Every recruiter can relate to the tediousness of combing through applications and web pages in search of a hidden gem of a candidate. Additionally, in recent years, artificial intelligence-powered recruitment technologies have been introduced to the mix, sometimes adding an extra degree of complexity and length to the process. While cutting-edge technologies can frequently appear like the answer to your information overload issue, there is a tried-and-true approach that you may be ignoring.
And that is Boolean search. When you were looking for books for your homework assignment, the high school library told you how to do it. You might be surprised to learn that Boolean search is still widely used in today’s search interfaces across almost all digital platforms.
You might not even be aware that you regularly use boolean search because it is such a common technique. Boolean search is used, for instance, when you surround a search word in Google with quotations or attach two words with an operator like AND/OR.
The Boolean search should be a skill that every recruiter possesses. You may find better prospects more quickly by picking up a few easy strategies. Here this article will walk you through every aspect of Boolean search you need to know.
What Is Boolean Search In Recruitment?
Utilizing massive datasets, such as your recruiting CRM, LinkedIn, Indeed, or Google, to carry out precise searches in order to quickly locate qualified individuals, is known as a boolean search in the recruitment industry. Recruiters can narrow their search results using Boolean’s rules in a number of ways, which can be very useful for identifying a variety of active and passive applicants for your vacant positions.
After exhausting your usual CV and profile searches, performing more precise Boolean searches might be a useful option that could help you uncover a hidden talent that is difficult to find through standard search functions.
Recruiters that are proficient in boolean operations can carry out very complex search strings to satisfy each and every employment need.
Example of Boolean Search
Example 1:
An actual search string created to look for a Senior Financial Analyst is shown below:
Analy* NEAR Financ* AND (Retail* OR e-commerce OR eCommerce) AND budget* AND Plan* AND forecast* AND risk* AND Excel AND (PowerPoint OR “PowerPoint” OR Tableau OR SAP) AND (Access OR SQL OR “BO” OR “Business Objects”)
This simply uses the six fundamental operators in a Boolean search, despite the fact that it appears complicated when broken down into its constituent operators. So, what are they? Let’s have a look at them.
Example 2:
In Mumbai, India, you need to employ a software engineer with knowledge of Python OR Java. Try the following sentence instead:
Current_job_title: “Software Engineer” AND Metro_Area: “Mumbai” AND (Java OR Python)
This search would first look for profiles that mention Java OR Python, then narrow the results to software engineers in the San Diego region, giving you a very targeted list of applicants. Then you can do your candidate outreach after selecting the profiles that are most suitable for the position from the list of results.
Example 3:
In Chicago and Denver, you’re looking to hire front-end engineers with expertise in CSS, React, Java, JavaScript, JSON, and MySQL. You may ask something like the following:
Current_job_title: “Front End Engineer” AND Metro_area: (Chicago OR Denver) AND (CSS AND React AND Java AND JavaScript AND JSON AND MySQL)
This would surface profile information with the description of a front-end engineer in either Chicago or Denver after first searching for profiles with all of the necessary competencies. The individuals in this pool can then be targeted for the positions in your company.
Boolean Search Operators
Here are the main Boolean Operators every recruiter should know:
Operator# 1: AND
When you want to incorporate two (or more) criteria in your Boolean search, you use the AND operator. You may typically use the AND operator to limit the results of your search. When you enter the search terms “Recruitment AND Manager,” you are asking for results that contain both terms.
When To Use It?
To limit search results based on numerous criteria, use the AND operator.
Operator# 2: OR
When you use the OR operator to widen your Boolean search results, you are asking for the search to return many entries. Consequently, all results having Recruitment and any outcomes containing Manager will be returned by a search for Recruitment OR Manager. When using many phrases to convey the same idea, such as Recruitment AND (Manager OR Consultant OR Agent OR Advisor).
When To Use It?
To increase the number of search results, use the OR operator.
Operator# 3: NOT
The ‘NOT’ operator shows the first word solely and fully eliminates the second word when used between two worlds. With the help of this operator, you can tell a search engine which words to ignore. Additionally, it skips over results that combine both words. For instance, if you type in “Manager NOT Consultant,” the search engine will only show you results that include the word “manager.”
