When it comes to finding people on social media, all of us have a little detective spirit buried inside, waiting to pounce out and follow the blood trail. But it’s not as easy as some would think. Some platforms are easier to navigate than others; moreover, whether or not this person wants to be discovered is an important factor. The privacy settings of a platform can make all the difference.
Do you want to connect with someone on LinkedIn but only have their email address as a point of contact? Allow us to show you various tricks that can lead you to your destination: their LinkedIn account.
Are users required to provide an email address while joining LinkedIn?
Before we delve deeper into finding someone on LinkedIn by their email address, let’s first clarify this: Is it mandatory for all LinkedIn users to provide an email address while joining the platform?
This is a legit question because there are countless social media platforms around us today, and not all of them require an email address to create an account, at least not anymore. There was a time when having an email address was enough to do most things on the internet.
However, as the number of smartphone users increased globally, more and more netizens started considering their phone numbers as their primary point of contact. This led to many platforms allowing users to create an account using their phone number alone.
So, is LinkedIn one such platform? Unfortunately, it isn’t. While platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, or even Tinder have little use for your email address, on professional platforms like LinkedIn, an email address is indispensable.
It is the core of your account because most professional conversations take place over emails, even today. So, if anyone has an account on LinkedIn, they’re bound to be registered with an email address.
How to Find Someone on LinkedIn by Email Address
Now that we’ve established that every user on LinkedIn is bound to have an email address that the platform uses to create their account let’s move ahead to the matter at hand: looking for a particular LinkedIn user by their email address. Keep reading to explore all our tricks and tips!
Will using LinkedIn’s search bar work?
Anyone who has ever used LinkedIn knows about the search bar on the platform. Always located on the top – regardless of whether you use the web browser or mobile app – this bar is the key to looking anyone up on the platform.
Since you already have the email address of this person, we’re assuming you’d know their name as well, and have probably looked it up on LinkedIn search already. Were the results disappointing? Perhaps that’s what has brought you here.
This leads us to our question: Can entering the email address of this person in a LinkedIn search help you find their profile? We regret to say this, but that’s not how LinkedIn search works.
See, all search features in the world have a dedicated algorithm at their root, which helps users employ their help successfully. And because LinkedIn search has been fed a first name + last name algorithm – since that’s the most popular format among users – it can only run a search in that format.
Therefore, when you enter an email address here, it wouldn’t show you any accurate or even relevant results. In other words, the LinkedIn search bar cannot help you with it.
In 2014, LinkedIn launched a separate info-product on its platform: the LinkedIn Sales Navigator. This product was designed to help the sales teams of companies navigate their way into the hearts of their prospective customers, thereby driving a more successful sales pitch.
The product was a paid tool from day one, and captured much attention in the corporate world despite the fact; can you tell us why? Due to its efficiency.
Are you wondering if there’s scope for this tool to help you, we’re sorry to let you down; the function of Sales Navigator is quite the opposite of what you’d expect. While it can extract the email addresses of all users in your network, it can’t use an email address to point toward the right user. That’s simply outside of its scope.
A web browser workaround trick that can help
We just learned above how the Sales Navigator can’t help you here, right? Well, in this section, we’ve brought you a free, and open-to-use alternative of it that can help you find anyone on LinkedIn by their email address. The only catch is that not all users have a positive thing to say about it.
Some claim that they couldn’t find any results despite typing the email address correctly. And there’s a chance that it could happen to you as well, but it could also work. And what’s the harm in trying?
Here’s how this trick works:
Open your web browser, and in the address bar displayed at the top, enter this: https://www.linkedin.com/sales/gmail/profile/viewByEmail/
After the last slash, enter the email address of this person and hit Enter. With any luck, you’ll land on their LinkedIn profile next.
If this trick worked for you, we’re glad; and if it didn’t, don’t lose hope yet. We have more in store for you.
We were rooting for the last trick to work, but now that it didn’t, you might need to broaden your scope beyond LinkedIn. Yes, we understand that you need to find them on LinkedIn, but that doesn’t mean all means of doing that lie within the platform.
As you can see for yourself, a majority of netizens today have an active presence on multiple social media platforms. And when that happens, there’s a strong chance that they’ve attached the link to their LinkedIn account on a different platform.
If Instagram influencers can add links to their YouTube channel in their bio, those who are active on LinkedIn, or even want people to find them there can do the same.
Therefore, if you’re connected with this person on a different social handle or are successful in finding their profile there, you can always check if there’s anything about LinkedIn there as well.
Found a lead? Congratulations! Didn’t? Well, we have only one alternative left; but this one is going to be sure shot. Let’s check it out below!
Send them an email asking about it
We understand that despite trying all our tricks, you’re still struggling to find this person on LinkedIn, and we have a way of changing that now.
Since you already have the email address of this person, why don’t you use it to communicate with them directly? After all, email addresses were designed to write emails, weren’t they?
In your mail, you could even state your struggle of not being able to find their account on LinkedIn and tell them why you needed it. Who knows? They might share the link to their account by themselves!
The bottom line
With this, we’re ready to wrap today’s blog up. Would you like a quick summary of your learnings before we part ways?
Our discussion on finding someone on LinkedIn by their email address began from scratch. We first talked about how it is mandatory to add an email address while creating an account on LinkedIn. Then we moved ahead to exploring different tricks used to find this person on the platform.
We really hope one of our tricks ends up working for you. And if you seek our help with any other LinkedIn-related problem, we’d love to assist you with it as well. Just share your problem with us in the comments below, and we’ll do the rest.
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