How to find alumni on LinkedIn now that the year filter is gone: the Alumni tab, People search, and a note worth accepting.

How to find alumni on LinkedIn: the short answer

How to find alumni on LinkedIn comes down to two routes. The first is the Alumni tab on the school's LinkedIn Page, which gives high-level insights about its alumni and access to the profiles they have shared. The second is People search with the School filter, which you can combine with company, industry and location.

One thing has changed that most guides still describe the old way: LinkedIn Help says the option to search and filter alumni by year is no longer available on the Alumni tab. This guide covers both routes as LinkedIn documents them now, and how to turn a shared school into a warm first message.

The routes to LinkedIn alumni, compared

Each route answers a different question. The Alumni tab tells you what a school's graduates do. People search tells you which specific alumni fit a list you are building. Sales Navigator adds a school filter inside a sales workspace, for teams that already pay for it.

The LinkedIn Alumni tool: what the Alumni tab shows

Most guides, and most career offices, call it the LinkedIn Alumni tool. LinkedIn Help calls it the Alumni tab, and that is the name to look for on the page.

LinkedIn Help describes the Alumni tab as a part of a school's LinkedIn Page, located in the left-side navigation. It provides high-level insights about the alumni of the school, and access to the more detailed professional profiles those alumni have shared.

• What alumni have done. LinkedIn Help says you can see what alumni in your field have accomplished since graduation.
• Who to contact. You can identify alumni in your field and reach out for their industry expertise and career opportunities.
• Opportunities. The tab is also a way to learn about job opportunities and mentoring partnerships.

The tab works from what members have put on their own profiles. An alumnus who never added the school under Education, or who keeps the profile sparse, will not show up the way you expect.

How to find alumni on LinkedIn, step by step

The steps below use the Alumni tab first and People search second, because the first shows you the shape of the network and the second turns it into names. Both work from a regular free account.

1. Search for the school

   Type the school's name into the search bar at the top of LinkedIn and open its official LinkedIn Page.

2. Open the Alumni tab

   Click Alumni in the left-side navigation of the school Page to see the high-level alumni insights.

3. Note the companies and fields that matter

   Write down the employers and functions that match your goal, whether that is a job, a mentor or a sales account.

4. Switch to People search

   Search again, choose the People filter, and open All filters.

5. Add School, then narrow

   Select the school under School, then add Current company, Industry or Locations until the list is short enough to read.

6. Read before you connect

   Open each profile, check the education entry and the current role, and only then write a note.

The graduation year filter is gone

Many guides, including several that still rank, tell you to slide a start and end year to find people from your class. LinkedIn Help now says the option to search and filter alumni information by year is no longer available on the Alumni tab.

LinkedIn Help does not document a replacement. In practice, the closest you can get is reading the education dates on each profile in your People search results. That is slower, but it is also where the useful detail lives: the program, the dates and what the person did next.

Finding alumni with People search and the School filter

People search is where alumni become a list. LinkedIn Help says All filters lets you refine a people search by degree of connection, locations, current company, connections of, followers of, past company, school, industry, profile language and more.

LinkedIn Help adds that search results are always approximate, and the actual results may differ from the counter at the top of the page. Treat the number as a rough size, not a count.

Searching for alumni in plain language

LinkedIn's updated people search understands the meaning behind a query, not only exact keywords. LinkedIn Help's own examples include "People I know who went to the University of Alabama" and "Finance leaders at nonprofits in Boston", which shows how a school and a role can go into one sentence.

Two rules come with it. Do not use quotes in a natural language query, because LinkedIn Help says that mode does not support them. And if you need exact keyword matching, switch to Boolean search instead. The example queries below were written for this page:

• Warm path. People I know who went to [school] and work at [company]
• Market. [School] alumni who lead sales teams in [city]
• Mentor. [School] graduates who work in [function] at software companies

Boolean search for exact school names

Schools often share words, and a loose search mixes them up. LinkedIn Help says you can type a Boolean string straight into the main search bar: quotation marks for an exact phrase, and AND, OR and NOT in uppercase letters, with parentheses for grouping.

LinkedIn does not support wildcards, brackets or braces, and says the plus and minus signs are not officially supported. Our Boolean search on LinkedIn guide covers the order of precedence.

