How to Get LinkedIn Profile Data Using API (No OAuth Required)

In this comprehensive guide, you'll discover:

Why accessing LinkedIn data is valuable for businesses and developers
Methods to obtain LinkedIn profile data without OAuth authentication
Step-by-step implementation with code examples
Best practices and ethical considerations

Why Access to LinkedIn API?

LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network with over 900 million members across 200 countries. This massive pool of professional data is incredibly valuable for:

Recruiters and HR professionals: Finding qualified candidates and verifying employment history
Sales teams: Identifying prospects and understanding their professional background
Marketers: Building targeted campaigns based on job titles, industries, and company sizes
Researchers: Analyzing professional networks and career trajectories

While LinkedIn offers an official API, it's restricted in scope and requires OAuth authentication, which can be complex to implement and requires approval through LinkedIn's developer program. Fortunately, there are alternative approaches for accessing LinkedIn profile data without OAuth.

How to Access LinkedIn API?

Before diving into non-OAuth methods, it's important to understand your options:

1. Official LinkedIn API (with OAuth)

LinkedIn's official Developer Platform offers APIs for:

Sign In with LinkedIn
Share on LinkedIn
Marketing Developer Platform
Compliance APIs

These require OAuth 2.0 authentication and application approval, with strict usage policies.

2. Third-Party LinkedIn Data Providers

Several services specialize in providing LinkedIn data through simplified APIs:

People Data Labs: Offers enrichment APIs with LinkedIn profile information
Proxycurl: Provides LinkedIn-specific APIs without OAuth
Lusha: Focuses on contact information from LinkedIn profiles
Apollo.io: Combines LinkedIn and other business data sources
RapidAPI: Marketplace hosting multiple LinkedIn data APIs including Fresh LinkedIn Scraper API

Many of these services offer free tiers or trial credits, making them accessible for testing before committing to a paid plan.

3. Web Scraping Approaches

While technically possible, direct scraping of LinkedIn:

Violates LinkedIn's Terms of Service
Faces sophisticated anti-scraping measures
Risks account blocking and potential legal issues

We'll focus on the second option—using third-party APIs that handle the complexities for you.

Step by Step Guide

Let's implement solutions using third-party API services that don't require OAuth authentication.

Using the Fresh LinkedIn Scraper API on RapidAPI

RapidAPI hosts numerous LinkedIn data services, including the Fresh LinkedIn Scraper API, which offers simple endpoints for accessing LinkedIn profile and company data. Let's see how to use it:

Step 1: Set Up Your RapidAPI Account

Visit RapidAPI and create an account
Subscribe to the Fresh LinkedIn Scraper API
Obtain your API key from the RapidAPI dashboard

Step 2: Using the API with Python

Here's how to fetch LinkedIn profile data using Python:

import requests

url = "https://fresh-linkedin-scraper-api.p.rapidapi.com/api/v1/user/profile"

querystring = {"username":"williamhgates"}

headers = {
	"x-rapidapi-key": "<Your api key>",
	"x-rapidapi-host": "fresh-linkedin-scraper-api.p.rapidapi.com"
}

response = requests.get(url, headers=headers, params=querystring)

print(response.json())

This will return detailed profile information in JSON format. Here's an example response:

