Two Sales Navigator filters that boost LinkedIn outreach

Your ICP filters, like industry and company size, find the right people. But correct doesn’t mean ready. A prospect can match every filter you’ve set and still have no reason to notice your message.

“Posted on LinkedIn (Last 30 Days)” and “Changed Jobs (Last 90 Days)” filters change that. Stack them on top of your usual filters, and your search stops returning a static list of matches. It starts surfacing people who are active on the platform today and open to new ideas because their role just changed.

The “Posted on LinkedIn” filter shows you who’s actually logged in. LinkedIn has over 1.3 billion profiles, and a huge share of them are dormant, set up years ago and rarely opened since. This filter looks past all of that and finds people who posted, commented, or engaged on LinkedIn in the last 30 days.

The filter doesn’t tell you what they engaged with or why. It only confirms they were active. So two people can show up in this filter for very different reasons – one because they’re building a personal brand and posting daily, another because they liked one post about a topic they care about. Both are logged in and paying attention.

The “Posted On LinkedIn” filter works best as a timing signal. Your ICP filters already tell you this person fits your buyer profile. This filter tells you they’re on the platform right now, seeing their notifications, and likely to see your message land in their inbox.

You’ll find this filter tucked under Spotlights. Here’s how to get to it:

• Open Sales Navigator and start a new Lead search.
• Set up your usual filters first: industry, company size, seniority, and whatever defines your ICP.
• Scroll down past the standard filter categories until you reach the section labeled Spotlights.
• Look for the option called “Posted On LinkedIn”.
• Select “Past 30 Days” from the dropdown.

Sales Navigator applies this filter in combination with everything else you’ve selected, not as a replacement. So if your ICP filters were too narrow to begin with, adding this filter on top can take your results from 200 leads down to 6, sometimes fewer.

If that happens, loosen one ICP filter first. Widen the title to include a couple of related roles, or drop the region filter and add it back later. Then apply the Spotlights filters again. That usually gets you a list small enough to work through and large enough to be worth the effort.

New hires evaluate their tools early. Most people settle into a role within 90 days and stop actively considering new vendors after that. The “Changed Jobs” filter, set to the last 90 days, catches people while that window is still open.

Timing is the advantage here. A sales director three weeks into a new role is still mapping out their tech stack. Reach them then, and you’re one of the options on the table.

There’s a second reason this works. People in new roles are actively building relationships with new teams and peers. A message with something genuinely useful, like an insight, a relevant example, or a quick resource, fits naturally into that mode.

This filter sits in the same Spotlights section as “Posted On LinkedIn”, just a different option within it. Here’s how to apply it:

• Open Sales Navigator and start a new Lead search.
• Set your ICP filters first: industry, company size, and seniority.
• Scroll to Spotlights, below the standard filter categories.
• Select “Changed Jobs”.
• Choose “Past 90 Days” from the dropdown.

This filter doesn’t only catch people who joined from another company. It also picks up internal promotions and role changes within the same company.

Both filters live in the same Spotlights section. Once you’ve applied your ICP filters and selected “Posted On LinkedIn (Last 30 Days)”, scroll to the same section and select “Changed Jobs (Last 90 Days)” right below it. Sales Navigator applies both at once.

Order matters here. Set your ICP filters first: industry, title, company size, and region. Add the Spotlights filters last. Each filter narrows your results further, and the Spotlights filters tend to cut the list down the most. Applying them last lets you see exactly how much your list shrinks and adjust before you commit to a search.

Once the count looks right, save it as a search or lead list. Sales Navigator will automatically add new leads to that list as people meet both conditions going forward. Getting the filters right is a big part of the broader LinkedIn strategy behind effective prospecting.

Engage with the prospect’s content before you send anything. Here’s the sequence that works:

• Find a recent post from the prospect, ideally something they wrote in the last few days.
• Leave a specific comment on it, something that shows you actually read it, not a generic “Great post!”
• Wait a day or two after commenting before you send a connection request or message.
• Reference that post, or their new role, directly in your opening line.

By the time your message arrives, your name has already shown up in their notifications once. A connection request from someone whose name they just saw under their last post gets a second look.

Skip the templated opener too. Your opening message should feel specific to the prospect. “Saw you just moved into the VP of Sales role at [company], congrats” takes five seconds to write and tells the prospect you’re not blasting the same message to five hundred people.

Stacking both filters changes three specific numbers your team already tracks:

• Acceptance rates go up: Prospects recognize your name from recent activity instead of seeing a stranger’s request.
• Reply rates go up: Your message lands when the offer is actually relevant, not months after that window closed.
• Pipeline moves faster: Deals skip the slow trust-building phase, since the prospect is already paying attention before you reach out.

This pattern holds across hundreds of teams we’ve trained inside our Sales Navigator Success program. The filters themselves take minutes to set up. What actually moves these numbers is what your team does with the list once it’s built.

That’s the part most teams underinvest in, and it’s exactly what our Sales Nav course walks through step by step.