be amended where you edit your headline)

If you aren’t sure, print off all the jobs you’ve recently applied for where you are a 90%+ fit. What are the common terms? These should be on your profile - if and only if they are true and you have evidence.

If your current job title is ‘Looking for a new opportunity,’ it might be true and it might get you overlooked.

You’d probably want your current job title to be ‘HR Manager - looking for a new opportunity.’

In that fuzzy weird title above, I’d go for ‘Assistant to the Senior Manager, HR, Business Partnering - (HR Manager)’

Search fields do have additional filters, allowing a search on current or past jobs - can we guarantee recruiters won’t do anything more than the most simplistic of searches?

Now, you’d hope that recruiters aren’t actually lazy, corner cutters or incompetent. Though if you cater for the weakest link, you also cater for more skilled recruiters.

I asked a current job seeker what roles he is applying for.

His reply:

Compliance Assistant / Administrator,

Client Onboarding Assistant / Administrator,

Operations Assistant / Administrator,

Reconciliations Administrator.

I couldn’t find him on a basic search for the first line. This was my reply:

When I did a search using your ideal job titles, you didn't come up for ‘Compliance Assistant’ or ‘Compliance Administrator.’

You do come up for ‘Client Onboarding Assistant’ and Administrator because these are explicit in your profile.

You may benefit from making sure the exact terms you look for in adverts are represented in your profile.

The crux of being found is understanding what we search for. Give us what we need to find you. Inversion.

The principles are the same for a CV which you can use on job board CV databases.

Another exercise to improve visibility

What were the last 10 job adverts you read that represented a strong fit with where you are in your career?

Ones which reflect what you've been doing and would be a natural step forward.

What do these descriptions have in common, out of job titles, key skills, qualifications and technology?

Now look at your LinkedIn profile. In order of priority, do these use the same words you see in adverts?

  1. Your job titles - most recent and previous
  2. Your Headline
  3. Your About section
  4. The sections under each job title
  5. Your skills

Often, when recruiters do searches against similar roles, they'll use the terminology from the job description, which is commonly used as the basis for adverts.

They'll search under the same terms that you might read on those adverts - job titles, qualifications, skills, software, industry.

If your profile doesn't explicitly state these, you won't be as easily found.

For example, if you are a ‘Head of Affiliate, Digital and Offline Marketing’ and you are performing the duties of a Marketing Manager - that's what you need to show in your profile.

While your headline is important - it doesn't help you if your profile doesn't turn up in search results, given its lower priority in Recruiter Licence search filters.

Update your profile truthfully and see what happens.

How else can you help readers see you as a viable candidate?

Do the same for your CV - because these same principles will support your applications, speculative contacts, networking and use of CV databases.

Note: there is no global ranking of profiles. Search rankings are in part specific to the searcher, based on things like network proximity and the recruiter's own activity. So you might be #1 in one search, and on the 3rd page for a different recruiter.

The configuration layer beneath the visible profile

Everything so far has been the visible profile: headline, about, experience, the keywords a reader can see. There is a configuration layer beneath this that drives how the platform matches you to sponsored adverts and how recruiters filter their searches. I covered why this matters in The invitation that wasn't (p67). Here is how to set it.

The first thing to understand is that these fields are additive. They add the searches and matches you appear in. They do not subtract your existing visibility. Setting a stretch title in Open to Work cannot erase your real title from your Experience section, which is where Boolean searches actually hit. So there is no penalty for reaching, only the question of where you spend limited slots.

Open to Work job titles. Up to five slots, drawn from LinkedIn's pre-populated taxonomy. These titles make you findable for roles you have never held. Set Director of Operations and you surface in searches for that title even if your profile only shows you as a Business Manager. It is the single most useful mechanism the platform offers anyone trying to move sideways, level up, or pivot.

Five slots forces a choice, which is the right design. The balance to aim for is between titles you are genuinely suited for now and titles you would move jobs for. Where you sit depends on your situation. If you are passively open and not in a rush, weight the slots toward the next move up; you can afford to wait for the right conversation. If you are actively looking and need to land something soon, weight them toward your current level, where you are credible on paper and the conversation is easier. Most people sit in between, two or three slots at current level and the rest reaching forward.

Don't spend slots on minor variants of the same title. Operations Manager, Senior Operations Manager and Head of Operations sound distinct but are the same career step at different scales. Use the slots to span seniority, sector framings, or adjacent functions you would genuinely accept, not to maximise hits on one narrow lane. The taxonomy is incomplete in niche sectors; pick the closest standard option and live with it.