{
  "success": true,
  "message": "success",
  "process_time": 468,
  "cost": 1,
  "data": {
    "id": "251749025",
    "urn": "ACoAAA8BYqEBCGLg_vT_ca6mMEqkpp9nVffJ3hc",
    "public_identifier": "williamhgates",
    "first_name": "Bill",
    "last_name": "Gates",
    "full_name": "Bill Gates",
    "headline": "Chair, Gates Foundation and Founder, Breakthrough Energy",
    "is_premium": true,
    "is_open_to_work": false,
    "is_hiring": false,
    "is_memorialized": false,
    "is_influencer": true,
    "is_top_voice": true,
    "is_creator": true,
    "birth": {
      "day": null,
      "month": null,
      "year": null
    },
    "pronoun": null,
    "created": 1367521780840,
    "created_date": "2013-05-02T19:09:40.840Z",
    "location": {
      "country": "United States",
      "country_code": "US",
      "city": "Seattle, Washington, United States",
      "postal_code": null
    },
    "avatar": [
      {
        "width": 200,
        "height": 200,
        "url": "https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D5603AQF-RYZP55jmXA/profile-displayphoto-shrink_200_200/B56ZRi8g.aGsAY-/0/1736826818802?e=1749081600&v=beta&t=8hZGHekNOCdOgVucnR22cbwafY_kXLCmIDVl3DGkfSc",
        "expires_at": 1749081600000
      },
      {
        "width": 400,
        "height": 400,
        "url": "https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D5603AQF-RYZP55jmXA/profile-displayphoto-shrink_400_400/B56ZRi8g.aGsAg-/0/1736826818802?e=1749081600&v=beta&t=COIAnqFqPM_6v8kTUnIdUV0ymqE-iv8ehHl_Kr0h5SQ",
        "expires_at": 1749081600000
      },
      {
        "width": 100,
        "height": 100,
        "url": "https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D5603AQF-RYZP55jmXA/profile-displayphoto-shrink_100_100/B56ZRi8g.aGsAU-/0/1736826818802?e=1749081600&v=beta&t=hd4wzNKgmLsnVnM3UrvKucxHcLYV2m7Az4aB-AFHrq8",
        "expires_at": 1749081600000
      },
      {
        "width": 800,
        "height": 800,
        "url": "https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D5603AQF-RYZP55jmXA/profile-displayphoto-shrink_800_800/B56ZRi8g.aGsAc-/0/1736826818808?e=1749081600&v=beta&t=NbWZseAYCZLDFblO75TLDt0LEGF5kjLB3mOkve_XNrg",
        "expires_at": 1749081600000
      }
    ],
    "cover": [
      {
        "width": 800,
        "height": 200,
        "url": "https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D5616AQEyKmz7jPZung/profile-displaybackgroundimage-shrink_200_800/profile-displaybackgroundimage-shrink_200_800/0/1737141827999?e=1749081600&v=beta&t=6vV54NhapnL2PqnzQH6mgBJzcQmzwY-ekqwcu1zkORQ",
        "expires_at": 1749081600000
      },
      {
        "width": 1400,
        "height": 350,
        "url": "https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D5616AQEyKmz7jPZung/profile-displaybackgroundimage-shrink_350_1400/profile-displaybackgroundimage-shrink_350_1400/0/1737141827999?e=1749081600&v=beta&t=OkbwMcdTgO3hoCPxhkp2cA18p6jo7y8r5EcvyAlIZLQ",
        "expires_at": 1749081600000
      }
    ],
    "associated_hashtag": [
      "#books",
      "#healthcare",
      "#innovation",
      "#climatechange",
      "#sustainability"
    ],
    "website": {},
    "supported_locales": [
      {
        "country": "US",
        "language": "en"
      }
    ],
    "primary_locale": {
      "country": "US",
      "language": "en"
    }
  }
}

For company data, you can use the company endpoint:

import requests

url = "https://fresh-linkedin-scraper-api.p.rapidapi.com/api/v1/company/profile"

querystring = {"company":"rapidapi"}

headers = {
	"x-rapidapi-key": "<Your api key>",
	"x-rapidapi-host": "fresh-linkedin-scraper-api.p.rapidapi.com"
}

response = requests.get(url, headers=headers, params=querystring)

print(response.json())

Example company data response:

