People search

This page shows the shape query takes in each mode, the fields a people search can filter on with the operator each accepts and what a request looks like. People requests go to POST /search/people. For companies, see Company search.

Writing queries

The shape of query follows the search mode:

Ludicrous takes a JSON object of conditions on the searchable fields, combined with and, or and not. Operators and value shapes are in Business Search query syntax.
Instant and Smart take a plain-language sentence of up to 200 characters. Business Search turns the sentence into one structured query on the same fields. A sentence that asks for a job title is ranked on the title, role and about text together. A sentence that reads like a recruiting brief, with a role, an industry and a skill, is scored on the role, company and skill field groups independently.

Searchable fields

The operator a field accepts depends on the field’s type. Text fields accept only the text operator. Typed fields, such as strings and integers, accept equals, in and range. Sending equals to a text field returns HTTP 400.

Field	Type	Operators	Notes
`current_title`	text	`text`	Use `mode: "all"` to require every word
`all_text`	text	`text`	Title, role and about together
`name`	text	`text`
`about`	text	`text`
`location`	text	`text`	Descriptive location string
`current_company_name`	text	`text`
`current_company_industry`	text	`text`
`past_job_titles`	text	`text`
`past_company_names`	text	`text`	Employer names from past positions on the profile. See example
`certification_names`	text	`text`	Certifications listed on the profile, for example `AWS`
`role`, `company`, `skill`	text	`text`	Each searches a group of fields: `role` covers `current_title`, `past_job_titles` and `about`; `company` covers `current_company_industry`, `specialties`, `description`, `slogan` and `name`; `skill` covers `about` and `certification_names`
`city`	string	`equals`, `in`	Exact city name
`country_code`	string	`equals`, `in`	ISO 3166 alpha-2 code such as `US` or `GB`
`followers`	integer	`range`

Location and employer fields can be missing from individual profiles, and a missing value is not evidence that the fact is false: a profile with no current_company_name publishes no employer. Handle absent or null values without failing the whole record, and avoid filters that silently drop every profile where an optional field is blank.

A people search filters only on the fields in this table. Company attributes such as funding and headquarters are filters of company search, so one request cannot find people by them. To find people at companies that match company filters, run a company search first, then a people search. See How to run a multi-step search.

Example request

Ludicrous
Instant
Smart

A Ludicrous request finds US profiles whose current title includes both cloud and engineer and whose certifications mention AWS, and names five output fields:Sample request

curl --request POST "https://api.brightdata.com/search/people" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $BRIGHTDATA_API_KEY" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{
    "mode": "ludicrous",
    "query": {
      "and": [
        { "text": { "current_title": { "value": "cloud engineer", "mode": "all" } } },
        { "equals": { "country_code": "US" } },
        { "text": { "certification_names": "AWS" } }
      ]
    },
    "offset": 0,
    "limit": 3,
    "view": { "fields": ["current_title", "country_code", "experience_years", "certification_names", "current_company_industry"] }
  }'

import os
import requests

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.brightdata.com/search/people",
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['BRIGHTDATA_API_KEY']}",
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    json={
      "mode": "ludicrous",
      "query": {
        "and": [
          { "text": { "current_title": { "value": "cloud engineer", "mode": "all" } } },
          { "equals": { "country_code": "US" } },
          { "text": { "certification_names": "AWS" } }
        ]
      },
      "offset": 0,
      "limit": 3,
      "view": { "fields": ["current_title", "country_code", "experience_years", "certification_names", "current_company_industry"] }
    },
)
print(response.text)

const response = await fetch("https://api.brightdata.com/search/people", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.BRIGHTDATA_API_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    "mode": "ludicrous",
    "query": {
      "and": [
        { "text": { "current_title": { "value": "cloud engineer", "mode": "all" } } },
        { "equals": { "country_code": "US" } },
        { "text": { "certification_names": "AWS" } }
      ]
    },
    "offset": 0,
    "limit": 3,
    "view": { "fields": ["current_title", "country_code", "experience_years", "certification_names", "current_company_industry"] }
  }),
});
console.log(await response.text());

Sample responseThe first of the three returned records:

{
  "req_id": "r018d477cc83c4b159a0e025356c643c1",
  "source": "linkedin_people",
  "meta": {
    "coverage_percent": 100,
    "matched": 21,
    "offset": 0,
    "limit": 3
  },
  "documents": [
    {
      "bright_id": "ab4836dd873d818b83aaf202941b81facbb622fa1525f7dc975c13fad913a0b7",
      "data": {
        "current_title": "Cloud Engineer",
        "country_code": "US",
        "experience_years": 3,
        "certification_names": "AWS Academy Graduate - AWS Academy Cloud Developing; AWS Academy Graduate - AWS Academy Data Analytics; AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner; AWS Certified Security – Specialty; AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate; AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional",
        "current_company_industry": "IT Services and IT Consulting"
      }
    }
  ]
}

mode: "all" inside the text condition requires every search word to match. The words do not need to form an exact phrase, so a title of “Cloud DevOps Engineer” still matches. Punctuation between the words does not prevent a match, word order does not matter and extra words in the title are allowed.

