How to avoid LinkedIn's dreaded commercial use limit

If you use LinkedIn to find employers or customers, you've likely noticed that LinkedIn now limits your people searches after you've reached a secret number (Hint: The number is 60 per month, renewable the first of each month). 

After that, unless you have a sales, recruiter or (generic) LinkedIn premium account, LinkedIn limits your search results to only 4 people. (Job seeker premium account holders do not get extra search privileges). 

LinkedIn now limits people searches to 60 per month unless you upgrade to select premium accounts.

But did you know that Recruitmentgeek.com, will let you access the public version of LinkedIn profiles 1,000 times a month for free? (I receive no money for passing this tip on to you ... I'm just thrilled that such a service exists.)

On Recruitmentgeek.com, click Free Recruitment Tools and then LinkedIn Xray Search.

Here's how:

• Log out of LinkedIn (otherwise when you click a person's entry, you are routed to your LinkedIn account and encounter LinkedIn's limitations)
• Visit Recruitmentgeek.com
• Click Free Recruitment Tools
• Select LinkedIn Xray Search
• Type your search criteria in the Google Custom Search box, such as "Recruiter, Los Angeles"
• Search through up to 10 pages of results with 10 people per page
• Adjust your search criteria to get even more results. Using the same example as above, expand your recruiter search to "Recruiting Manager, Orange County," to view even more people
• Click on listed peoples' entries to see the public view of their profile. This view may leave some sections out, but you can usually see much more information than what LinkedIn typically reveals when the person is not in your LinkedIn network. 

Why I like Recruitmentgeek's Xray search tool:

1) Instead of people showing up high in search results simply because they are in your LinkedIn network, the people who show up highest in Recruitmentgeek's search results typically show up high because they deserve to. 

Recruitmentgeek list's people in order of prominence, not in order of relationship to you.

For example, if you look up "LinkedIn expert" on the site, Viveka von Rosen will show up first. This occurs, not because she is in a LinkedIn group with you or because she is your 1st, 2nd or 3rd degree connection, but because she is widely known as a top LinkedIn expert. For that reason, I find Recruitmentgeek's search function even more valuable than LinkedIn's.

2) I use the search entries on Recruitmentgeek to study what top people are doing and saying on their LinkedIn profile so that I can make my profile stronger and so my LinkedIn profile clients can benefit from the knowledge I gain by studying their strongest competitors. 

3) I like to stick it to the man ... in this case, LinkedIn. I think its decision to limit people search is terrible and believe it particularly hurts job seekers who, even if they pay mightily for a premium job seeker account, are penalized by the LinkedIn-imposed commercial limit. 

Perhaps the LinkedIn commercial limit annoys you, too. If so, log onto LinkedIn, scroll to the bottom of a page (other than your often-endless home page) and click "Send Feedback". Complete the feedback form to express your displeasure. Maybe if enough people complain, LinkedIn will reconsider its punitive (and counter-productive) commercial limitation.

And in the meantime, check out Recruitmentgeek's Xray tool ... the search function is fantastic and by going around LinkedIn's commercial limits, you'll experience the sweet satisfaction of sticking it to the man. -- Kathy

What comments or questions do you have about the LinkedIn commercial limit? Share your thoughts! 

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