I define E-sourcing as leveraging information systems for active talent identification – searching the Internet, social media, job board resume databases, and applicant tracking systems to find candidates. The proper use of technology in the sourcing and recruiting process should increase your efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness.  I’ve created the SlideShare presentation below to cover a number of different ways for you to maximize your ability to find more of the right people more quickly, to accelerate and enable your recruiting efforts.

Click on the presentation below to review:

• Boolean operators and common query modifiers
• Searching LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook
• X-Ray searching Social Media
• Search automation and aggregation
• Semantic search: manual and artificial intelligence matching solutions
• Search ROI – a comparison of the searchability and data depth of the Internet, Social Media, Resume Databases, and ATSs
• Talent Warehouse concepts

If you read certain sourcing and recruiting blogs and discussion groups, you might get the impression that Boolean search pretty much equals Internet search - such as searching for people and profiles using Google, Yahoo, or other search engines. Some sourcing and recruiting professionals may be surprised to learn that Boolean logic significantly predates the Internet and even computers – by a couple hundred years!

The word “Boolean” comes from the man who invented Boolean Logic in the 19th century – George Boole. Boolean Logic is the basis of modern computer logic, and George Boole is regarded in hindsight as one of the founders of the field of computer science.

Now that you know Boolean logic was created in the 1800’s – it’s pretty obvious that Boolean logic is not just for searching for people and information on the Internet. Practically any information system from which you need to search and retrieve information from “speaks” Boolean to some extent, whether you realize it or not. 

Applicant Tracking Systems

I was first exposed to Boolean search back in 1997 B.G. (Before Google) when my sole source of candidates was a Lotus Notes resume database by the name of CPAS, made by VCG. Although the CPAS product (which no longer exists) was far from a fully featured Applicant Tracking System, thankfully it did support full Boolean logic, with very few limitations. If it didn’t support full Boolean logic, this blog would probably would not exist – and if it did, I wouldn’t be writing it. Thank you CPAS!

The CPAS search interface allowed me to hand-code highly precise and effective Boolean search strings using all three standard Boolean operators: AND, OR, and NOT. While there are some applicant tracking systems on the market that do support full Boolean logic, it is an unfortunate fact that too many ATS’s available today do not support creating searches using full Boolean logic, which significantly handicaps sourcers and recruiters from leveraging their internal corporate candidate databases.

Job Boards

In contrast – all of the major job board resume databases (Monster, Careerbuilder, Hotjobs, Dice, etc.) support full Boolean logic. As I have written about many times before, Monster even supports “extended” Boolean search functionality with the incredibly powerful NEAR operator.

Social Networks

While most social networks are painfully difficult to search with their extremely limited search interfaces, LinkedIn does support creating search strings employing full Boolean logic. In fact, it appears that you can create Boolean search strings of unprecedented length and complexity on LinkedIn. If you haven’t already, please read this post I wrote that compares searching LinkedIn using LinkedIn’s search interface with searching Linkedin using Google and the x-ray technique. I got tired of entering words into LinkedIn’s search bar after cramming 316,638 characters into it. That’s the equivalent of a Boolean search string that contains over 60,000 words and is approximately 120 pages long!

Internet Search

What’s especially ironic about the wide spread perception that Boolean = Internet search is that most Internet search engines don’t even support full Boolean logic. For example, although Google supports Boolean search strings containing AND, OR, and NOT (with the minus sign) functionality, you cannot use the NOT/- operator on an OR statement.

Let’s look at the results when we try and run this search string on Google:

(inurl:resume | intitle:resume) “business analyst” (requirement | requirements) -(job OR jobs OR sample)

According to the Boolean logic of the search, we should not have any results with the words “job,” “jobs,” or “sample.” Here is a screenshot the first page results – you can easily see that the search is actually returning results with the words sample, job, and jobs, defying the Boolean logic of the search string.

Google also does not allow users to create searches with the following logic:

(cfa AND analyst) OR (mba AND marketing)

That search, according to the Boolean logic, should not return any results that mentions of CFA and analyst as well as mentions of MBA and marketing – they should be mutually exclusive.  Let’s see what Google does with it:

As you can see, Google once again defies the Boolean logic of the search, returning results that mention 1 or more  terms from both sides of the OR operator. You could of course simply split the single (cfa AND analyst) OR (mba AND marketing) search into two separate searches, but the point is that you should not have to, and you would not have to if Google actually adhered to basic Boolean logic. 

In case you’re curious – Yahoo and Ask also do not properly execute the (cfa AND analyst) OR (mba AND marketing) search as the Boolean logic of the query dictates. However, MS Live does in fact does execute the search properly. Click here to see for yourself.

Search String Length

However – not all is perfect in MS Live Search land. MS Live apparently limits searches to a maximum of 10 search terms.  I’ve read this on several sites and decided to try and test it just to make sure it was accurate. When creating searches on MS Live, I could definintely type in more than 10 search terms into my searches and the searches ran, but I routinely could not find search terms beyond the 10th search term in my search string in my results. So while Live Search supports full Boolean logic, you cannot create search strings of anything beyond basic complexity due to the extremely low limit on the number of search terms it will actually process.

