How to Find Someone You Used to Work With
Eddie — Founder
Published October 2026
Old colleagues are funny.
You can remember where they sat, what they drank, who they complained about and probably what their lunch order was.
But their surname?
Nothing.
The good news is that work gives you a pretty solid starting point.
Start with the obvious stuff
Write down the company, office location and rough years you worked together.
Then think about their role.
You don’t need the exact job title.
Marketing is enough.
Finance is enough.
IT is enough.
You’re just narrowing things down.
Think about what they said they were going to do next
This can be really useful.
Maybe they were moving to London.
Maybe they wanted to leave banking.
Maybe they were studying part-time.
Maybe they were about to join another company.
Those little throwaway conversations can suddenly become useful years later.
LinkedIn is useful, but don’t stop there
Obviously, LinkedIn is a good place to start.
But not everyone updates it.
And some people barely use it at all.
You might also find someone on a company website, conference page, professional association, industry article or old press release.
The internet has a long memory.
Sometimes annoyingly long.
Sometimes very useful.
Check whether the career history actually makes sense
This is probably the biggest one.
If you worked together in 2012 and the person you’ve found was working in another country that entire year, that’s a problem.
A familiar face isn’t enough.
A plausible timeline is much better evidence.
If you reach out
The nice thing about former colleagues is that you already have an easy opener.
Something like:
“Hi, I think we worked together at ABC around 2012. I came across your profile and thought I’d say hello.”
That’s it.
You don’t need to explain how many searches it took to find them.
Probably best not to, actually.
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Eddie — Founder
Eddie is the founder of Someone I Knew, a privacy-first way to help people reconnect with someone from their past using the things they remember and information that’s already public.