Boolean search
Boolean search is a way of searching candidate databases, job boards and the wider web by combining keywords with AND, OR and NOT, quoted phrases and brackets. Recruiters use it to build precise searches such as ("payroll manager" OR "payroll lead") AND CIPP NOT trainee.
Each operator does one job. AND narrows: both terms must appear. OR widens: either term will do, which is how synonyms and alternative job titles are covered. NOT excludes, and a leading minus sign often does the same. Quotation marks keep a phrase together, so "account manager" does not match every profile containing the word account. Brackets control the order, and without them most search engines read the string in a way the recruiter did not intend.
The skill is in the OR groups. A good string anticipates the ways the same person describes the same job: developer, engineer, programmer; FD, finance director, head of finance. Recruiters also use X-ray searches, which run a Boolean string through a general search engine with a site: operator to find public profiles on a particular website.
A worked example. A search for Java developers in Leeds, written as java AND developer AND leeds, misses engineers, anyone who wrote West Yorkshire, and people who list Spring but not Java. A better string is (java OR spring) AND (developer OR engineer) AND (leeds OR "west yorkshire") NOT (graduate OR junior). It is longer and returns fewer irrelevant results.
Boolean is still worth learning where search tools accept plain language. It is precise in a way natural language is not: a recruiter can see exactly why a profile matched and change one term to widen or narrow the result. It is also portable. The same string, with small changes, runs on job boards, on professional networks and through a general search engine, so a well-built string for a role is worth saving and reusing on the next one.
Where it goes wrong: too many ANDs, which returns nothing; no brackets, which returns nonsense; strings that assume everyone uses the same job title; and relying on Boolean alone, which only finds people who used the right words. A candidate whose CV describes the work without naming it will never appear.
How Vayora handles it
Type a Boolean query into the candidates search and Vayora recognises the syntax and runs it as Boolean: AND, OR, NOT, a leading minus, quoted phrases and brackets, with unbalanced quotes or brackets closed rather than failing. Matching is by substring, so go also matches golang, which is the forgiving behaviour most sourcing tools use. The role's Source tab also has a must, should and must-not editor. When a role is created, Vayora generates ready-to-paste strings from its criteria, one set for your own database and one as a LinkedIn X-ray for a web search engine, each checked by the parser so it runs as written.
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