A few weeks ago, an HR manager from a growing tech company reached out to me with a simple request:
“Can you build me a small app that gathers public LinkedIn profiles based on certain keywords and puts them into a Google Sheet? I just want to type in what I’m looking for - like ‘Python developer, Warsaw’ - and get a neat list of people.”
Challenge accepted!
The Problem
Recruiters and talent sourcers often spend hours manually searching Google for LinkedIn profiles, copying links, and saving them in spreadsheets.
It’s repetitive, time-consuming, and easy to make mistakes - especially when searching across multiple pages of Google results.
The HR manager wanted something lightweight:
- No need for an external recruiting platform.
- Just a simple way to automate LinkedIn profile collection.
- And it should work without violating LinkedIn’s terms - meaning only publicly available profiles from Google Search.
That’s how the [LI] – Search Profiles workflow was born.
The Solution: n8n + SerpAPI + Google Sheets
This n8n workflow automatically searches for LinkedIn profiles on Google using the SerpAPI community node, scrapes multiple pages of results, and logs them neatly into a Google Sheet.
Self-hosted disclaimer
The workflow uses the SerpAPI community node, which is available only on self-hosted n8n instances.
For n8n Cloud, replace it with an HTTP Request node and call the SerpAPI REST API directly.
Here’s what it looks like in action:
Who It’s For
- Recruiters and HR professionals
- Talent sourcers and SDRs
- Anyone who wants to automatically gather public LinkedIn profiles from Google based on custom keywords - across multiple pages - and store them for further analysis.
Where could you find the workflow
You can find this workflow in the official n8n creators platform
https://n8n.io/workflows/9153-collect-linkedin-profiles-with-serpapi-google-search-and-sheets/
Explore more of my workflows on my official Piotr Sikora n8n Creators profile!
If you’re using a self-hosted n8n instance, you can also import the .json workflow file directly from the shared repository or from my public GitHub page (link coming soon).
Once imported, connect your SerpAPI and Google Sheets credentials, and you’ll be ready to start automating your LinkedIn profile searches.
Do you need customization or other workflow?
If you’d like to:
- Adapt this workflow to your own industry
- Integrate it with Slack, Notion, Airtable, or your ATS
- Add automatic deduplication, enrichment, or notifications
- Or build a completely different automation (e.g., lead generation, HR analytics, or CRM syncing)
I can help you customize or design a new workflow tailored to your needs.
Feel free to reach out to discuss your automation ideas — whether it’s improving this workflow or creating a new one from scratch.
