How to find candidates on LinkedIn without Recruiter? [2026 guide]

LinkedIn Recruiter costs EUR 150 per month. LinkedIn Basic is free.

The difference? Fewer InMails, no advanced filters, but finding candidates works just fine without Recruiter. How do you find candidates on LinkedIn without Recruiter? This guide shows what works, what you miss, and what employer context nobody gives you — not even with Recruiter.

What you CAN do with LinkedIn Basic

LinkedIn Basic is completely free. You don’t need a credit card, no upgrade, just your standard account. And yet you can find candidates.

Boolean search in the free search bar. The search bar accepts Boolean operators. Combine terms with AND, OR, NOT. Filter on keywords in job titles, location, company name.

Example: “Account Manager” AND (SaaS OR software) AND Amsterdam

Use your network (2nd-degree connections). LinkedIn Basic lets you search within your own network and 2nd-degree connections. Through a shared connection you can request an introduction.

LinkedIn groups for targeting. Joining industry-specific groups gives you access to members. You can message group members without a connection. No InMail needed.

Content consumption as icebreaker. See who likes or comments on posts in your feed. Those are active people in their field. Send them a connection request with a personal note.

What you MISS without LinkedIn Recruiter

LinkedIn Basic is usable, but has limitations.

Search results are limited. LinkedIn Basic shows you a maximum of 100 search results. LinkedIn Recruiter gives you unlimited results.

No advanced filters. Recruiter has filters like: years of experience, company size, seniority level, skills. LinkedIn Basic only has location and (limited) company name.

No InMail credits. LinkedIn Basic has 0 InMails. Your alternative: connection request with a note (max 300 characters). LinkedIn Premium (EUR 45/month) gives 5 InMails, Recruiter Lite (EUR 80/month) gives 30, Recruiter (EUR 150/month) gives 150.

No pipeline management. Recruiter has built-in pipeline views, tags, notes. Basic does not. You have to manually track who you’ve approached.

The gap nobody fills: Employer context

Whether you use LinkedIn Basic, Premium, Recruiter Lite, or Recruiter — they all give you the same problem.

You see job titles. You see company names. But you don’t know what those companies do.

Example: you’re looking for a Data Engineer for a fintech scale-up. You get 300 profiles.

You see:

• “Data Engineer at DataPulse BV”
• “Senior Data Engineer at FinCore Solutions”
• “Data Platform Engineer at Nextera”

Do you know DataPulse BV? No idea what they do. Do you know FinCore Solutions? Sounds like fintech, but is it a scale-up or an enterprise? Do you know Nextera? No.

What LinkedIn Recruiter does NOT tell you:

• Does DataPulse work with real-time streaming or batch processing?
• What tech stack does FinCore have? Python/Spark or Java/Hadoop?
• Is Nextera a product company or a consultancy?

You have to figure that out yourself. 5-10 minutes of googling per candidate. With 300 profiles, that’s 25-50 hours.

This context gap applies to every LinkedIn tier. Even LinkedIn Recruiter at EUR 150/month doesn’t solve this.

How you don’t know 90% of employers

Independent recruiters may know 30-70% of employers in their established niche. Corporate recruiters — who have to recruit for every function — may know 5-10%.

With a search of 800 profiles, that means 560-760 company names you don’t know. Without context, matching is guesswork.

How the SourceLens Chrome extension solves this

SourceLens is a Chrome extension that exports candidates from LinkedIn and automatically analyzes their employers. It works with any LinkedIn, including free.

Step 1: Install the free Chrome extension. 2 minutes via Chrome Web Store. No configuration, no credit card.

Step 2: Do your normal LinkedIn search. Boolean search like you always do. Open the results.

Step 3: Export profiles with 1 click. The extension collects profile URLs (no scraping, zero ban risk). SourceLens automatically analyzes the last 8 employers across 18 dimensions.

What you get:

• Sector & market context (B2B/B2C, enterprise/SMB)
• Organization type (startup, scale-up, corporate, SME)
• Sales model (inside sales, field sales, consultative, channel)
• Customer segment and deal complexity
• Growth stage and organization size

Plus: SourceLens matches each candidate against your selection criteria. You get a matching score (0-100) with justification.

Result: From 800 profiles to 80 relevant candidates. In 45 minutes instead of 3+ hours.

LinkedIn Basic + SourceLens vs LinkedIn Recruiter

SourceLens launch offer: EUR 149/month EUR 89/month (promo code: LINKEDIN, expires March 31). Early customers keep EUR 89 forever.

When should you still choose LinkedIn Recruiter?

• You do 10+ searches per week and hit the 100-result limit
• You need 50+ InMails per month for cold outreach
• You need advanced filters for filtering on years of experience

When is LinkedIn Basic + SourceLens better?

• You do 2-5 searches per week with max 100-200 profiles per search
• You mainly use connection requests or email outreach
• You mainly lack context about employers, not so much filters

14 days free trial (no credit card)

You can try SourceLens free for 14 days. No credit card required.

What you get in the trial:

• Free Chrome extension (works with LinkedIn Basic)
• Analyze 500 candidates
• Matching Criteria Wizard (hard filters, exclusions, weighted criteria)
• Career Intelligence per candidate
• AI-generated InMail templates

After 14 days: EUR 89/month (launch offer, expires March 31) or EUR 149/month (standard price).

Who this works for

Independent recruiters / freelancers. You pay for your own tools. LinkedIn Basic + SourceLens costs EUR 89/month (launch). You save EUR 60+ compared to LinkedIn Recruiter and get employer context that LinkedIn doesn’t have.

Corporate recruiters. You recruit for 15+ roles. A different market every week. SourceLens gives you that context automatically. From generalist to specialist per vacancy.

Agency recruiters. Juniors may know 30 employers in their sector. Seniors know 200+. SourceLens gives juniors the same context as seniors — without 5 years of experience.

Conclusion: You don’t need to spend EUR 150/month

LinkedIn Recruiter gives you advanced filters, InMails, unlimited results. But it doesn’t give you context about employers.

LinkedIn Basic is free and sufficient for most searches. Your bottleneck isn’t LinkedIn — it’s the time you spend googling.

SourceLens for EUR 89/month (launch) gives you employer context across 18 dimensions, matching criteria wizard, career intelligence, and from 800 profiles to 80 relevant ones in 45 minutes.

Try it free for 14 days — no credit card, works with your current LinkedIn account.

Related articles:

• For Independent Recruiters — How SourceLens works for freelancers
• How It Works — 4 steps from LinkedIn search to shortlist
• Pricing — Starter (EUR 89/month launch) vs Professional (EUR 249/month)