LinkedIn Headhunting Workflow

Manual process for sourcing and reaching out to candidates on LinkedIn, filtered by occupation, employer history and tenure. Example below uses “SEO Specialist” as the target occupation — swap for any role.

Search By Occupation

• Enter the job title in the LinkedIn search bar, e.g. SEO Specialist
• Press enter to run the search

Filter By People

• Click the People tab on the results page
• This narrows results to profiles matching the title, not companies, posts or job ads

Filter By Previous Employers

• Open All filters
• Under Past company, add the name of an employer known for producing good candidates in the target field, e.g. a specialist SEO agency
• Add more than one employer to widen the pool

Check Tenure At That Employer

LinkedIn’s filter matches anyone who ever worked at that company — it doesn’t rank by how long they stayed. Open each profile and check the Experience section manually:

• Look for 2+ years at the filtered employer
• Short stints (under a year) are a weaker signal — not enough time to see a strategy through or show results
• 2+ years usually means the employer kept them because the work held up

Connect With The Candidate

• Click Connect, add a short note (300 character limit) referencing their specific role/employer, not a generic line
• If not connected and you have a Sales Navigator or Recruiter seat, use InMail instead
• Free accounts have a weekly connection request cap — sending too many too fast risks a temporary restriction on the account

Send The Proposal

Once connected (or the request is accepted), send the full proposal message. Keep a template with placeholders and personalise the first line before sending:

Hi {first_name},

Saw you spent {duration} at {employer} as {role} — that's the kind of track record we're after.

We're an Australian agency looking for a {role} to join the team. Open to a short chat about it?

Track Outreach

This process is manual, not scraped or automated — log each candidate contacted (name, employer, date, response) in a spreadsheet or CRM so you don’t message the same person twice across different searches.