1. By Irina Shamaeva,
Chief Sourcer, Brain Gain Recruiting
Founder, People Sourcing Certification Program
http://sourcingcertification.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/irinashamaeva
http://twitter.com/braingain
Blog http://booleanstrings.com
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2. Today’s topic is:
Searching
with easy, readable
syntax
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3. Lots can be found simply searching for
English words and phrases:
• “Passive”candidates
• Potential clients
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4. Google is “the” search engine
• It has indexed the largest number of Internet
pages
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5. Settings
• No instant results
• 100 results/page
• No personal results
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6. Example 1.

7. Example 2.

8. Example 3.

9. The Core Principle of Searching
How-To Tips for Types of Pages
Brief Notes on Syntax
How-To Tips for Types of Info
Fun Stuff: Image Search
Setting the Right Expectations
Q&A
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10. “What are we going to find?”
Suppose we have landed on an
interesting, relevant page as the result of
a search…
• What will the words and phrases be like there?
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11. Search for some of the words and phrases
you expect to see on the relevant results
page
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12. Social Profiles (LinkedIn)
Associations
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13. Expect to find
• The word LinkedIn
• Geography words
• Job title(s)
• Certification(s)
• Keywords
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15. Expect to find:
• Association
• Location words
• Industry keywords
• A pointer to a member directory or member
search
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18. AND
Quotation Marks
OR
• Best practices for using OR
Parentheses
Excluding terms
• Best practices for excluding
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19. There’s no operator AND
• Do not use it!
Google tries to find pages that have all
the words you have listed
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20. To try and find the exact word, or words
together (a “phrase”), use the quotation
marks:
• "manager"
• "she"
• "registered nurse"
• "please contact me at"
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21. Caution: watch for MS Office-changed
quotes. Google understands straight "",
not curly “”

22. OR is a Boolean operator. It helps to use
it in cases you’d really need one or more
of the words to be found in the results
Syntax:
Deloitte OR Accenture OR Gartner
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23. You can avoid using OR simply by
searching for the words in turn:
1. Search for Deloitte
2. Search for Accenture
3. Search for Gartner
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24. Google completely ignores parentheses.
Period.
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25. If you want to exclude a word from the
search results, you can use the minus in
front of a word (no spaces in-between)
For best practices, consider using it less
rather than more, and never upfront
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26. How to express in key words and
phrases:
• Terminology
• Contact Information
 Email Addresses
 Phone Numbers
• Geography
• Degrees
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27. What are we going to find?
Imagine words that a person’s profile
page (or a site) would use, not what the
job description necessarily says
To come up with keywords, explore some
examples of “ideal” profiles
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28. Get quick help in figuring out
terminology
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29. What are we going to find?
• Generic (free) email addresses
• Phrases
• Company emails
Including these in a search may help to
find profiles with contact info, as well as
lists
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30. Example
• "gmail.com" OR "yahoo.com" OR "aol.com"
No need to use long lists
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31. “Email me at”
“Email me on”
“My email is”
“Contact me at”
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32.  linkedin Melbourne Australia sales
"email me at" "people you know"
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33. What are we going to find?
• Area codes
• Phrases
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34. 02 Central east region (New South Wales,
Australian Capital Territory)
03 South east region (Victoria,Tasmania)
04 Mobile telephones (Australia-wide)
07 North east region (Queensland)
08 Central and west region (Western
Australia, South Australia and Northern
Territory)
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36. “call me at”
“call me on”
“my phone is”
“my mobile phone number is”
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37. Country calling codes and area codes
• http://countrycode.org
• http://www.countrycallingcodes.com
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38. What are we going to find?
Use the location names the way the
pages may use them
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39. Postal codes
http://www.geonames.org/postal-codes/
• Note: these numbers have a better chance to be
useful if they are longer and are combined with
other “local” keywords
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40. Drop the terms with too many synonyms:
• You will always
review the results
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42. Drag an image to Google’s image search
to look for it across the web

43. LOTs can be found by using English
words and phrases without complex
Boolean operators
By searching using English (vs. Boolean)
you are giving up some control over
search results and may miss some results
• But you may gain productivity spending time on
processing the results and reaching out to the
people you find
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44. After you have mastered searching in
“plain English” you may feel more
comfortable learning to use some
advanced search operators, to gain
better control of search results
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45. We can only find web pages if they are out
there
Some info is behind a log into a site with a
password
Some info is wrong or obsolete

46. Blog http://booleanstrings.com
Largest Sourcers’ Online Community
• "Boolean Strings" Group on LinkedIn
• Boolean Strings Network
People Sourcing Certifications
• http://sourcingcertification.com

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