Show HN: Jobs by Referral: Find jobs in your LinkedIn network
56 comments
·July 1, 2025gergely
But it is there: If you search for jobs and expose "All filters" there is a filter called "In your network" which filters down exactly to this.
giancarlostoro
Do you pay for LinkedIn Premium or something?
nicksergeant
Really?! I still cannot find this in the mobile app or desktop :lolsob:
98codes
It's there -- go to the jobs tab, answer the first time questions if they come up, and when you get the job list, click All Filters, and scroll the filter list down (admittedly, pretty far down); there's an "In your network" toggle.
nicksergeant
Ah, wild! Yes I see it now! That is really quite buried.
Edit: seems like this is only the "Classic Search", and presumably may disappear once "AI search" is no longer optional?
citizenpaul
I still can't find this. The job list is "infinite scroll" for me so there is no bottom. I don't see the word filter anywhere. Is there a URL?
b8
There's sites where you can pay for referrals or ask for them for free on Blind though. Most people accept randos on LinkedIn, so unsure how many refer you. The only people who've referred me on Linkedin are my previous co-workers.
AznHisoka
More people have done this over the years that some companies have started ignoring them. Because they’re just as much noise as regular applicants
hackernewds
Perfect feature that LinkedIn should've developed themselves. Thank you for this!
pmdr
LinkedIn doesn't want you working, 'cause working people don't really have time to waste on LinkedIn (unless that's their job). LinkedIn wants you on their app with a racing heartbeat every time you get a notification that you hope will lead to job.
1970-01-01
Caveat: I know people that don't use LinkedIn, but will "keep a profile" for reputational reasons.
Aurornis
Keeping a profile is how the majority of people use LinkedIn.
All of the timeline discussion stuff is a small minority of their users. You can completely ignore it, as most do.
radarsat1
You mean you know.. most people?
thih9
What happens with the personal data that gets uploaded? Is the payload stored or used for any other purposes? Is there a privacy policy?
nicksergeant
Hi! I answered this in a few comments but:
The app performs its functions entirely client-side except for the job search to JSearch, which only requires the company name.
> What you choose to upload to JobsByReferral.com is entirely up to you - you don't need to upload the entire ZIP. You can upload the Connections.csv-formatted file after you review it. You could also obfuscate person names if you'd like, before uploading.
> We also do nothing with your data. You can verify the app does not send your data to any backend endpoints _except_ for company name (so that we can find jobs at that company).
Edit: we've added some privacy details here: https://jobsbyreferral.com/privacy
Fuzzy1000
The next best thing would be to have an overlay that allows you to pinpoint where and how you made a connection
orliesaurus
Remember Blind? This is like Blind+++
dijit
I really want the inverse of this.
I even wrote a version of it, but like many side projects; I lost motivation after leaving the original company I was working at (where I was integrating with things).
I really want a way of recommending people you've worked with previously; should they happen to apply to your current workplace.
I've worked with some absolute stars and would gladly work with them again.
My original design (that I even got working) had two ways of "recommending" people, essentially you had either: select people from your linkedin network or add an email address/phone number and name you know them by.
Then after selecting a person you're asked how closely you worked with them; becuase sometimes it's a nice person but you can't speak to competence: sometimes, it's someone you were really in the trenches with and they had your back.
I also design the opposite of this, where you would "un"-recommend people, or essentially downflag their application.
The thing is, my system wasn't fully integrated in the the HR management system, so it would add a comment if someone applied with the correct details but recruiters didn't have access to the database of recommended people- it also had an issue where someone could impersonate someone else by pasting the same linkedin link - though then they might need to know who might be recommended.
Anyway, nothing foolproof, just making it easier for people with a good reputation to be integrated into the company easier.
willsmith72
i totally agree on the problem, ex-colleages can be one of the best datasources for predicting the quality of a hire
but how is your solution better/different to a referral, other than the un-recommendations? (which i like the idea of but am weary of ethically)
dijit
Mostly due to it's automated nature.
I wouldn't go out of my way to tell our internal recruiters about every person I might enjoy working with again; additionally I don't necessarily think they'd care to chase someone down - especially so if there's not a currently open position.
I'm also normally not directly plugged in to HR's candidate management system as an IC, unless someone is escalated; at which point then I might give a referral.
The value of such a solution is that people can just quietly plug away recommendations when they first join and forget about them until that person happens to apply later on, at which point their notice is not just noise.. it becomes a signal on an emerging opportunity. One that might not have otherwise been there.
Bonus; if recommendations are tagged with the user who made them, HR could reach out for additional context on the candidate.
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shados
It really shows how AI is going to change the entire industry.
Let's imagine tomorrow a Product Manager at LinkedIn wants to introduce this as an official functionality? They're going to have to run it by management or their pod (or find the PM in charge of that area if its not them), finish existing project, wait for resources to be ready, have legal/marketing/compliance involved, get it developed, go through all the other red tape, etc.
I don't know exactly how LinkedIn works internally, but I'm sure some of this is accurate.
So maybe, MAYBE they'll have it in a couple of months? But someone can build it in a few hours, even if they're not super good at this stuff.
It changes everything about how we think about products and SaaS software.
thih9
> But someone can build it in a few hours, even if they're not super good at this stuff.
Note that the end result is not the same as what LinkedIn would have built. Perhaps in some ways better and in some ways worse.
E.g. personally I am not comfortable bulk uploading personal data of myself and my network to a third party server.
shados
Yup. But my point is you can build this yourself, FOR yourself. So if you're not comfortable with using this one, you can build one on your own that you can trust (because you built it yourself).
