How To Source Candidates Using Google Boolean Search

What if I tell you that you can search and source candidates using google search? In fact, it is one of the effective ways to find hidden candidates especially when you are hiring for niche skills.

Majority of people use google for regular search. You open google. You type what you are looking for. And you have your results. But when you follow the same steps to find resumes, you don’t get any. For example, if you search for “Full stack developer resume”, you may just get random sample resumes or few templates of resumes. You probably won’t get any resumes whatsoever. So, what is it that you are not doing right? Well, if you are a recruiter and you are searching for resumes, then you need to use what is known as google boolean search strings. It is also called as google Xray search.

What Is Google Boolean Search ?

Google boolean search allows you to use boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT, etc) along with your search strings or phrase. It helps you widen or narrow your search. Meaning, you need not have to go through all search results that are thrown by search engine and you can focus only on what you are looking for.

Going back to the same example from initial passage; if you are looking for a full stack developer in Palo Alto within 5 miles range of zip code 94303, you can very well do that.

Boolean search strings for recruiters can work like a magic and can help them get resumes of candidates that may not be easily available.

Also, boolean search is not limited to google, you can very well use it on other search engines such as Bing.

Here is an example, if you want to find information on HR technology on LinkedIn platform, your boolean search query would look like below -

How Recruiters Can Use Boolean Search To Find Candidates

As mentioned earlier, using boolean commands along with search strings can help you narrow down your search. Below are few examples that will illustrate the use of boolean operators.

If you are looking for a Ruby On Rails developer on GitHub for New York location then your boolean search string would look like below

There are plenty boolean operators that can help you in finding resumes of candidates. However, you would need to practice it as much to get better results of it.

What Are The Challenges In Using Boolean Strings Search

Although it could turn like a one of the great candidate sourcing strategies it has its own challenges. While you may go on adding multiple boolean operators to narrow down your search results, you could end up loosing on some relevant results too.

There could be some false positives too. For example, you may find the name of the city in the resume that you thought candidate was currently working, but it could a place where candidate had finished his or her graduation.

Also, you may end up getting multiple resumes, but then you would also need to download and screen those resumes. But, if you use technology to support automated candidate sourcing or resume screening then it could turn out to be a huge plus for you.

You could get better and smart with boolean search. As they say “Practice makes man perfect”, you need to practice google boolean search to get most out of google search.