How the Person Search Endpoint Works — and When to Use It

What the Person Search endpoint does, what it returns, how credits are charged, and when to use it instead of other endpoints.

When you don't have a profile URL

Most Enrich Layer endpoints are designed to enrich known profiles or companies — but what if you're still looking for the right people?

That's where the Person Search endpoint comes in. Instead of requiring a specific profile URL, this API lets you search for people using filters like:

Job title or role (e.g., "product manager")
Company or industry
Location
Education or experience level

It's useful when you're trying to:

Build a new list of prospects
Explore talent pools
Segment contacts for outreach or targeting
Power discovery tools inside your own product

What it returns

Each search returns a list of potential matches with limited public info, such as:

Name, job title, company
Location (if available)
A profile URL (in most cases)

From there, you can use the Person Profile endpoint to enrich specific results in more detail.

Example request

{
  "current_role_title": "software engineer",
  "region": "New York",
  "page_size": 10
}

json

Pagination applies — use the next_page token in the response to retrieve subsequent pages.

How credits are charged

Credits are charged per returned result, not per request:

3 credits per returned profile URL
With the default page_size of 100, a single call can cost up to 300 credits
Always set page_size explicitly to avoid unexpected charges

See How Credits Are Calculated When Using the People Search Endpoint for a full breakdown.

What "similarity" means in search

The Person Search endpoint does not use similarity scoring — it returns results that strictly match all the parameters you provide.

The Person Lookup endpoint is different: it uses fuzzy search and similarity scoring to find the best match for a specific person by name and company.

When not to use it

If you already have a profile URL — use the Person Profile endpoint to enrich it directly
If you're looking for company data — use the Company API instead