As part of their recent desktop re-design, many LinkedIn power users were left dismayed by the removal of certain features, including advanced search parameters and the ability to search in Groups.
Most of those next-level functions have now been moved over to the premium Sales Navigator platform - but this week, LinkedIn has confirmed that one of the functions that disappeared in the transition has now been added back to the LinkedIn experience, both for paying and non-paying users.
Yes, LinkedIn saved searches are back - here's how you find them (and credit to LinkedIn trainer Lindsay McMillion Stemann for first highlighting the update)
First, conduct your search as normal - LinkedIn also recently added in a range of new search qualifiers you can use to refine your results.
Once your results load, click on the 'People' tab at the top of the screen. On the People listing, you'll see a 'Saved Searches' option in the bottom right of screen.
Click on that and you'll get a new option to set up a search alert, which will send you an automated notification to let you know when any new profiles that match your query are added.
Once you set up an alert, the search will be added to your Saved Searches listing.
A key change here is that you can't rename your saved searches as you used to be able to, they're simply saved under the term itself - you can manage each query and relative notification by clicking 'Manage' in the Saved Searches box.
So why were saved searches ever removed? LinkedIn has confirmed to us that the feature was 'temporarily unavailable', as opposed to being taken away, which suggests that it was more an oversight within the transition to the new desktop experience, as opposed to a measure to push people towards paid subscriptions. As such, we may also see some of the previous functionality, like the ability to name searches, re-added in the near future.
Saved searches are a handy tool - they're not used by everyone, but for those that do set them up, they can be a valuable reference.
If you haven't tried them out before, now may be a good time to see what they can offer - you can set up alerts for new employees in your field of interest, at certain companies, those moving into new positions, etc. There's a wide range of possibilities. It's worth testing them out to see what you can find.