The basics of boolean for recruitment

1. BOOLEAN SEARCH
Boolean search writing is a skill that top recruiters need to know directly in order to get
meaningful candidate search results. It can help you better understand the size of the
candidate pool in the market and will allow you to either broaden your search results or
specifically drill down to those that are an exact fit.

2. What is Boolean Search?
Boolean Search is a way to organize your search using a combination of keywords and the 5 main Boolean
operators (AND, OR and NOT), along with brackets and quotations to produce more accurate and more relevant
results for your candidate searches on LinkedIn and other sourcing tools.
By applying these appropriately, along with the keywords you wish to consider, you can create a huge range of
search operations. There is no limit to how often you can use any of these elements in a search, so you can create
very specific search strings, which will save you a lot of time in filtering the results.
Boolean search is using specific logic using just 5 key operators to help you get more targeted results when you
search. The 5 elements of syntax are:
1.OR
2.AND
3.NOT
4." " (quotation marks)
5.( ) brackets
On the following pages you will see examples of how to use each key operator

3. OR
OR provides you with options in your search. Usage of the OR command (which must be written in CAPS) allows
you to create a list of possibilities for which only one match is important. For example, the following Boolean string
search phrase would give you results that contain one or more of the stated words:
Nurse OR RN OR “Case Manager”

4. AND
AND is the simplest function to apply. Any search terms that follow an AND operator must appear in the results. For
example:
Nurse AND Hospice
will give results that include both the word Nurse and the word Hospice. All search results will include both.

5. NOT
NOT is the command of exclusion. If there are any closely related terms that mean very different things, then
usage of the NOT command is extremely valuable. An example could be as follows:
Nurse NOT “Certified Nursing Assistant”
This would give you results that contain the word Nurse, but leaving out any that use the “Certified Nursing
Assistant”. Very useful if you are targeting Nurses and don’t want your search results to be full of CNA’s.
Important to note, we rarely use this command as you often times run into an example like this where current
Nurses were formerly CNA’s and you don’t want to inadvertently eliminate those from your search results.

6. "" Quotation Marks
You probably noticed that I used the “ ” expression above in an example already, wrapped around particular
keywords. These quotation marks are used to capture a full 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. For example:
Case Manager
would give results that contain ‘Case‘ and ‘Manager‘, but not necessarily in the same sentence or paragraph. So if
you are sourcing for Case Managers, then your search results are going to show up with all the LinkedIn profiles
containing the word 'Case' and all of the LinkedIn profiles with the word 'Manager' leading you to thousands of
irrelevant search results and a list of the wrong people. However when you use the quotations in this example:
“Case Manager”
You would return results that only contain the exact phrase “Case Manager". In addition, the quotations command is
very useful when searching for a specialty or term that could be written in many different ways. So if you were
prospecting NICU Nurses they may have a whole range of job titles. So you would want to be focused on the right
phrases and wrapping them with quotation marks.
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7. This combined with the OR command can be extremely valuable. For example:
NICU OR “Neonatal ICU” OR “Neonatal Intensive Care”
It’s always important to realize that there’s often times not just one term that candidates use to describe a skill and if
you want the best search results you have to really look at multiple profiles and see what terminology different
candidates use to describe the same skill.
CONTINUED…..

8. ( ) Brackets
Using brackets is absolutely essential for complex search strings, and it can be the application of brackets that causes
the most confusion. Essentially, a clause within brackets is given priority over other elements around it. The most
common place that brackets are applied by advanced users of Boolean is in the use of OR strings. Perhaps a good
example would be a series of job titles where you also need to have a specific keyword on their Linkedin Profile.
(“RN” OR “Nurse” OR “Case Manager”) AND (“Hospice” OR “Home Health”)
To combine both commands into one Boolean search, you can use brackets to tell LinkedIn that these are separate
conditions. It makes no difference which order the two bracketed sections go; the same results will result either way.
In summary, used correctly, Boolean Search is a powerful tool for sourcing candidates that will also allow you to better
understand the candidate market you are sourcing for.