Boolean Search Tips can help you better target the information you seek!
Are you a job seeker or entrepreneur? Do you need some stellar Boolean search tips? Do you even know what that is or how to do it?
Are you wanting to do a targeted search for someone or something on LinkedIn or the Internet? These stellar Boolean search tips are sure to help!
George Boole lived in the 19th century, and he was a mathematician, philosopher, and logician who developed a form of logic.
This tool uses the words (in caps) AND, OR, or NOT along with keywords like names, titles, and companies, and it can be used to search on the Internet in modern times, including LinkedIn.
SEARCH ON LINKEDIN
If you want to glom together two or more words, make sure you keep them in quotes. Below are some examples.
“Sales Manager” AND “Real Estate”
“Sales Manager” AND Realtor
“Sales Manager” AND “Real Estate” OR Realtor
“Sales Manager” OR “Regional Manager” AND “Residential Real Estate NOT “New Construction”
SEARCH ON GOOGLE FOR SOMEONE ON LINKEDIN
LinkedIn currently has a limit of 100 searches per week, so you might have to resort to searching on Google for the site of LinkedIn. Below is a more complex search you can do on Google.
site:linkedin.com/in (“greater philadelphia area” OR “greater new york city area”) AND (R&D AND VP OR “vice president” AND “johnson & johnson” OR “johnson and johnson” OR “j and j” OR “j & j” OR j&j)
TIPS FOR JOB SEEKERS – UNEMPLOYED OR EMPLOYED
If you are an unemployed job seeker, you can put the following in your About section. If you are employed but seeking a new opportunity, you can include the words below under a previous job.
Seeking new opportunity. #opentowork #ONO (which stands for open to new opportunity)
KEYWORDS ARE ESSENTIAL
LinkedIn is a database of information, so if you want to get found in searches, you need to ensure you have keywords in your profile.
The sections I target for keywords are the headline, About section, and Skills section, and I also suggest embellishing job titles (up to 100 characters).
Additionally, consider keywords in the Projects and Publications sections if you have them.
THINK LIKE GOOGLE
What would you type in Google if you were looking for someone?
Would you type Owner OR President of ABC Website Design, or would you type website design OR website developer as general terms, basically since you have never heard of ABC Website Design before?
If you are a business owner, your title and company name should go in your experience section, but not your headline.
You want to use keywords in your headline, and add a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and then check it with a tool like Sharethrough, which you will find in my LinkedIn newsletter article.
THINK LIKE A RECRUITER OR TALENT ACQUISITION
You might want to read these articles by SHRM, TalentLyft, and Entelo on how someone in talent acquisition searches for candidates. Then, you can reverse engineer your LinkedIn profile on how you want to be found.
THINK LIKE “YOU” AS A JOB SEEKER
Instead of visiting job boards or LinkedIn jobs, you can also Google terms to find jobs that match what you are seeking, like in the example below.
nonprofit AND “servant leadership” AND management jobs in and around Philadelphia, PA
OTHER BOOLEAN TERMS AND SYMBOLS
When using an asterisk (*), you can get different word forms, as the asterisk acts as a wild card. For example, “recruit*” might turn up recruit, recruiter, recruiters, recruiting, recruited
When using a double asterisk (**), it will turn up all forms of a particular word in different tenses. An example of “sell**” might turn up sell, selling, sold, etc.
There are other Boolean operators for computer scientists, but we will keep this topic focused to the average searcher.
So hopefully, you will give these BOOlean search tips a BOO-yah and not BOOhoo, and they will lead you to your BOOmtown!
NEXT STEPS
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AUTHOR BIO
Lynne M. Williams is the Executive Director of the Great Careers Network, a volunteer-run 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that provides career education and networking connections for 1) job seekers in career transition, including veterans, and 2) employed and self-employed for career management. She is also the President of ChemPharma.net and runs a Clubhouse session every Friday at 11 AM ET in the Thought Leadership Branding Club.
Aside from writing keyword-focused content for ATS resumes and LinkedIn profiles, Lynne is currently writing her doctoral dissertation on LinkedIn for Job Seekers. She is a contributing author on “Applying to Positions” in Find Your Fit: A Practical Guide to Landing the Job You Love along with the late Dick Bolles, the author of What Color is Your Parachute?, and is also a speaker on career topics.
This article is also published on: vista.today, montco.today, delco.today, bucksco.today, and in the author’s LinkedIn newsletter. A list of articles can also be found in a Google doc.
