Enhancing Recruitment Efficiency with IT & Non-IT Boolean Search Strings

Basic Boolean operators

Unlocking the Power of Boolean Search Operators: A Comprehensive Guide

Navigating through vast databases and search engines to find the perfect candidate can be daunting. But fear not, as the use of Boolean search operators can significantly streamline your search process. In this guide, we'll explore ten essential Boolean search operators, categorized into basic and advanced functionalities, to help you become a master recruiter.

The easiest Boolean search operators to get a handle on are:

1. AND

2. OR

3. NOT

4. BRACKETS ()

5. QUOTATIONS “”

6. ASTERISK *

1. AND Operator: The AND operator serves to refine your search results by requiring the presence of multiple search criteria. For instance, if you're seeking candidates with expertise in marketing and managerial experience, you would use the AND operator to narrow down your search. Here's an example of how you might structure your search query:

This ensures that only candidates who meet both criteria are included in the search results.

1. OR Operator: On the other hand, the OR operator broadens your search by allowing for the inclusion of multiple entries or variables in your results. It is particularly useful when different terms or job titles are interchangeable. Combining OR with AND further refines your search. For example, to expand your search for marketing managers to include leadership roles, you would use the following string:

This ensures that your search encompasses candidates with titles such as marketing manager or marketing leader.

NOT Operator: The NOT operator is utilized to exclude specific terms or requirements from your search results. For instance, if you're seeking mid-level managers while excluding executive titles, you can employ the NOT operator as follows:

Alternatively, you can use the minus symbol (-) followed by the term you wish to exclude, without any space, like so:

BRACKETS ( ): Brackets play a crucial role in prioritizing elements within your search query, much like the BODMAS principle in mathematics. They specify which sections of the search take precedence over others, ensuring clarity and precision. For example, if you're searching for candidates who are either marketing managers or leaders, but not executives, you would structure your query like this:

As your search queries become more intricate, brackets become indispensable tools for maintaining organization and logical coherence.

QUOTATIONS Operator: The QUOTATIONS operator is instrumental in searching for exact phrases, offering precision in your search results. By enclosing a single word or multiple words within quotation marks, you instruct the search engine to treat them as a single search term. This is particularly useful when you have a specific phrase in mind and wish to exclude anything that doesn't match it. For instance, if you're specifically looking for candidates with "Marketing Manager" on their resume, you would structure your search string as follows:

ASTERISK (*) Operator: Conversely, the ASTERISK operator serves to expand your search by including variations of your keywords or phrases. This operator acts as a wildcard, allowing you to capture candidates who use different words to describe similar tasks or skills. By placing an ASTERISK next to the root of the word you're searching for, the search results will encompass any possible word containing that beginning. For instance, the search string:

...would retrieve results for words such as administrator, administration, administer, and so forth. ASTERISK is a valuable addition to your search string when seeking candidates with complementary skills. For example, to find a marketing manager with administration skills, you would use the following query:

These six basic operators serve as a robust introduction to Boolean search in recruitment and cater to the majority of your candidate sourcing needs.

However, when confronted with larger and more complex databases or search engines, you may find that these basic operators fall short. In such cases, employing advanced operators can further refine your search results for enhanced candidate sourcing.

Work Place Boolean Search Strings

Telecom Field Technician / Engineer

(FIELD) AND (TECHNICIAN OR ENGINEER) AND (AT&T OR T-MOBILE OR SPRINT OR VERIZON OR ERICSSON) AND (TELECOM OR TELECOMMMUNICATIONS) AND (WIRELESS OR FIBER OR CABLE OR "CELL TOWER") AND (UMTS OR CDMA OR GSM OR 2G OR 3G OR BTS OR LTE OR VOLTE OR 5G OR 4G)

SHIPPING and RECEIVING / Warehouse Specialist

("SHIPPING and RECEIVING" OR "SHIPPING-RECEIVING" OR SHIPPING OR RECEIVING or "SHIPPING/RECEIVING" or "SHIPPING&RECEIVING" or "SHIPPING & RECEIVING") AND("INVENTORY SPECIALIST" or "Package handler" or "materials handler" or "warehouse handler" or "Warehouse associate")

Manufacturing Technician:

("Manufacturing Technician" OR "Manufacturing Operator" OR "Manufacturing Engine*") AND (Sterilizat* OR manufactur* OR "Cell Cultu*" OR Automat*) AND (cGMP OR GMP OR "Good Manufacture Practice" OR SOPs OR "Standard Operating Procedure") AND (Upstream OR downstream OR Fermenta* OR Filtra* OR Validat* OR Purifica*) AND (Pharma* OR Bio*) AND NOT Shire

("Manufacturing Technician" OR "Manufacturing Operator" OR "Manufacturing Engine*") AND (cGMP OR GMP OR "Good Manufacture Practice" OR SOPs OR "Standard Operating Procedure") AND (Upstream OR downstream OR Fermenta* OR Filtra* OR Validat* OR Purifica*) AND (Pharma* OR Bio*) AND NOT Shire AND NOT Senior AND NOT Supervisor

("manufacturing tech*" or "manufacturing operator" or "manufacturing engineer" or "manufacturing associate" ) and ("cell culture" or sterilizat* or automat*) and (cGMP or GMP or "Good Manufacture practice" OR SOPs) and (manufactur*or Purifica* or validatio*) and (pharm* or biotec*) and NOT Shire

("manufacturing tech*" or "manufacturing operator" or "manufacturing engineer" or "manufacturing associate") and (Manufact* or "clean room" or Growing or CIP or "Cleaning in place" or Autoclaving or Ducumenta*) and (cGMP or GMP or "Good Manufacture practice") and (Pharma* or Biotec*) and NOT Senior and NOT Shire

"manufacturing tech*" and ("cell culture" or upstream or downstram or pharm*) and (cGMP OR GMP OR "Good Manufacture Practice" or SOPs or "Standard Operating Procedure" ) and (Sterilizat*or manufactur*or Purifica*) and NOT Shire

Document Management coordinator:

("Document coordinator" OR "Document Management Coordinator" OR "Documentation management" OR "Documentation Specialist" OR "Documentation Coordinator") AND ("MS Office" OR "Microsoft Office" OR "Ms word" OR word OR "Ms Excel" OR Excel OR "Power Point") AND ("Revision Control" OR "Data Entry" OR Scanning OR Filling OR Labeling) AND (cGMP OR GXP OR "Good manufacturing practices")

(Sr Manufacturing Engineer):

("Manufacturing Engineer" OR "Manufacturing Operator" OR "Manufacturing Technician") AND (Chemical OR Biochemical OR Biochemistry) AND (Mammalian OR "Cell Culture" OR Bioreactor OR Filtra* OR Centrifug* OR Upstream) AND (Historian OR "data collection" OR Excel OR JMP OR "PI Historian" OR "PI Process Book") AND (Investig* OR Implement*) AND (GMP OR "Good Manufacturing practices") AND (PTS OTR "Production Technical Support")

(Engineer Manager):

("Software Project Manager" OR "Software Project lead") AND (JAVA OR REST SOA OR JBoss) AND (RDBMS OR database OR Mysql OR Oracle OR sql) AND ("Agile Process" OR "Agile Environment" OR Agile) AND (Design* AND Coding) AND ("Software quality" OR SDLC)

QA Specialist:

("QA Specialist" OR "Quality Analyst" OR "Quality Controller" OR "Quality specialist") AND (GMP OR "Good Manufacturing practices" OR cGMP) AND ("QA Compliance" OR "Deviation Reviews" OR Trendi* OR CAPA OR Complian* OR Deviat*) AND ("Data Analysis" OR Metrics OR QMP OR KPls OR SAP) AND (Pharma* OR biotec*) AND (Outlook OR Word OR Excel OR "Power point" OR PowerPoint)

Laboratory Technologist:

("Laboratory Technologist" OR "Laboratory specialist" OR "Laboratory Admin*" OR "Laboratory Techn*") AND (Gxp OR GMP OR "Good Manufacturing Practices") AND (Admin* OR Installa* OR upgrad*) AND ("Citrix Admin*" OR Citrix) AND ("Database Admin*" OR Database) AND (Software OR Desktop OR servers OR Applica*) AND (Pharma* OR BioPharma*)

 Quality Control Scientist:

("Quality Control Scientist" OR "Quality Controller" OR "Quality Assurance" OR "QA Specialist" OR "QA Scientist" OR QC) AND (Monitor* OR Trendin* OR statisti* OR Validat* OR Investiga*) AND (SOP's OR "Standard Operating Procedures") AND (GMP OR "Good Manufacturing Practices" OR cGMP) AND (Pharma* OR Biotech*)

Boolean Strings by Job Title

Below are search string examples sorted by job title. Copy and paste each one as-is, or edit to fit your search needs.