Employment types. Tick every type you would genuinely accept, including part-time and contract if you would. The match engine appears to read this as a permission rather than a preference, and unchecking a type closes a door. If you would consider part-time in the right role, say so.

Locations and remote flag. Specify your real location plus the remote flag if you would take remote work. The advice to limit yourself to two or three locations to avoid looking desperate is editorial commentary, not LinkedIn policy. Set it honestly.

Visibility. Recruiters-only versus all members. Both feed the same match engine, so this is a risk-management choice, not a leverage one. Recruiters-only is the right default for anyone currently employed. This is mainly invisible to your current employer - unless they are cynical enough to employ a 3rd party to see who is Open to Work. The public green frame adds reach but exposes your status to your current employer and to a great deal of low-quality outreach, including scams. The wider perception question I cover in #OpenToWork (p47).

Industry and current employer link. Your industry classification is pulled from your current employer's LinkedIn Page, not from anything you say. I have seen this fail for candidates whose employer was mis-tagged or whose Page wasn't linked: the classification is wrong and they never know. Check that your current employer's page is linked correctly in your Experience section. This is also the field that hides your Open to Work status from your current employer's recruiters. If the link is missing or wrong, that privacy guarantee fails.

Settings drift. Most candidates set these fields once, at the moment of activating Open to Work, and never revisit them. The titles you would accept change as you learn what the market wants. Treat it as a living configuration, not a permanent declaration.

The reason this belongs in a chapter on getting found is that it is the hidden half of discoverability. The visible profile gets you into recruiter Boolean searches. The configuration layer gets you into the platform's match engine. How that same profile then has to hold up to a human reading it, and how it serves your outbound approaches too, sits within the wider framework in Through-the-Line (p120).

A note on headlines

Headlines are a secondary priority in recruiter searches. The Simon Ward experiment from the LinkedIn Live illustrated this directly: searching on a specific job title term as a Job Title filter returned a different, smaller result set than the same term entered as a Keyword. Profiles where that title existed only in the headline - not in any Experience entry - surfaced in the Keyword search and not in the Job Title filter.

This is consistent with how LinkedIn documents its own search architecture. The Job Titles filter is defined as targeting job titles members add in the Experience section. The Keywords filter is defined as pulling from the entire profile page. Those are two distinct fields with two distinct search behaviours.

Independent cross-checking against platform documentation and practitioner testing found no evidence that it differs by tier. The Job Title filter appears to index Experience title fields consistently across Recruiter Lite, Professional and Corporate.

This morning (1st June 2026), I confirmed this using the unique term h34dl1n3, which only appears on one profile in the world - mine. This was on LinkedIn Recruiter Lite and confirmed expert Boolean sourcing practitioner findings, such as from Irina Shamaeva in late 2024.

This surfaces h34dl1n3 when it is solely stated in the Headline field when using the secondary filter "Keywords" and the advanced operator "headline:". If you search on the primary filter Job Titles - it does not appear.

Where the headline earns its keep is at the next stage. When the term appears in the headline, About or title, the results list renders it in bold. That bolding is what catches a recruiter's eye as they scan - a scanning signal, not a discovery one. It affects whether you get noticed among the results, not whether you appear in them.

To summarise: your headline matters for Keyword searches and for how a reader processes your profile once they've clicked through. It does not help you appear in Job Title filter searches unless your title also appears in an Experience entry.

A note on Resumes/CVs

Storing a CV on LinkedIn and turning on the backend "Share resume data with recruiters" button supports discoverability, through keywords and skills that are aligned with your Recruiter profile.

This can boost your return in search results, through compounding within your LinkedIn profile. The substance of this boost isn't quantifiable, given LinkedIn is opaque in how it ranks search results.

However, it's a good idea to have your current 'good enough' CV stored, as well as additional documents (up to 4) for different role profiles you are suitable for.

A note on Activity

Another ranking factor is your activity on LinkedIn. The logic is simple - active job seekers are more likely to be responsive to recruiter enquiries, therefore they prove effectiveness of messaging through Recruiter Licence and are prioritised.

While there are conflicting reports of what makes up effective activity, including between practitioner advice and LinkedIn help articles - my advice is simpler:

Be responsive and proactive whatever you do on LinkedIn, with the happy byproduct that action boosts your visibility.

