The Truth About LinkedIn Scraping: Can AI Really Access Every Profile?

In today’s digital recruitment landscape, AI-powered sourcing tools claim to revolutionize talent search by offering unlimited access to LinkedIn profiles. Platforms like HeroHunt.ai, SeekOut, AmazingHiring, and others boldly advertise their ability to find all LinkedIn profiles, often presenting themselves as alternatives to LinkedIn Recruiter. But how true are these claims? Can any external tool really access 100% of LinkedIn profiles? Let’s take a deep dive into the reality behind these AI-powered recruitment platforms and the limitations they don’t always disclose.

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How Do AI Sourcing Tools Collect LinkedIn Data?

Most AI sourcing platforms operate using two main approaches:

Public Web Scraping – These tools scrape publicly available LinkedIn profiles, often using Google search techniques (X-ray searching) or automated bots that scan LinkedIn pages for profile data.
Data Aggregation – Many platforms enrich LinkedIn profile data by cross-referencing information from GitHub, Stack Overflow, personal websites, and other online sources to build a more comprehensive candidate profile.

Most of these services claim they can find every LinkedIn profile, but what they really mean is they can only find publicly visible profiles—a key distinction often buried in fine print.

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Can AI Recruitment Tools Really Access 100% of LinkedIn Profiles?

The short answer is no. While platforms like HeroHunt.ai, SeekOut, and AmazingHiring offer wide-ranging talent search capabilities, they are fundamentally limited to public LinkedIn data. If a profile is private, restricted to certain viewers, or hidden from search engines, AI sourcing tools cannot access it.

Here’s why:

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1. LinkedIn’s Privacy Controls

LinkedIn users can control their profile visibility, adjusting settings to limit what’s shown to the public. Many professionals—especially executives, engineers, and high-demand candidates—opt to restrict their profiles. If a user sets their profile to private or limits what non-connections can see, AI sourcing tools won’t be able to access that data.

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2. LinkedIn’s Anti-Scraping Measures

LinkedIn actively fights against automated scraping and third-party data extraction. The platform implements:

Rate Limits & CAPTCHAs – Automated tools attempting to extract large volumes of data are often blocked or flagged.
Login Walls – Many LinkedIn profiles are now hidden behind a “Login to see more” screen, making scraping nearly impossible.
Legal Actions – LinkedIn has aggressively pursued legal cases against data scrapers. The most famous case, hiQ Labs vs. LinkedIn, ended with LinkedIn securing a permanent injunction against hiQ, reinforcing LinkedIn’s right to block scraping.

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3. Search Engine Restrictions

Up until recently, many AI recruitment tools relied on Google’s indexing of LinkedIn profiles. However, LinkedIn has significantly reduced the amount of information available in public search results. Previously, X-ray searches allowed recruiters to find full LinkedIn profiles via Google, but now, key sections like the “About” summary, experience, and job history are often hidden.

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What Percentage of LinkedIn Profiles Are Actually Accessible?

Industry estimates suggest that AI sourcing tools can only access 60–80% of LinkedIn profiles at most. This means:

20–40% of LinkedIn users have profiles that AI recruitment tools cannot see.
AI sourcing tools might find a profile’s name and headline but not full work history or contact details unless those details are public.
Recent LinkedIn updates are shrinking this percentage even further by requiring users to log in to view profiles.

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What About SeekOut, AmazingHiring, and Other Competitors?

While HeroHunt.ai is one of the most vocal platforms claiming total access to LinkedIn profiles, other platforms like SeekOut, AmazingHiring, and HireEZ operate under similar limitations:

SeekOut – Uses AI and data aggregation to provide deep search capabilities, but it can only access publicly available LinkedIn profiles. SeekOut enriches its data with GitHub and patent databases to provide additional insights.
AmazingHiring – A sourcing tool specializing in tech talent, it scrapes data from LinkedIn, GitHub, Stack Overflow, and Kaggle but is still subject to LinkedIn’s privacy and scraping restrictions.
HireEZ (formerly Hiretual) – Uses AI to aggregate data from multiple sources, including LinkedIn, but again, only from what is publicly available.

These platforms often supplement LinkedIn data with other sources, but none can bypass LinkedIn’s privacy controls or retrieve private profiles.

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The Legal and Ethical Implications of AI-Powered Scraping

While scraping public LinkedIn data is not illegal, it is against LinkedIn’s terms of service. This means:

LinkedIn can and does ban accounts or block IP addresses of companies engaged in excessive scraping.
AI sourcing tools that rely on scraping are constantly at risk of being shut down or facing legal challenges.
Using these tools does not give recruiters a free pass—if LinkedIn detects unauthorized data extraction, recruiters themselves could face penalties, including account suspension.

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What’s the Best Way to Access LinkedIn Profiles?

For recruiters, the most reliable way to access LinkedIn profiles remains LinkedIn’s own premium products.

While these products come with a high price tag, they offer official access to LinkedIn’s entire database.

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Conclusion: The Reality Behind Bold Claims

While AI-powered sourcing tools like HeroHunt, SeekOut, and AmazingHiring offer powerful search capabilities, they do not have unlimited access to LinkedIn profiles. Their reach is limited to publicly available profiles, and as LinkedIn continues to tighten restrictions, the effectiveness of these tools may decline.

For recruiters and hiring managers, the best approach is to use a combination of tools—including LinkedIn Recruiter, AI sourcing platforms, and manual networking—to ensure the widest possible reach while staying compliant with LinkedIn’s policies.

If you’re using an AI recruitment tool, be aware of what it can and cannot do. The claim of “unlimited access to LinkedIn” may sound enticing, but the reality is far more restricted.

Stay informed. Stay compliant. And recruit smarter.

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Don't let sourcing be a game of luck, it is time for! Contact us today and let's evaluate your businesses search strategy and identify opportunities to enhance your sourcing efficiency.

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Remember, tomorrow say's the same-until you choose to change it.

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Gabi Preston-Phypers

Did You See That?

Welcome to the official page of Gabi, the Recruitment Revolutionist, Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Tooled Up Raccoons, The Recruitment Transformation Firm. Want your recruiters working a peak efficiency? Then you need a Raccoon! Starting her career at JPMorgan, specialising in Operations, Gabi quickly discovered the impact that inefficient had on a company. It wasted time, money and damaged morale. As her career transitioned into the recruitment industry, she started to build out her knowledge around the operational processes that hindered companies being able to find, engage and win top talent, and since has launched her own Management Consulting Company, Tooled Up Raccoons, and works with teams from the likes of Financial Times, Workday, Framestore through to recruitment agencies from start-up to enterprise. PS this woman is a mum to 2 girls (Phoebe & Maria), Wife to Mitch and is to proud to tell the world she has Dyslexia and ADHD.