For example, if you were looking for a candidate with either sales or admin experience, but they had to be good with excel, you would benefit from using the following search string: (sales OR admin) AND “excel”.Īlternatively, if you were looking for a project manager who has a background in either construction or engineering, you would benefit from using Boolean search strings like this: “Project Manager” AND (construction OR engineer).Īdvanced Boolean searches can be extremely beneficial when hiring for niche positions, or if you are looking for candidates with a very specific skill-set. This will retrieve CVs that contain admin and one of the keywords used in the brackets.įor more complicated Boolean search strings, you could use a combination of the Boolean commands mentioned above. Brackets – for example, admin AND (“customer service” or sales).If you don’t use speech marks, your search will return CVs from candidates who have included these words separately. This will retrieve any CVs containing the key phrase Marketing Assistant. Speech marks – for example, “Marketing Assistant”.This will retrieve CVs containing the keyword sales, but NOT marketing. NOT – for example, sales NOT marketing.This will retrieve any CVs containing the keywords sales OR marketing. This will retrieve any CVs containing the keywords sales AND marketing. AND – for example, sales AND marketing.There is a range of simple Boolean search strings and operators that you can use to filter out the most relevant candidates: This means that you’re presented with only the most relevant candidates.īelow, we’ll talk you through the different types of Boolean search strings that you can use to improve your chances of proactively finding the best talent. By combining keywords and phrases within the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT, “speech marks” and (brackets), you are able to limit, widen or define your search.