{
  "success": true,
  "message": "success",
  "process_time": 888,
  "cost": 1,
  "data": {
    "id": "10649600",
    "name": "Rapid",
    "universal_name": "rapidapi",
    "description": "RapidAPI is the world's largest API Hub where millions of developers find and connect to tens of thousands of public APIs. \n\nWe're a team of developers, building for developers, based in San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Tallinn, Berlin, and remote locations around the world.",
    "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/rapidapi/",
    "website_url": "https://RapidAPI.com/",
    "phone": null,
    "active": true,
    "archived": false,
    "follower_count": 24383,
    "employee_count": 351,
    "employee_count_range": {
      "start": 51,
      "end": 200
    },
    "verification": {
      "verified": true,
      "last_modified_at": "2023-09-12T18:18:31.454Z"
    },
    "founded_on": {
      "day": null,
      "month": null,
      "year": 2015
    },
    "headquarter": {
      "country": "US",
      "city": "San Francisco",
      "geographic_area": "California",
      "line1": "2 Shaw Alley",
      "line2": "Floor #4",
      "postal_code": "94105"
    },
    "locations": [
      {
        "name": "Berlin",
        "address": {
          "country": "DE",
          "city": "Berlin",
          "geographic_area": null
        },
        "lat_long": {
          "latitude": 52.560253,
          "longitude": 13.296672
        }
      },
      {
        "name": "San Francisco",
        "address": {
          "country": "US",
          "city": "San Francisco",
          "geographic_area": "California",
          "line1": "2 Shaw Alley",
          "line2": "Floor #4",
          "postal_code": "94105"
        },
        "lat_long": {
          "latitude": 37.39271,
          "longitude": -122.042
        }
      },
      {
        "name": "Tallinn",
        "address": {
          "country": "EE",
          "city": "Tallinn",
          "geographic_area": null
        },
        "lat_long": {
          "latitude": 59.437214,
          "longitude": 24.745369
        }
      },
      {
        "name": "Tel Aviv",
        "address": {
          "country": "IL",
          "city": "Tel Aviv",
          "geographic_area": null,
          "line1": "Menachem Begin Blv. 148"
        },
        "lat_long": {
          "latitude": 30.812426,
          "longitude": 34.859478
        }
      }
    ],
    "logo": [
      {
        "width": 200,
        "height": 200,
        "url": "https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D560BAQHnqRt58Ae7ig/company-logo_200_200/company-logo_200_200/0/1731507876313/rapidapi_logo?e=1749081600&v=beta&t=YGqYWDGZrRukb8R_vawcfMSySySBX_fdHh5renY2mD4",
        "expires_at": 1749081600000
      },
      {
        "width": 100,
        "height": 100,
        "url": "https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D560BAQHnqRt58Ae7ig/company-logo_100_100/company-logo_100_100/0/1731507876313/rapidapi_logo?e=1749081600&v=beta&t=Z8xtb2oMEJc2UiCvBah0uiefkDuPqEnHsaQYabzS82o",
        "expires_at": 1749081600000
      },
      {
        "width": 400,
        "height": 400,
        "url": "https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D560BAQHnqRt58Ae7ig/company-logo_400_400/company-logo_400_400/0/1731507876313/rapidapi_logo?e=1749081600&v=beta&t=ohr6N4R_CuHgPMNg6Wy3fRndPWOzW2mcYmDyQ3pWF38",
        "expires_at": 1749081600000
      }
    ],
    "cover": [
      {
        "width": 1920,
        "height": 1080,
        "url": "https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D561BAQGyzYbC2bAI5g/company-background_10000/company-background_10000/0/1731507926382/rapidapi_cover?e=1744012800&v=beta&t=YJvorvFsD2dz02nTiDcag1gwRxsqJzklsL_hADalBZ8",
        "expires_at": 1744012800000
      },
      {
        "width": 400,
        "height": 225,
        "url": "https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D561BAQGyzYbC2bAI5g/company-background_400/company-background_400/0/1731507926382/rapidapi_cover?e=1744012800&v=beta&t=T57DJ16XStQysNeGBy1rdJShoHETkwLyDPJM45jtk1I",
        "expires_at": 1744012800000
      },
      {
        "width": 200,
        "height": 112,
        "url": "https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D561BAQGyzYbC2bAI5g/company-background_200/company-background_200/0/1731507926382/rapidapi_cover?e=1744012800&v=beta&t=l07Zn3goeEQXGYIrHKy11pEMMlJIfivuC0rZknD1cJo",
        "expires_at": 1744012800000
      }
    ],
    "specialities": [
      "API Hub",
      "API",
      "Web",
      "Developers",
      "API Client",
      "REST API",
      "GraphQL",
      "Kafka",
      "OpenAPI",
      "Application Programming Interface",
      "Web APIs",
      "JavaScript",
      "React",
      "Vue",
      "Python",
      "Java",
      "PHP",
      "C",
      "C#",
      "C++",
      "TypeScript",
      ".NET"
    ],
    "industries": ["Information Technology & Services"],
    "hashtags": [
      {
        "name": "#dev",
        "follower_count": 12600
      },
      {
        "name": "#rapidapi",
        "follower_count": 36
      },
      {
        "name": "#api",
        "follower_count": 14838
      }
    ],
    "funding_info": {
      "number_of_funding_rounds": 7,
      "organization_url": "https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/rapidapi?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=linkedin_companies&utm_content=profile_cta",
      "funding_rounds_url": "https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/rapidapi/funding_rounds/funding_rounds_list?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=linkedin_companies&utm_content=all_fundings",
      "updated_at": "2022-11-23T02:57:50.000Z",
      "last_funding_round": {
        "type": "Series D",
        "money_raised": {
          "amount": "150000000",
          "currency": "USD"
        },
        "url": "https://www.crunchbase.com/funding_round/rapidapi-series-d--8c1d29e4?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=linkedin_companies&utm_content=last_funding",
        "investors_url": "https://www.crunchbase.com/funding_round/rapidapi-series-d--8c1d29e4?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=linkedin_companies&utm_content=all_investors",
        "number_of_other_investors": 6,
        "announced_on": {
          "day": 23,
          "month": 3,
          "year": 2022
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Step 4: Available Endpoints