Building an alumni prospect list for B2B sales

For a seller, a shared school is one of the few honest reasons to write to a stranger. Combine the School filter with Current company to find alumni inside the accounts you already target, and the list turns from general networking into a warm path into specific companies.

Our LinkedIn prospecting guide covers the rest of list building, and Sales Navigator search filters covers the same approach inside Sales Navigator.

Alumni of schools you did not attend

LinkedIn Help describes the Alumni tab as part of a school's Page and does not limit it to your own school. For research, that makes it a way to see where a school's graduates tend to work, which helps when you sell into companies that hire heavily from one program.

The shared school only works as a reason to write when you actually share it. Writing to a stranger about their university when you did not attend it reads as research, not as a connection, and gives them no reason to reply.

The connection note to an alumnus, and its limits

A note is what turns a shared school into a reason to accept. LinkedIn Help says you can add a personalized message to up to three connection requests per month in one article and five in another, each up to 200 characters.

LinkedIn Help adds that Premium members can personalize all their invitations, although connection request limits may still apply.

• Primary email required. LinkedIn Help says a primary email address is mandatory to send invitations.
• People You May Know. Invitations sent from it in the mobile app cannot be personalized.
• Replies without accepting. The recipient can reply to your note without accepting the invitation.

With three or five notes a month on a free account, depending on the Help article, spend them on the alumni who matter most. Our LinkedIn connection limit guide covers the wider limits on invitations.

What to say to alumni on LinkedIn

LinkedIn Help's own advice for a note is to say how you found the person or what you have in common, why you want to connect now, and to keep the tone clear and polite. With alumni, the school covers the first part, so the note can be short.

The openings below were written for this page.

Keep the pitch out of the note. The school earns you an accepted invitation, not a meeting, and our LinkedIn follow-up message guide covers what comes after.

Alumni for college students, job seekers and career changers

LinkedIn Help frames the Alumni tab for careers first: see what alumni in your field have accomplished since graduation, identify alumni to contact for expertise and opportunities, and learn about jobs and mentoring partnerships. For someone changing fields, alumni who made the same move are the most useful people to ask.

The same rules apply as in sales. Ask a small, specific question, not for a job. An alumnus who answers two questions often volunteers the next step on their own.

For college students and recent graduates, the alumni tool is the easiest way into a network that does not exist yet. Start with alumni a few years ahead of you in the field you want, because their career path is still close to yours and they remember the first job search.

Your school's career office usually knows the alumni who like to help. Ask there before you start writing to strangers, and use the tool to prepare, so your first message already shows you looked.

Make sure other alumni can find you

Alumni search runs on profiles, including yours. If your education entry is missing or incomplete, you will not appear when other alumni search for your school, and your own note will lack the context that makes it credible when they check your profile.

Add the school, the program and the dates, written the way the school names itself. Our guide on how to create a LinkedIn profile covers the rest of the profile a returning alumnus will read.

For school Page admins: enabling the Alumni tab

The Alumni tab belongs to school Pages. LinkedIn Help's tip for admins is that you can contact LinkedIn to request converting a company Page into a school Page, which enables the Alumni tab. For universities and training providers set up as companies, that is the first thing to check.

What LinkedIn alumni search will not do

Checklist before you contact alumni

• Right school Page. The official Page, not a similarly named group.
• Short list. School plus company or industry, read profile by profile.
• Real overlap. You attended the school you mention.
• Note ready. Under 200 characters, with no pitch.
• Your profile ready. Education entry complete and linked to the school.

Common mistakes when finding alumni on LinkedIn

• Looking for the graduation year slider that LinkedIn has removed from the Alumni tab.
• Using the Alumni tab for list building instead of People search with filters.
• Spending your few free personalized notes on alumni who are not a priority.
• Mentioning a school you did not attend as common ground.
• Pitching in the connection note, which wastes the shared school.
• Leaving your own education entry blank, so alumni cannot place you.

A connection note to an alumnus you can adapt

The note below was written for this page and stays under LinkedIn's 200 character limit once the placeholders are filled with short words. It names the school, gives one reason to connect now, and asks nothing yet.

Hi {{firstName}}, fellow {{school}} {{programOrYear}} here. I saw you are now at {{company}} working on {{area}}, which is close to my work. Would be glad to connect.

Frequently asked questions