However

Getting found is only the first piece of the puzzle, and when your profile is read, you need to convert interest.

This is why you need to get the balance right in how you present your information.

A standard diagnostic

By Greg Wyatt • October 22, 2026
The other day I read a LinkedIn post about the iron triangle as it relates to recruitment. That you can be fast and good, but it will be expensive. That you can be fast and cheap, and it will be bobbins. Or that you can be cheap and good, but it will take longer than the heat death of the universe. At first glance it’s always made sense, with caveats, though that sense has been ablated with the promise of AI. Something that promises to be quicker, cheaper and better than people can manage. The only thing this triangle lacks is judgement-with-responsibility, something AI-style LLMs are currently incapable of, which is why they can be such problematic technology for recruitment. Though if your priority is speed, saving money, and filling jobs, the lack of judgement in even those algorithms that promise black box bias freedom might not be a problem you’d think much about. And when the top is spinning in an elegant way this might seem a standardisation you can apply everywhere, while you get on with your day job. Sadly the only place a spinning top doesn’t stop is when you were dreaming all along. AI has made me think about why the fundamentals of recruitment are so important, using judgement before we launch our projects. Which is why I like the 5Cs of project management as a way to look at recruitment: complexity, criticality, compliance, culture, compassion. With an adaptation and an additional C to be fit for purpose. It’s a great way to consider what approach to deploy: Complexity: the number of moving parts in a role, supply and demand in the candidate market, resources required to engage and bring forward the right people Criticality: the impact a vacancy has on the organisation. The opportunity a great hire brings. The damage the wrong hire can cause. And everything in between Channels: we go where the candidates are, whether at the end a headhunt, from an advert, from sourcing across LinkedIn Recruiter/equivalent tools, CV Databases, ATS records, other platforms, internal applicants, suppliers, consultants, temps, networking, referrals or even from a little black book, which I suspect will become more relevant again when data becomes noise Compliance: not just employment law, but how technology is used to find, engage and assess candidates in a fair, equitable and inclusive way Context: the full picture of the company – its organisational and local cultures, principles and values, mission, vision, goals, challenges and trajectory. The nuts and bolts, what that means for your candidates, and trying to understand the same in them Compassion: recognition of the impact a vacancy has on the employer and its team, balanced with how everyone can be brought together. And compassion for everyone that interacts with our recruitment, in process or invisibly Yes, I swapped context for culture. Hiring for context necessarily includes culture, and goes much further. And I've added Channels, which should always be established before going to market. I like these because they’re a way to ensure that how you recruit is proportionate and appropriate. They may even highlight you shouldn’t hire at all. But what you shouldn’t do is assume one recruitment process is the same as the next, nor that the investment made in reaching desired outcomes should be. What may seem expensive to you might bring an unexpected return on investment. What seems slow at the outset might bring a starter quicker than hoped – proper planning and all that. What seems good quality might fall apart, when the promises prove inadequate. That’s why it’s so important to diagnose first, before standardising. Greg p.s. You're welcome to try my free Hiring Diagnostic & Plan . It's not based on the 6Cs, which I think require more depth than a free tool can reasonably provide. Instead, it draws on principles from other disciplines: True and Fair from accounting, and Suitable and Sufficient from health and safety. It's free and private. Give it a go, and let me know if you'd like to chat through how the 6Cs might apply to your recruitment and enhance the resul 

