How to use Boolean Search

Why is Boolean Search Essential?

A truly effective recruitment strategy strikes a balance between reactive and proactive approaches. Ideally, you’re leveraging a mix of job postings, advertisements, social media, career sites, and at least one CV database.

While you may already be comfortable using major search engines like Google or Bing, applying similar techniques to your CV database might not come as naturally. That’s where Boolean search comes in.

Boolean search is a powerful, straightforward method that allows you to use keywords strategically to either broaden or refine your search results. Mastering this technique can enhance the quality of your search outcomes, give you a competitive edge, and help you hire top talent faster.

This quick guide to Boolean search fundamentals will help you return to the basics and elevate your recruitment game.

The Importance of Order in Boolean Searches

When it comes to Boolean search, precision is everything. Boolean is a literal search language that relies on specific operator words and symbols to determine the best results. For example, if you search for project manager, the system will return results for any candidate with the words project, manager, or project manager in their CV. This can result in wasted time reviewing wrong candidates, such as sales associates, for your open project manager job.

That’s why Boolean language uses AND, OR, NOT, “”, * and () to help make your search queries clear to the resume database.

Boolean Basic: Using the Operators

Extra tips for Boolean on our CV database:

Grouped terms (terms in brackets, connected with "AND) separated with "OR", characters and syntax are not supported:

1. ((HSSE OR EIT) AND (Tubing OR Offshore)) OR (engineering AND PRD)
2. [(HSSE OR EIT) AND (Tubing OR Offshore)] OR (engineering AND PRD)
3. (HSSE OR EIT) AND (Tubing OR Offshore)] OR (engineering AND PRD)

Additionally, if a user inserts (quantity AND surveyor) OR (EIT AND engineer)

This will not be supported, as this contains 2 separate queries that would need to be ran separately:

1. (quantity AND surveyor)
2. (EIT AND engineer)

Expand Your Search with OR

Candidates often use different terms to describe similar job titles or responsibilities. Incorporating OR into your Boolean search allows your database to return resumes containing any or all of the specified keywords. This approach helps you uncover talent you may not have otherwise searched for.

For example, to find a wide range of candidates with experience on different types of rigs, you might use:

"jack-up rig" OR drillship OR "semi-submersible rig" OR "land rig" OR "offshore rig" OR "onshore rig" OR "fixed platform" OR "tension-leg platform" OR "compliant tower" OR "spar platform" OR "subsea system" OR "drilling barge" OR "floating production system" OR "mobile offshore drilling unit" OR MODU OR "platform rig" OR "directional drilling rig" OR "deepwater rig" OR "ultra-deepwater rig"

Narrow results with AND

Resumes containing only one of your keywords may not be a perfect fit for your industry or the specific role you’re filling. However, using too many AND commands can drastically narrow your search, potentially excluding qualified candidates altogether. Balance is key to ensuring you capture the right talent without overly restricting your results.

The AND command tells your database to find only those resumes that contain both terms listed. For example, if you are looking for a specific engineer with a specific software skill, you could search for:

(“Piping engineer” AND PDMS)

("Mechanical Engineer" AND "FEED" AND "Detail Design" AND "PMC" AND "EPCM")

Exclude CVs with NOT

In some cases, additional clarity is needed to tailor your search to a specific industry or job requirement. The NOT operator in Boolean search allows you to exclude CVs that do not align with your role, helping you filter out candidates who are not a good fit.

For example, to locate piping engineers but exclude specific software skills, thus exclude those CVs from cluttering your results page use: (PDMS NOT S3D) AND “piping engineer”

Combine Terms with Quotation Marks “”

Many job openings require more than a single keyword to define them. Thankfully, Boolean search enables you to group words together using quotation marks. By placing multiple words within quotation marks e.g: “HSE Manager”, you instruct the database to treat the entire phrase as a single term. This ensures more precise results tailored to your search.

For example, the oil and gas industry has a tendency to use a lot of abbreviations. To find someone with specific experience or a particular license, you may try to find someone by searching for:

(topside OR topsides OR “top side” OR “top sides” OR “top-side” OR “top-sides” OR platform OR platforms OR whp)

Enhance Your Search with Wildcards (*)

Wildcards, represented by an asterisk (*), are a powerful tool in Boolean search that help broaden your results by including variations of a root word. In the oil and gas industry, wildcards (*) can help you capture variations of industry-specific terms, ensuring you don’t miss relevant candidates.

For example:

Searching for engineer** will return results like engineer, engineering, or engineered.

Searching for drill** could include drill, drilling, or drilled.

Searching for technician** might pull up technician, technicians, or technical.

This is especially useful in industries like oil and gas, where terminology often includes diverse forms of the same root word. Wildcards save time and improve your chances of finding qualified candidates by broadening your search without compromising precision.

Need to use more than one? Don’t forget the parentheses

Start Broad, Then Refine

Sometimes, it’s best to begin your search with a broader scope and gradually add qualifications to uncover a comprehensive list of quality, relevant candidates. Keep in mind that Boolean reads queries strictly from left to right. If your search string includes multiple operators or symbols, the results can become unpredictable or overly broad. Think of Boolean like solving an algebra problem: it processes from left to right but prioritizes the terms within parentheses first. Planning your query structure carefully ensures accurate and meaningful results.

Watch this video to see the use of Boolean Operators on the Oil and Gas CV database