Thats the whole point. In an AI world, you're no longer bound by the limits of what 3rd parties do or don't do, plus or minus some datasets (like in this case, the job postings).
nicksergeant
Yep! I agree to the principle - I also would not trust a random third-party app with my personal details. Though as noted in my other comment, this app is mostly client-side (including the CSV and ZIP extraction), except of course for the JSearch calls to find jobs by company name, and the CSV export if you choose to use that.
nicksergeant
This is exactly where I think we're heading as well. This project took about 2 hours.
98codes
Primarily because LinkedIn has to bother with complying with their privacy policies and other T&Cs, and your site has none of that.
Why should I take all of my data and give it to you, a rando on the internet? Is it being stored? Will it be shared? Sold? Maybe, as there's nothing that says you won't.
Looks neat, but strong pass because of the above.
shados
Correct. But you can build this thing on your own, for yourself. LinkedIn didn't, and you don't trust this third party. So if you had the problem its trying to solve, you could just spend the 2-3 hours and build it for yourself, even if you don't have all the necessary skills to do so.
That's the whole point.
nicksergeant
Those are totally fair points but what I agreed with here was that people will create _personal_ software to solve a particular itch for themselves, which is what I did here for my friends. I just decided to throw it on HN as I have some API credits remaining :)
alexp2021
Not sure it changes EVERYTHING as the issue of sales and marketing still favours LinkedIn. Sales/Marketing is very expensive and sometimes even difficult to predict. Building is not everything.
shados
Right, the point Im trying to make is that if someone has a requirement, they can build it on their own, for themselves, at much lower cost (because they don't need sales and marketing for themselves).
It was always possible (hire software devs to do it), but the bar and cost is much, MUCH lower.
alexp2021
Sure, no doubt about it.
deadbabe
It changes nothing, what you describe has always been the case even before AI. There are things people can build in a weekend that take weeks or even months at a larger company. Large companies have a way of slowing everything down, for reasons that have nothing to do with coding.
shados
Correct, but the amount of people who can do it has drastically increased, and the amount of time it takes for most people to build these things has drastically decreased.
deadbabe
It has not drastically increased. One could even argue it has decreased. Ultimately, the productivity gains will perish to bureaucracy.
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bsoles
I've read the instructions steps as:
1. Download your entire LinkedIn data.
2. Give us your entire LinkedIn data.
The "larger" data they are asking for includes "... connections, verifications, contacts, account history, and information we infer about you based on your profile and activity ..."
nicksergeant
We've added some privacy details here: https://jobsbyreferral.com/privacy.
You absolutely do not need to upload all of your data. Just a CSV in the format we need (which is now updated on the homepage as well).
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JoeDohn
[flagged]
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nicksergeant
Honest question: for what? The data you export from LinkedIn is yours. From their "Download my data" section:
> Download my data > Your LinkedIn data belongs to you, and you can download an archive any time or view the rich media you have uploaded.
What you choose to upload to JobsByReferral.com is entirely up to you - you don't need to upload the entire ZIP. You can upload the Connections.csv-formatted file after you review it. You could also obfuscate person names if you'd like, before uploading.
We also do nothing with your data. You can verify the app does not send your data to any backend endpoints _except_ for company name (so that we can find jobs at that company).
toyg
The feature is interesting and I'm sure you're in good faith, but you're effectively doing LinkedIn-scraping, just outsourced to your users. Why not use the official API?
(The GDPR implications of this service are also significant. Being in the US does not exempt you from observing that if any of your records are from European users.)
nicksergeant
LinkedIn's API is pretty locked down to partners, which you must apply for. There's also no documented API to retrieve connections.
The approach we've taken here is that you upload data that you're comfortable uploading. You don't have to upload your entire LinkedIn ZIP archive -- you can just upload the Connections.csv file (which you can review before you upload).
shados
Assuming they don't have an EU presence of some sort, EU law doesn't apply to them.
Now if they want to open up shop in the EU, or use a payment processor to charge money that has EU presence, things change.
toyg
> Assuming they don't have an EU presence of some sort, EU law doesn't apply to them.
That's not correct. If they handle EU people's data, they are responsible for it and can still be fined. Obviously this cannot be enforced if they never visit and have no assets in the EU.
shados
Its correct purely because of jurisdiction. EU laws don't apply for people with no presence in the EU, unless there was some kind of treaty where one country agrees to enforce another's.
That's just how laws, any law, works. The EU can "fine" all they want but it would be entirely symbolic.
That's like if US restaurants had to enforce EU food safety laws when on US soil because a EU citizen is eating there.
Fortunatelly, unlike US laws, GDPR, by virtue of being EU law, is actually readable by normal human beings, so its fairly straightforward:
https://gdpr.eu/article-3-requirements-of-handling-personal-...
nicksergeant
Answering your GDPR question: we use cookie-less analytics with https://usefathom.com/ and we do not pass user data to the backend endpoints, which you can verify by viewing the network calls. When you upload the ZIP or CSV the extraction/parsing happens entirely client-side, and then we use auto-generated IDs to map connection data from the JSearch API response to the client-side stored connection data.
toyg
That's good, you might want to write that somewhere - even just to assuage people's worries in general.
nicksergeant
Yep, done at https://jobsbyreferral.com/privacy.
I have some friends who were laid off and are on the job hunt. We were all quite surprised to learn that LinkedIn does not have a "view jobs only at companies where I have connections", so I built https://jobsbyreferral.com/
It's powered by https://rapidapi.com/letscrape-6bRBa3QguO5/api/jsearch, which is a little pricey, so I'm trying to decide whether to put more effort into the project (I'd have to charge _something_ to offset the costs).