Google isn’t much better with regard to the number of search terms you can include and execute in a search – Google limits you to 32 words.

Unlike MS Live, at least Google had the manners to tell me it was ignoring some of my search terms. While 32 words might seem like a lot of search terms, as a comparison, Monster allows you up to 400 characters (including spaces) in its search bar, which can often mean you can create Boolean search strings with nearly DOUBLE Google’s limit of 32 search terms. And yes, there are times when you will want (and actually NEED) to create search strings with 60 search terms to target highly precise and relevant results.

Exalead

Like MS Live Search, Exaleadis a search engine that does support full Boolean search functionality. In fact, when it comes to Boolean searching, Exalead trumps MS Live and even Monster’s search capability by supporting configurable proximity searching. However, for all of its search power, Exalead does not appear to index nearly as many pages/sites as any of the “major” search engines (Google, Live, Yahoo, Ask), so for now Exalead must be relegated to the ”minor” search engine category. 

Conclusion

If you don’t have access to a major job board resume database or an applicant tracking system that supports Boolean search, or you don’t search LinkedIn using Boolean search strings, or you are completely new to sourcing and recruiting – then perhaps I can understand why you might think that Boolean search is synonymous with Internet search.

However, the cat’s out of the bag – George Boole invented Boolean logic back in the 1800’s, LONG before the invention of computers and the Internet. Also, you’ve now seen that the “all mighty” Google doesn’t even support full Boolean logic searching – among major Internet search engines, only MS Live can claim to do that. And there are certainly many other resources you can use that do support full Boolean logic that don’t limit you to 10 or even 32 search terms – such as the major job board resume databases, some applicant tracking systems, and LinkedIn.

So when it comes to Boolean search, it is perhaps a more correct statement to say that Internet search = limited and conditional Boolean search.

Basic Boolean Operators Explained

No, those aren’t my hands. I never cease to be amazed by what you can find on the Internet and what people take pictures of.

Now that I have your attention, this post is going to focus on the basic Boolean operators and search symbols and will not go into any detail of any of the special Internet-only search commands/operators. Although a great many people seem to think that Boolean = Internet search, Boolean logic and searching has been around WAY before the Internet. And here’s a quick fact: you don’t have to capitalize Boolean operators on any of the major job boards and many of the major ATS’s. Go ahead – try it. Nothing will explode and your searches will execute.

And now, back to the Boolean basics…

AND

The AND operator limits your search – it should be used for targeting required skills, experience, technologies, or titles you would like to limit your results to. Unless you are searching for common words, with every AND you add to your Boolean query, the fewer results you will get.

Example: Java and Oracle and SQL and AJAX

OR

The OR operator typically broadens your search. Essentially, using an OR means ”at least one of/one or more.” OR statements need to be encapsulated by parentheses in order to execute properly.

Example: Java and Oracle and SQL and AJAX and (apache or weblogic or websphere)

The returned results must mention at least one of the following: apache, weblogic, websphere. However, if candidates mention 2 or all 3, they also will be returned, and some search engines will rank them as more relevant results because of such.

The best ways to use OR statements is #1 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”), and/or #2 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 weblogic or websphere).

ASTERISK *

The asterisk can be used on most resume databases and non-Internet search engines as a root word/stem/truncation search. 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.

For example: admin* will return: administrator, administration, administer, administered, etc.

The asterisk is a time saver for search engines that recognize it (most major job boards and ATS’s) because it saves you from creating long OR statements and having to think of every way a particular word can be expressed.

PARENTHESES ( )

Parentheses must be used to encapsulate OR statements for the search engines to execute them properly.

For example: (apache or weblogic or websphere)

If you don’t enclose all of your OR statements, your search may run but it will NOT run as intended.

QUOTATION MARKS ” “

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.

For 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.

Bonus: Google auto-stems every search term, so if you are looking specifically for the word manager, it will still return managed, management, etc. – even if you don’t want it to. If you put quotation marks on a single word in Google, it will defeat the auto-stemming feature and only return that specific word.

NOT

The NOT operator excludes specific search terms and will not return any results with that term (or terms) in them.

Example: If you were searching for an I.T. 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.  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.

On all of the major job boards and some ATS’s, you can use the NOT operator in conjuction with an OR statement.

Example: .Net and not (Java or JSP or J2EE) – that search will not return any results with any mention of Java, JSP, and/or J2EE.

Bonus: NOT has 2 main uses
#1 Excluding words you do not want to retrieve to reduce false positive results (most common usage)
#2 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)

For example:
Search #1 “Project Manager” and SQL and Spanish
Search #2 “Project Manager” and SQL and not Spanish
Search #3 “Project Manager” and not SQL and Spanish

In the near future, I will be writing posts reviewing the search operators and symbols of the major Internet search engines, as well as powerful extended Boolean operators and functionality. Check back often or simply subscribe to my feed.

If there is something you would like to see me post about with regard to Boolean logic and search tactics and strategies – let me know. Thanks!