The ‘NOT’ operator can be used in conjunction with other operators; for instance, searching ‘Resumes AND CVs NOT Templates’ will show results containing the keywords ‘resumes’ and ‘CVs’ while excluding all sites containing the term ‘templates’.
When To Use It?
To eliminate irrelevant parameters from your search, use the NOT or (-) operator.
Boolean Search Modifiers
Let’s now explore the boolean search modifiers in greater detail.
Parentheses ()
Do you recall the BODMAS rule from mathematics? Where in the entire equation were the bracketed problems answered in order of priority? The function of parentheses in a Boolean search is the same. They finish looking for the specified keywords.
Quotation Marks “ ”
To identify the precise phrases in your search results, use quotation marks. It’s comparable to how you carefully and precisely quote dialogue. In the same way, the Boolean search surfs what you specify in the quote marks.
Asterisk * or Wild Card
An asterisk (*) should be placed after the terms you want to receive matching results for. This is also referred to as a wild card with truncated words, via which you can obtain all of the word’s variants.
Boolean Search Commands
There are some additional Boolean search commands you can try as a recruiter to narrow down your search for a perfect candidate.
Command# 1: Inurl
This command is used to highlight words or phrases that are contained in a website’s URL that you want to search. For instance, if you want to browse a company’s website’s sales team page, you can type
Inurl: “Sales Team”
All web pages with the string “Sales Team Team” in their URLs will be displayed as a result of this search.
Command# 2: Site
You use the “site:” command to look for information on a certain website. Pages from just that one domain are immediately filtered out by the search engine. The command is followed by the website’s URL where you want to do the search.
For instance, the site: linkedin.com.
You will only see results from the LinkedIn website when you use this command. More commands can be added for more specialized search results.
Command# 3: filetype
Using the “filetype:” field command, you can specify the type of file you are looking for. You can use this command to restrict your search to a specific file type.
For instance, you would type filetype:pdf to look for a file in the.pdf format.
For instance, Example: site:linkedin.com resumes filetype:pdf.
The results of all the resumes from the LinkedIn website that are in PDF format will be shown by the aforementioned command.
Command# 4: Intitle
Your search choices can be expanded by using the “intitle:” command. This restricts your search to web pages whose titles contain certain keywords.
For instance: intitle:resume
site:linkedin.com intitle:resume (illustrator | animator)
The aforementioned command will show resumes for illustrators or animators from the LinkedIn website that are in PDF format.
4 Major Advantages of Boolean Search In Recruitment
We recognize that, as a tech recruiter working in a fiercely competitive sector, your bandwidth is already at or about to reach its limit. So let’s go over some of the benefits of Boolean search in hiring before you invest the effort in learning new sourcing tactics.
1) Faster. According to estimates, recruiters can find 20–60 qualified applicants for a specific position every hour.
2) Cost-effective. Job boards are excellent for networking, but they can be expensive and don’t necessarily target a particular field or business. To discover the best applicants, recruiters must individually weed through unqualified or irrelevant resumes. It is simpler to focus on a certain group of applicants using boolean search without needing to pay a monthly subscription cost.
3) More commands. Recruiters can carefully personalize their candidate sourcing strategies and have complete control over the outcomes thanks to the theoretically infinite number of Boolean search string options.
4) Method of active recruitment. Although you can’t completely avoid posting job positions, it is a kind of passive recruitment strategy. You’re assuming that the ideal candidate will find you, which is ideal but harder to achieve for new businesses. Employers can actively source candidates using boolean searches without expending all of their resources.
Bottom Line
Boolean searches that have been carefully constructed can help experienced recruiters find dozens of qualified prospects every hour. You won’t be able to attract that many applicants by making cold calls or posting job openings online.
But reaching that point takes time. You can receive some unexpected results when you first begin using these searches in your hiring process. To fully utilize Boolean searching, practice is necessary. When you start out, have it in mind.
Additionally, keep in mind that you rarely get the ideal search on the first try. You can get very few results or far more than you anticipated. It can occur to you that a specific search engine is reading your query otherwise than you intended. Doing the ideal search takes time.
However, as you acquire experience, you’ll get a sense of how to design the most efficient searches. The most crucial thing is to simply begin.
