The basic Boolean operators
AND
When you need to include two search criteria, use this operator. For example, if you are looking for someone who works in sales and at the managerial level then use the search string: Sales AND Manager.
OR
If you are looking for multiple entries for your search, use this operator. For example, if you want to modify the above search for a Salesperson who could be a manager or a team lead, use the search string: Sales AND Manager OR Leader.
NOT
Sometimes more useful than the others, this operator helps to exclude a criterion. Suppose you want to hire someone at the mid-management level then you will want to eliminate the freshers from your search. The search string would be Sales AND Manager OR Leader NOT Fresher.
Tips And Tricks To Use In Your Boolean Search
Brackets
If you have to set a preference, use brackets. Brackets help you to emphasize or exclude or compare your search criteria. For example, if you are looking for a Salesperson who is either a manager or a leader but not a fresher, use the following search string: Sales AND (manager OR Leader) NOT Fresher
Quotation Marks
When you put a search term within the quotation marks, it is considered as a single term by the search engine. For example, if you search “marketing manager” within quotes the returned result documents will have the marketing manager as a single search term.
Asterisks
In Boolean search, there is a wildcard too! The asterisks* which allows the search to contain the stem of a word. For example, if you search market* it will return results all the words containing the word market. So, your search results would be market, marketing, marketer, etc.
Abbreviations
Don’t ignore to use abbreviations in your search string. It helps you to discover all the potential candidates who might have used an abbreviation in their resume. For example, if you have used QA in your search string, it will help you to find a candidate who might not have included the full form i.e. quality assurance in his/her resume.
Simpler Terms
Try using shorter industry terms if you want to gather a larger talent pool. For example, if you use an engineer, your search results will have everyone with the word engineer. So, these could be engineers, engineering, engineered, etc.
Bonus Tip
Who doesn’t love something extra?! Apart from the 5 tips that are most commonly used, here is a bonus tip.
Site search on Google
This is also known as an X-ray search where you can search on a specific site for your desired skill sets. For example, if you are a recruiter, the right place to look for candidates would be LinkedIn. Or, for more specific results look for niche websites. For example, if you are looking for developers, you would like to do a niche search on GitHub.
Here is an example:
Site:github.com (Hyderabad AND Java and developer AND Manager) – Executive.
Search results may vary to a great extent depending on the search criteria and search methods used. Developing strong search skills and search techniques will help a recruiter to unearth potential candidates from easily available sources. Using Boolean search techniques will help to get a competitive advantage.