System Admin

("Systems Administrator" OR "systems Admin" OR "system Administrator" OR "system admin" or "unix admin" or "unix administrator" or "linux admin" or "linux administrator" or "system engineer" or "systems engineer") AND (install* or upgrad* or "sofwtare package" or "software packages") AND (UNIX or Linux)

.Net Developer

.Net AND (VS OR "Visual Studio") AND (VB OR "Visual Basic" OR VB.net) AND (ASP OR ASP.net) AND (C# OR C#.net ) AND "SQL Server"

Android Developer

Android AND SDK AND Java AND SQLite AND (SVN OR subversion)

Automation Tester

("qa" OR "quality assurance" OR "quality analyst" OR "automation tester") AND "sql" AND agile AND scrum AND rest AND soap AND "java" AND (cucumber OR "jet brains" OR gherkin OR "cmm" OR "cmmi" OR "cast" OR "cste" OR "cmst" OR certified OR certification OR Certi*)

Business Analyst with Business Objects Experience

("ba" OR "business analyst" OR "project manager" OR "project analyst") AND "etl" AND "business objects" AND informatica AND "sql" AND ("data warehouse" OR financial OR analysis OR analytics OR mappings OR "product roadmap")

CTO - Chief Technical Officer

(cto OR "chief technical officer" OR "cio" OR "chief information officer" OR vp OR "vice president" OR svp OR "senior vice president")

Database Administrator

("database administration" OR "database administrator" OR "DB Admin" OR DBA) AND (SQL OR "SQL Server")

Drupal Expert / Webmaster

("web developer" OR developer OR programmer OR engineer OR "web master" OR webmaster) AND drupal AND "google analytics" AND ("seo" OR websites OR microsites OR "landing pages" OR "cms" OR "crm" OR "relational database" OR "api" OR "ui" OR "ux" OR "social media" OR paradot OR requirements)

Email/Messaging System Administrator

("systems administrator" OR "systems administration" OR "email systems administrator") AND ("email delivery systems" OR powermta OR port25 OR "message systems" OR strongmail OR qmail OR sendmail OR ironport OR postfix) AND ("mta" OR "dns" OR "ptr" OR "mx records" OR "smtp protocols" OR "dkim" OR "spf" OR "dmarc" OR "fbl" OR "feedback loop")

Help Desk Support (helpdesk OR support OR technician OR "help desk" OR "service desk") AND (OSX OR JDE OR iSeries OR virtual OR virtualization OR vmware) AND ("AD" OR "Active Directory") AND DHCP AND DNS AND (network OR networking) AND (switches OR switching OR routers OR routing) AND (firewalls OR security)

Information Security Manager

"Information Security" AND ("Project Manager" OR "Project Management" OR Leadership OR Manager OR PMP) AND (forensic* OR Security+ OR CISSP OR "security Standards" OR "Certified Information Systems Security Professional" OR "Advanced Persistent Threats" OR "asset protection")

Java Developer

Java AND SQL AND ("object oriented" OR object-oriented OR "OO" OR "OOP" OR "OOAD" OR EJB OR J2EE OR Linux OR Hibernate OR Jidesoft OR MySQL OR Subversion OR SVN)

Linux Sys Admin / DBA

("dba" OR "database administrator" OR "database administration" OR "system administrator" OR "system administration" OR "sysadmin") AND linux AND (mysql OR "my sql" OR "my-sql") AND ("ksh" OR bash OR perl OR python) AND (nosql OR "no sql" OR "no-sql" OR mongo OR "disaster recovery" OR

"meta data analysis" OR "data modeling" OR troubleshooting OR reporting OR backup)

Linux Systems Administrator

(Unix OR Linux) AND (RedHat OR "Red Hat" OR Centos OR Debian) AND (SMTP OR DHCP OR DNS OR LDAP OR NFS OR SMTP OR HTTP OR

SNMP) AND ("Systems Administrator" OR "System Administrator" OR "Systems Administration" OR "System Administration")

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