Death for LinkedIn X-Ray Search?

Big LinkedIn Update for recruiters who X-ray search LinkedIn profiles from Google: LinkedIn now restricts the public view of LinkedIn Profiles.

It’s not a secret that LinkedIn has one of the largest open profile databases globally, available for scraping and sourcing — essentially, a free source of candidates for recruiters. Over the years, LinkedIn has utilised these open profiles to boost traffic to their site and attract new users, contributing to the emergence of numerous candidate aggregators that openly scrape profiles.

With over a billion members and the influence of Microsoft, LinkedIn is now imposing limits on free viewing. This move is aimed at promoting more LinkedIn premium and recruiter licenses. The widely used Google X-Ray search within the sourcing and Talent Acquisition communities may no longer be as effective, and the impact on aggregators remains to be seen.

Were you one of those regular LinkedIn X-ray researchers aiming to find free LinkedIn profiles? How will this development impact your sourcing strategies?