Examples of each term and search strategy are given below. Quotation marks must be used when searching for exact phrases of more than one word, or else some search engines will split the phrase up into single word components.įor example: “Director of Tax” will only return “Director of Tax.” If you searched for Director of Tax without the quotation marks, on some search engines, it will split up the words Director and Tax and highlight them as relevant matches even when not mentioned as an exact phrase.Boolean searching (named after George Boole) is used by most databases to focus searches. Boolean Search Modifier: QUOTATION MARKS ” “ If you don’t enclose all of your OR statements, your search may run but it will NOT run as intended. Remember, the OR operator is interpreted as “I would like at least one of these terms.” Think of parentheses as your way of telling the search engine you’re looking for one of THESE: (_).įor example: (apache OR weblogic OR websphere) “Project Manager” AND NOT (SQL OR Spanish)Īs a best practice, use parentheses to encapsulate OR statements for the search engines to execute them properly. “Project Manager” AND NOT SQL AND Spanish “Project Manager” AND SQL AND NOT Spanish Starting with a very restrictive search with many search terms, you can use the NOT operator to systematically and progressively loosen the search into mutually exclusive result sets (not so common usage, but very effective strategy) Net AND NOT (Java OR JSP OR J2EE) – that search will not return any results with any mention of Java, JSP, and/or J2EE.Įxcluding words you do not want to retrieve to reduce false positive results (most common usage)
You can use the NOT operator in conjunction with an OR statement.Įxample. In this case, you could run: “project manager” and not construction – this search will not return any results with “project manager” and the word “construction” contained within them.
Project Manager, you may want to employ the NOT operator in order to eliminate false positive results – results that mention your search terms but do not in fact match your target hiring profile. The NOT operator is exclusionary – it excludes specific search terms and so the query will not return any results with that term (or terms) in them.Įxample: If you were searching for an I.T. To search for a list of desired skills where you would be pleased if a candidate had experience with at least one, e.g., (apache OR linux OR mysql). To think of all of the alternate ways a particular skill or technology can be expressed, e.g., (CPA OR “C.P.A” OR “Certified Public Accountant”) The returned results must mention at least one of the following: apache, weblogic, websphere. Always use parentheses around OR statements as a matter of good search syntax.Įxample: Java AND Oracle AND SQL AND AJAX AND (apache OR weblogic OR websphere) You need to encapsulate OR statements with parentheses, if you don’t your search will run but execute in a way that you probably did not intend.
The OR operator is technically interpreted as “at least one is required, more than one or all can be returned.” Many people incorrectly think the Boolean OR operator is an either/or operator, when in fact it is not. The OR operator offers flexible inclusion, and typically broadens your search results. The asterisk is a major time saver because it saves you from creating long OR statements and having to think of every way a particular word can be expressed. In other words, the search engine will return and highlight any word that begins with the root/stem of the word truncated by the asterisk.įor example: admin* will return: administrator, administration, administer, administered, etc. The asterisk can be used on most resume databases and non-Internet search engines as a root word/stem/truncation search. This would limit the search results to only those documents containing the two keywords. For example, a Boolean search could be hotel AND New York. Unless you are searching for common words, with every AND you add to your Boolean query, the fewer results you will typically get.Įxample: Java AND Oracle AND SQL AND AJAXīoolean Search Modifier: ASTERISK * - Learn this one it is amazing Boolean search is a type of search allowing users to combine keywords with operators (or modifiers) such as AND, NOT and OR to further produce more relevant results.
It should be used for targeting required skills, experience, technologies, or titles you would like to limit your results to. The AND operator is inclusionary and thus limits your search. Here are a few operators that will help you narrow down search results in Loxo Boolean Search Operator: AND
0 kommentar(er)
