This is a guest post from Freddie Chirgwin-Bell. Working as Marketing & Communications Executive at Morgan Jones, as part of our Recruiting Weekly Series. Freddie shares his thoughts on how to get the best results from your candidate searches.
Candidates. They can be elusive creatures. It can sometimes take a lot of time to find a really good quality candidate that you need.
The usual process goes like this; search CV database, look at CVs, and pick one. The first two steps are the hardest and most time-consuming parts.
However, this article is going to focus on that first step – searching for CVs. Or, more accurately, how to search better.
Because, let’s face it, if you get the first bit right, then the rest of it becomes so much easier.
Boolean – a funny name for a useful tool
Whenever you search for something on the internet you put in your keyword or phrase and then hit enter.
However, if you need to find something specific, there is a way of making sure you better your chances of getting a result.
If you are searching for multiple smaller pieces of information together, using these Boolean “shortcuts” will make your life so much easier.
Boolean is a structured search process that helps you to tailor your search, giving you greater control over your results.
This works by using particular instructions such as AND, OR, and NOT to create a more advanced and specific search.
By using these particular “shortcuts”, you can get better results each and every time. You can also use this with almost every single kind of search engine.
So how does Boolean search work?
You can tailor your search by using operator terms, which are words and punctuation, such as: AND, OR, ” ” or *. These can be used in dozens of ways and combinations so that you can get accurate, precise results through targeted specific search.
Here’s how to use some of the basic commands to help your recruitment search.
AND and OR
These are the big two. The Salt and Pepper. The Fish and Chips. They go together; that’s just a fact.
The best way to think of this is logically. If you’re after a new marketer and need social media experience, you could put:
Marketing AND Social Media
This means both of those words have to appear on a person’s CV or profile for it to appear. But if you’re not particularly fussed about social media, you can put:
Marketing OR Social Media
That means that if just one of those words appears in the CV, then it will appear on your search.
These Boolean phrases are the backbone to chaining together your search criteria so that you can truly narrow down to the best candidates quickly.
It’s also powerful for looking for specific qualifications. If there is more than one accredited body that you could use to find qualified professionals, then using the OR phrase works wonders, i.e., ACA OR ACCA OR CIMA (all accountancy qualifications) or even education levels BA OR BSc OR MA OR MSc.
NOT
Sometimes you’re not looking to include something but instead, exclude something.
For example, if you’re after, say, a marketer but are not after a social media marketing, you could put:
Marketing NOT Social Media
This means that it will look for the first phrase but exclude any and all results with the second phrase. NOT can be really quite powerful as it helps rapidly narrow down candidates’ experience.
Accounts NOT Bookkeeping is another search that can be useful if you are looking for an accountant but keep getting bookkeepers.
Quotation marks – ” “
If you are after someone with a very specific job title or piece of experience, then quotation marks are your best friend. Using something like “Marketing Executive” or “Social Media Manager” will get you only those who have used that exact phrase in their CV.
Be warned, though, you need to double-check your spelling, as if you misspell it inside the quotes, your results won’t happen. This is to find exact matches to any word or phrase. It’s great for finding highly specific terms or job roles to help qualify for that experience factor.
Asterisk – *
Let’s say you want an administrator for a role. If you use the asterisk against the word (like this Admin*), it will return everything that begins with ‘Admin’, for example, Administrators and Administrative Assistants.
The same thing can be done with account* for an accountant or accounting assistant to appear in the search results.
If you’re after something that might have a lot of variables in the name, then the asterisk is the way to make sure you catch them all.
Another great example is manag*. This may seem daft on the surface, but putting that search parameter would return results such as Manager, Managed, Managing, Managerial, and more.
One search – multiple possibilities.
Brackets – ( )
The final Boolean parameter in your little crash course is the brackets. This is where we start venturing into advanced territory.
Brackets help you chain Boolean searches together. Meaning this, along with everything above, will help you to make sure you are really narrowing down your search to only those select candidates who qualify.
An example of this would be:
Marketing AND (Social Media OR Search) AND (CIM OR IDM)
This gives you the ability to truly pick out all of the best people for the role in a single search.
Wrapping Up
I’ve obviously just flown through the basics of Boolean searching. However, this is a fine art, which, once practised and mastered, will mean you are able to find better quality candidates quicker, easier, and more effectively.
Mastering Boolean will save you time, effort, brain power, and an abundance of headaches further down the road.
Please do experiment using these in your CV database or any of the job boards you may have access to. This will provide a huge benefit and boost to your daily practice and save you so much time.
Author Bio:
Freddie is the Marketing & Communications Executive at Morgan Jones. He is dedicated to creating informative, clear, and actionable content that truly adds value and helps people. You can connect with him on LinkedIn