Introduction to the hidden jobs market

By Greg Wyatt • October 14, 2026
On Wednesday 21st, I'll be doing a LinkedIn Live on The Hidden Jobs Market, joined by Paul Woodhouse. Paul is a marketing leader who has been looking for work in our challenging market. A previous role was a Hidden Job, and has also hired people himself. We'll be looking at his experiences to give a little substance to what can be a nebulous term. I'll show the steps anyone can take to become available for unadvertised vacancies, and for advertised vacancies that are filled by other means - after all employers consider more than only applications when taking a standard approach to recruitment. As a recruiter I don't advertise around half my vacancies, which might be for reasons of confidentiality, a lack of definition in the brief, a on the QT replacement for someone about to be dismissed, or mass availability of candidates. I'll use LinkedIn Recruiter to look for potential candidates, CV databases that can be more effective for immediate hires, my network for referrals and recommendations. My previous candidate pools for other vacancies - some of whom might have once open a time been applicants. Indeed, that last point shows the absurdity of much job search advice. If you apply for a vacancy on an ATS, you might be rejected, yet still be considered for future vacancies in the same employer. A hidden job hidden by an advertised job, where tailoring your CV with AI might make you less likely to be considered. Join us on Wednesday, or if you aren't free, the recording will be available immediately. Both can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7516049669924225027?viewAsMember=true . The chapter below from A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) shows a simple metaphor for the hidden jobs market, why it's such a silly term, and a better way to think about your own job search. 3 - The hidden jobs market In most of the calls I have with job seekers they will ask me about The Hidden Jobs Market. What is it? Is it real? How can I access it? Before we get into that, we should talk about tomatoes. As you read this next section, imagine a tomato is a job. So, you want to procure some tomatoes. How would you? Your local farm shop. The supermarket. Wednesday’s stalls. Maybe you subscribe to a weekly box of veg. Maybe you grow your own. Maybe you trade for the tomatoes from Tim’s allotment. Maybe you look at people funny when they ask for an intro to Tim because his tomatoes are wonderful. You likely wouldn’t buy some from Amazon - they don’t sell fresh food. Not to me anyway. Though you might buy tomato seeds from Amazon if you grow your own. Maybe even cans of crushed tomato, sauce, puree, or whatever meets your needs. As the channel you use to source tomatoes isn’t the only consideration, so too is the configuration of what you need. While you and others all access tomatoes in different ways, some of which overlap, and some of which are mutually exclusive - none of these channels are hidden. It’s just that you may not know how to access some channels, while others won’t be available to you. Now I want you to read that section again. Instead of being your desired job, you are an employer whose desired tomato is a candidate of choice. While recruitment is the inverse of a job search (more on this later), the analogy is better from the employer perspective because they are on a buyer’s journey where you are the product. Employers want to fill their vacancies through the best means. Some vacancies are easy to fill, others not so, and they will access the channels necessary to find the right people. In many situations, they won’t advertise a vacancy, which might be for reasons of confidentiality or convenience. Some say this is as much as 80%, a flawed figure which comes from a flawed survey, or perhaps it comes from a newspaper article in 1974 before computers were a thing. In my recent small-scale research, it was indicated more than 62% of vacancies are advertised. 53% responded they advertise more than 75% of vacancies. Many of the respondents were headhunters, whose business may be based on not running public adverts. I expect this will have skewed the results lower than the true figure. What employers don’t do is hide vacancies systematically. To access these vacancies, you need to understand the channels through which employers hire and invert these channels to form your strategy. Much like how tomatoes are sold through channels which consumers buy from. Is the hidden jobs market real? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that not all jobs are advertised. Some are confidential, some for reasons as mundane as not wanting to deal with hundreds of advert applicants. No, because it isn’t a term that has inherent meaning. Speak to people who advocate for it, often a career coach, and they’ll tell you it’s anything from personal branding and networking to going direct and being referred in. When vacancies aren’t advertised by employers, they often fill them through sourcing - this is a specialist skill related to finding people where they may be found: LinkedIn, CV databases, corporate databases, GitHub, Facebook, YouTube. These are all channels you can access as part of an appropriate multichannel strategy. Which means if you have the right multichannel strategy (I call this Through-the-Line, which we’ll cover in parts 2 and 3), you access all jobs available to you, including those which are hidden and those which are in witness protection on another continent. Who are the headhunters that specialise in your domain? Who are the people who can refer you to jobs? How can you be more discoverable on LinkedIn and CV databases? How can you gain an understanding of the ways in which your ideal job is recruited, so you can take advantage of those channels? Those are better questions to answer to allow an effective through-the-line, multichannel strategy involving outbound and inbound leads. Despite me being vocal about why Hidden is a flawed notion, two people have thanked me for advice that led to their new roles claiming they’d accessed the hidden jobs market. As I gritted my teeth in hidden rage and congratulated them on their success, they unveiled the truth. What they actually did was map out their real life network of people they’d worked with and got in touch. If the people you know don’t know that you are looking for a role, what reason would they have to tell you about a vacancy? It’s simple marketing - right place (LinkedIn), right person (ex-colleague), right message (looking for work), right time (we’ve a vacancy). Of course, that takes a bit of luck to achieve the right congruence. Odds you increase through volume and follow up. And when you do find those opportunities, they are easier to win because you are a known name, not another unknown CV. There it is, the hidden tomato market.