Boolean logic will always captivate me. The art of manipulating a search string to retrieve results will never get old.
Our use of Boolean commands has certainly changed over the years. We may not be spending hours each day refining our search and combing through thousands of results. Boolean cheat sheets now seem archaic. Memorising search strings have been replaced by SourceHub, RecruitEm and Hiretual.
This isn’t to say that “Boolean” is inevitably dying. As Glen Cathey has repeatedly stated, “George Boole is dead, not Boolean.”
Learning and using Boolean commands to search is one of the fundamental concepts of a great sourcer. Each day, other curious sourcers from around the world ask for help building search strings. The creativity and the uniqueness behind each search is fascinating.
Take a look at the favourite search strings from some of the top women in sourcing. Use the comment section to share your favourite search string.
Alicia Priselac
The best thing to do is use a search engine to find LinkedIn profiles. For languages, use their terms, also, it appears LinkedIn uses “Chinese” vs “Mandarin” (at least Chinese is available via the language dropdown box and Mandarin isn’t). Using the terms to describe fluency that LinkedIn offers its users to select, you can build the following string:
site:uk.linkedin.com/in chinese (“professional working proficiency” OR “full professional proficiency” OR “native or bilingual proficiency”) “creative director” (she OR her OR sorority)
Tangie Pettis
This is my favourite search because Steve Levy reminded that “less is more” when it comes to Boolean. This simple search string returned almost 3,000 leads with contact information. It’s exciting to run it daily and find what’s out there BEFORE it is realised by the publisher that the document is not behind a firewall.
Instagram has 600 million users and a user base 2.5 times more active than LinkedIn’s, and it gives you an insight into people’s interests, which is great for starting a conversation and being human. I’ve found such a diverse range of people with all manner of skills on there over the years and, the best part, is that you can message nearly everyone on there for free! #BeHuman
This string is a remix of one Shannon Pritchett shared some years ago at a conference that x-rays about.me.
This one finds people with a certain title and their email listed.
Generic
site:about.me “job title” “name of city” @emaildomain.com
site:about.me “job title” (@gmail.com OR @yahoo.com) Customized
site:about.me recruiter “los angeles” @gmail.com
site:about.me “graphic designer” (@gmail.com OR @yahoo.com)
Stacy Zapar
To help you determine the company’s email pattern. Once you know that pattern, you can simply plug in the prospect’s name and email them directly. And drive your response rate way up.
“email OR contact * * acme.com”
This article first appeared on EREMedia on the 19th of April, 2017.
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Shannon Pritchett is the editor of SourceCon. As a lifelong student in the recruitment industry, Shannon is passionate about improving it. Shannon has a diverse background in training, sourcing, international recruitment, full desk recruiting, coaching, and journalism. Shannon got her start in the recruitment industry at Vanderbilt University and later worked as a Senior Recruiter for Internal Data Resources and Community Health Systems, Social Media Recruitment Ambassador for T-Mobile USA, Director of Recruiting for Moxy, Trainer with AIRS, and last as a Manager of Global Sourcing and Training for ManpowerGroup Solutions RPO.
Thanks for sharing . It is very helpful for me and also informative for all those users who will come to read.