The Fresh LinkedIn Scraper API offers a comprehensive set of endpoints organized by category:

Job Endpoints

Search Jobs: Search for jobs by keywords, titles, or descriptions
Job Detail: Get detailed information about a specific job by ID

Post Endpoints

Post Detail: Retrieve complete information about a LinkedIn post
Post Comments: Get comments on a specific LinkedIn post
Post Reactions: View reaction data (likes, etc.) for a post
Post Reposts: See who has reshared a particular post

User Profile Data Endpoints

User Profile: Get core profile information (name, headline, about, etc.)
User Contact: Retrieve available contact information
User Posts: Get a list of posts published by the user
User Comments: View comments made by the user
User Videos: Get videos shared by the user
User Images: Retrieve images shared by the user
User Reactions: See posts the user has reacted to
User Documents: Get documents shared by the user
User Recommendations: View recommendations received and given
Save User Profile to PDF: Generate a PDF version of a user's profile

Group Endpoints

Group Info: Get information about a LinkedIn group
Group Posts: Retrieve posts from a specific group

Search Endpoints

Search Posts: Find posts by keywords and other criteria
Search Locations: Search for locations on LinkedIn

Ads Endpoints

Search Ads: Find LinkedIn ads by various criteria
Ad Detail: Get detailed information about a specific ad

Company Endpoints

Company Profile: Retrieve comprehensive company information
Company Posts: Get posts published by a company

User Additional Data Endpoints

User Skills: Get a list of skills listed on a user's profile
User Education: View educational background details
User Licenses and Certifications: Get professional certifications
User Publications: Retrieve published works listed on profile
User Honors: Get awards and recognition information
User Experiences: View work experience history
User Volunteers: Get volunteer experience information
User Follower and Connection: View follower and connection data

For detailed documentation on request parameters and response formats, refer to the RapidAPI interface.

This enhanced version:

Creates a reusable LinkedIn API class
Handles both profile and company data
Extracts the most relevant information
Processes multiple profiles
Saves results to a JSON file

Final Thoughts

While the official LinkedIn API with OAuth offers the most compliant way to access LinkedIn data, third-party APIs provide a practical alternative when OAuth implementation is too complex or your use case doesn't fit LinkedIn's partner programs.

Remember these key points:

Legal and ethical considerations: Always review the terms of service for any API you use. Most third-party providers comply with data privacy regulations and LinkedIn's terms by using legitimate methods of data collection.
Cost efficiency: These services are not free, but they typically offer pay-as-you-go models that may be more cost-effective than building and maintaining your own data collection infrastructure.
Data freshness: The quality of data varies by provider. Some offer real-time scraping while others maintain databases that may be updated less frequently.
Rate limits and quotas: Be mindful of your API usage to avoid unexpected costs or service limitations.
Privacy compliance: Ensure your data usage complies with regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and other applicable laws.

By leveraging these non-OAuth LinkedIn data solutions, you can access valuable professional data while focusing your development efforts on creating value with that data, rather than on the complex challenges of data acquisition.

Have you integrated LinkedIn data into your applications? What approaches have you found most effective? Share your experiences and questions in the comments below!

How to Get LinkedIn Profile Data Using API (No OAuth Required)

How to Get LinkedIn Profile Data Using API (No OAuth Required)

Why Access to LinkedIn API?

How to Access LinkedIn API?

1. Official LinkedIn API (with OAuth)

2. Third-Party LinkedIn Data Providers

3. Web Scraping Approaches

Step by Step Guide

Using the Fresh LinkedIn Scraper API on RapidAPI

Step 1: Set Up Your RapidAPI Account

Step 2: Using the API with Python

Step 4: Available Endpoints

Job Endpoints

Post Endpoints

User Profile Data Endpoints

Group Endpoints

Search Endpoints

Ads Endpoints

Company Endpoints

User Additional Data Endpoints

Final Thoughts

Table of Contents