Boolean Searches 101
While most people have never heard of a Boolean Search before, you would be surprised how often you have used them without knowing it. EX: Imagine you are searching for a new car online, you modify your search for specific results. You are looking for a 4 door sedan, must be Blue OR Green, NOT Manual transmission AND must be within 30 miles of your house. The platform is creating a search for you to yield specific results based on your criteria.
A Boolean search is a type of search that allows users to combine keywords with operators (or modifiers) such as AND, NOT and OR to further produce more relevant results. For example, a Boolean search could be “hotel” AND “Dallas”. This would limit the search results to only those documents containing the two keywords.
The art of the Boolean search takes time to become an expert. It takes much practice and different utilization to ensure you are maximizing your results. Let’s review some of the keywords and their meaning:
AND: is the simplest function to apply. Any search terms that follow an AND command must appear in the result
OR: provides options in a search. Usage of the OR command allows you to create a list of possibilities for which only one match is important
NOT: is the command of exclusion. If there are closely related terms that mean very different things, then usage of the NOT command is extremely valuable
“ ”: these are used to capture a phrase that is to be kept intact, in the precise word order stated. Not using “ “ around a phrase will mean that each word is treated separately, usually with an assumed AND in between each one
( ): this is used for complex search string, and it can be their application that causes the most confusion. Essentially, a clause within brackets is given priority over the other elements around it. The most common place that brackets are applied by recruiters is in the use of OR strings.
Let’s practice some search strings:
.NET DEVELOPER (NEEDS C# CODING, BACK END EXPERIENCE WITH ANY SQL DATABASE AND FRONT END EXPERIENCE WITH JAVASCRIPT)
SYSTEMS ENGINEER (NEEDS EXPERIENCE WITH WINDOWS SERVERS, IIS APPLICATION SERV- ERS, AND EXPERIENCE IN FINANCIAL SERVICES)
PROJECT MANAGER (NEEDS EXPERIENCE ON SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS AND MUST HAVE PMP OR CSM CERTIFICATION)
Summary and Examples
Quotes: Use quotes to search for an exact phrase. Example: “network administrator”
Parenthesis: Combine modifiers to create a more complex search. Example: network AND (administrator OR architect)
AND: Include two search terms. Example: network AND administrator
OR: Broaden your search with multiple terms. Example: “network administrator” OR “network manager”
NOT: Use to exclude a specific term. Example: administrator NOT manager
Utilize this “cheat sheet” to get ideas on new ways to search and new keywords to utilize for a wide variety of skillsets.
Advanced Boolean
*
Wildcard – Using this at the end of a group of letters results in all possible words beginning with the group of letters being included in the results
E.g. Engineer* will give you results with the words Engineer, Engineering, Engineers, etc.
E.g. Develop* will give you results with the words Develop, Develops, Developing, Development, etc.
NOT()
Using this will give you results without the term you put in the parentheses
E.g. NOT(Developer)
E.g. NOT(Fiserv OR NCR)
Searching resumes with Google
When using Google to search for resumes, you should start by searching for the word “resume” in the title and/or the url of web pages.
E.g. (intitle:resume OR inurl:resume)
In order to remove most of the irrelevant results, you can use Google’s version of the Boolean NOT operator, which is the minus sign, to prevent your search from returning results with words such as sample, job, etc.
E.g. (intitle:resume OR inurl:resume) -job -jobs -sample -samples -submit -”resume service” -”resume writers” -”resume writing”
Finding Candidates in a Specific Area
Area Code for Phone Number
(intitle:resume OR inurl:resume) -job -jobs -sample -samples -submit -”resume service” -”resume writers” -”resume writing” (404 OR 770)
State
(intitle:resume OR inurl:resume) -job -jobs -sample -samples -submit -”resume service” -”resume writers” -”resume writing” (404 OR 770) (GA OR Georgia)
Zip Code
(intitle:resume OR inurl:resume) -job -jobs -sample -samples -submit -”resume service” -”resume writers” -”resume writing” 30003..30518 (GA OR Georgia)
File Types:
You can also search for specific file types to pull up resume documents
(filetype:doc OR filetype:docx OR filetype:pdf)
Feel like you have mastered the Art of Boolean? Watch this video from a Boolean Search Wizard on how LinkedIn / Booleans work and how you should re-think your process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMr0V2H0k1g&feature=youtu.be