How To: Effective Boolean Searching

A little background first, for those that are not familiar.

boolean russian dolls

Boolean searching uses the functions of Boolean algebra to deliver the most relevant results. Boolean algebra was developed by George Boole in 1854. Instead of using numbers like traditional algebra, Boolean algebra uses truth values or equivalency to deliver the results. See more on the history of Boolean algebra here.

The Basics

Quotation Marks " " - This requires words to be searched as a phrase, exactly how you typed them. If you need to find a candidate who previously worked as project manager, enter "Project Manager" in your search box to find exactly the phrase or title you are looking for.
And, Or, And Not - These words, when entered in between your keywords, can really help pull out the variations in how they might be listed on a resume. You may need to find a developer who has experience with Ajax AND Java. Another good application would be to find synonyms and abbreviations. You might try a search like blog OR blogging OR blogger OR weblog, or Search Engine Optimization OR SEO to find a marketing candidate. Lastly, use AND NOT to exclude results that may otherwise show up, e.g. "Project Manager" AND NOT Coordinator. Use quotations and exclusive terms together to really filter down your results.

Slightly More Advanced

Near - Joining words with NEAR will deliver fewer results than AND because it requires the words to be close in proximity to each other. Use this when you want to find terms that appear in the same sentence or paragraph. Think of it like a context search. Plenty of candidates will have certain words in their resume, but the NEAR function will only bring them up if they are actually next to each other.
Nesting ( ) - Here is the ultimate Boolean tool to create long, complex search strings. For example, ("HVAC" NEAR "Project Manager") AND (California OR "Pacific Coast*") will give us results for HVAC Project Managers in California or along the Pacific Coast. Notice that Pacific Coast also has the wildcard tag *.

Think of all the combinations you can put together to find exactly what you're looking for! Which of these functions delivers the best results for you? What other Boolean tricks do you use?

Louis Bina is the marketing manager at CATS Software, Inc.

Comment by Will Branning on August 12, 2011 at 3:38pm: Tim I haven't used NEAR command for awhile - thanks for the reminder! BTW, isn't it true that some web browsers and job boards don't "recognize the NEAR command?

Comment by Louis Bina on August 12, 2011 at 3:43pm: I think you're right Will, not all sites recognize the same phrases, which is why it is good to have an arsenal of options.

Comment by Irina Shamaeva on August 12, 2011 at 11:55pm: Louis,

Lovely image! :)

You didn't say, but I imagine you are talking about Boolean searches on Monster.com; is that correct? (I'm still uncertain about the purpose of the expression "Pacific coast*" though).

In my experience, talking about Boolean and not specifying where you are searching may confuse readers. As an example, in Google search, AND must be omitted, NOT must be written as the minus, and NEAR doesn't work. NEAR does work on Bing; NOT does work on Bing as well, but wildcards don't.

I have recently posted a chart with operator comparison on the two major web search engines.

Comment by Joan Thorne on August 14, 2011 at 4:34pm: Hello, Thank you so much for reinforcing some basics. I love to source for candidates and have been told by former recruitment colleagues that my approach is "very Boolean." Even though I am not mathematically focused, I enjoy working the possible phrases to find great people.

Comment by Dan Ogden on August 16, 2011 at 11:26am: Great post, Tom -- for those of us who remember when Altavista was the king of search, this serves as a handy refresher; it's a must read for our young guns and I've forwarded it out internally.

Comment by Louis Bina on August 16, 2011 at 1:12pm: Irina, thanks for sharing that comparison sheet. That is an excellent companion to this article. When I wrote this article I was mostly thinking about our customers, as our ATS supports full boolean searching, but also knew it could be helpful to folks that do not use CATS.

Comment