An Instant request asks for the same profiles in one sentence:Sample request

curl --request POST "https://api.brightdata.com/search/people" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $BRIGHTDATA_API_KEY" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{
    "mode": "instant",
    "query": "Cloud engineers in the United States with an AWS certification",
    "limit": 3,
    "view": { "fields": ["current_title", "country_code", "experience_years", "certification_names", "current_company_industry"] }
  }'

import os
import requests

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.brightdata.com/search/people",
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['BRIGHTDATA_API_KEY']}",
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    json={
      "mode": "instant",
      "query": "Cloud engineers in the United States with an AWS certification",
      "limit": 3,
      "view": { "fields": ["current_title", "country_code", "experience_years", "certification_names", "current_company_industry"] }
    },
)
print(response.text)

const response = await fetch("https://api.brightdata.com/search/people", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.BRIGHTDATA_API_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    "mode": "instant",
    "query": "Cloud engineers in the United States with an AWS certification",
    "limit": 3,
    "view": { "fields": ["current_title", "country_code", "experience_years", "certification_names", "current_company_industry"] }
  }),
});
console.log(await response.text());

Sample responseThe first of the three returned records:

{
  "req_id": "r2290386e6db84503af080ba7c70b4cd7",
  "source": "linkedin_people",
  "meta": {
    "coverage_percent": 100,
    "matched": 24300,
    "offset": 0,
    "limit": 3
  },
  "documents": [
    {
      "bright_id": "ab4836dd873d818b83aaf202941b81facbb622fa1525f7dc975c13fad913a0b7",
      "data": {
        "current_title": "Cloud Engineer",
        "country_code": "US",
        "experience_years": 3,
        "certification_names": "AWS Academy Graduate - AWS Academy Cloud Developing; AWS Academy Graduate - AWS Academy Data Analytics; AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner; AWS Certified Security – Specialty; AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate; AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional",
        "current_company_industry": "IT Services and IT Consulting"
      }
    }
  ]
}

A Smart request sends the same sentence and ranks the candidates by how well each record answers it:Sample request

curl --request POST "https://api.brightdata.com/search/people" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $BRIGHTDATA_API_KEY" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{
    "mode": "smart",
    "query": "Cloud engineers in the United States with an AWS certification",
    "limit": 3,
    "view": { "fields": ["current_title", "country_code", "experience_years", "certification_names", "current_company_industry"] }
  }'

import os
import requests

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.brightdata.com/search/people",
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['BRIGHTDATA_API_KEY']}",
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    json={
      "mode": "smart",
      "query": "Cloud engineers in the United States with an AWS certification",
      "limit": 3,
      "view": { "fields": ["current_title", "country_code", "experience_years", "certification_names", "current_company_industry"] }
    },
)
print(response.text)

const response = await fetch("https://api.brightdata.com/search/people", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.BRIGHTDATA_API_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    "mode": "smart",
    "query": "Cloud engineers in the United States with an AWS certification",
    "limit": 3,
    "view": { "fields": ["current_title", "country_code", "experience_years", "certification_names", "current_company_industry"] }
  }),
});
console.log(await response.text());

Sample responseThe first of the three returned records:

{
  "req_id": "r98d1b462a2dd474e983cfd86fffbde99",
  "source": "linkedin_people",
  "meta": {
    "coverage_percent": 100,
    "matched": 24300,
    "offset": 0,
    "limit": 3
  },
  "documents": [
    {
      "bright_id": "4a2bd7ef9d05b88d53fb611c363808e740501a76ae8a654b5c3519791ff9ad0d",
      "data": {
        "current_title": "Senior Cloud Engineer",
        "country_code": "US",
        "experience_years": 5,
        "certification_names": "AWS Certified Data Analytics – Specialty; AWS Certified Database – Specialty; AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional; AWS Certified Developer – Associate; AWS Certified Machine Learning - Specialty; AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate; AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional; Amazon Web Services Cloud Practitioner"
      }
    }
  ]
}

For the fields each view returns and how view relates to query, see Business Search field views. For more tested requests, see Business Search query examples.

Get started

Data extraction

Web search

AI training data

Proxy networks

Writing queries

Searchable fields

Example request

​Writing queries

​Searchable fields

​Example request

Writing queries

Searchable fields

Example request