Boolean Search

For experienced recruiters, Boolean keyword search is a cakewalk. For recruiters who are in the initial stages of their recruitment career, it's important to learn how to use the Boolean keyword search on a database to find the right candidates.

Q. What is a Boolean Search?

Boolean search is a method of keyword search to find candidates in the database. Simply put, Boolean searches allow you to combine keywords and phrases using the words AND, OR, NOT (known as Boolean operators) to limit, broaden, or define your search. Every recruiter who wishes to be the best should know how to use Boolean Search. Especially now, because Instahyre has introduced "Boolean mode" as well in their Advanced search!

Q. How does a Boolean Operator work?

AND: By placing "AND" between two keywords you allow the candidate results to include both (or all) of the keywords. The search terms that follow the AND must appear in the search results. For example, if you do a search for "Marketing" AND "SEO" the search result would show candidates having both these terms in their profile.

OR: You can use OR search for something that has the possibility of including either set of search terms. All combination possibilities will come up. For example, if you search for "CFA" or "Financial Analyst" the search result would show candidates having either of the terms in their profile.

NOT: You can use "NOT" when you want to exclude a particular keyword so that it doesn't appear in your search result. For example, when you use "CFO" NOT ("PA" "Executive Assistant") All CFO results would appear and exclude those who have been PA or EA to a CFO.

Brackets (): Brackets are used in a very similar way to the rules of the BODMAS acronym that you might still remember from your school days. The important rule being that the calculation inside the brackets always comes first. In Boolean search, it is similar in that, the section inside the brackets always takes priority over the other elements. For example, (Recruitment AND Manager) NOT Consultant will show results of Recruitment Manager only.

Importance of Boolean keyword search clubbed with job functions.

Imagine finding a candidate who matches the exact skills, work experience, belongs to the same job function as mentioned in the JD, falls within your budget, is extremely passionate about the organization and is available to join within a 15 day notice period.

Sounds surreal right?

It's easy to find candidates matching your hiring requirements on the Instahyre platform. Mastering the boolean search will assist you in finding the right candidates in less time. When you club the traditional boolean search method with Instahyre's matching algorithm it takes even lesser time to find the perfect candidate.

Updated on: 25/03/2022