Searching the CV database
To search for candidates you can use simple terms, phrases or Boolean logic for more granular control of the results. These features are described below.
Simple Terms
A simple term is a single word. To search for simple terms enter one or more words into the search box and click ‘Search Candidates’. The database will search CV texts for all of the words entered and will return matching candidates ordered by relevancy. The ‘score’ column displays the relevancy score of each candidate, according to the search terms entered. See the sidebar for more information on the relevancy score. The case of the terms (i.e. upper-case or lower-case) does not matter. Some examples of simple terms are:
Salesforce OTE Glasgow
Phrases
A phrase is comprised of more than one word enclosed in double quotes. The database will search CV texts for the exact phrase entered. Note that the search is still case in-sensitive: A lowercase version of the phrase will also constitute a successful match.
Phrases can be used anywhere that a simple term can be used. Some examples of phrases are:
“product development”
“account manager”
Wildcards
Wildcards allow you to tell the database to search for variations in a term or a phrase, without running multiple searches or using Boolean logic. For example to find candidates who have the word
‘Accountant’ in their CVs you can search for accountant
But to find people who have Accountant or Accountancy in their CV you could use a wildcard and search instead for
accountan*
Note that wildcards work equally well within phrases. For example this search query:
“account manage*”
would return all candidates whose CVs contain the phrase “account manager” or “account management”
Note that wildcards can be applied to the middle or the end of a word or phrase. Search terms and phrases cannot start with a *
Using multiple terms and phrases
To search for multiple terms or phrases, use the phrase AND between the terms/phrases that you want to find. You can freely mix and match terms and phrases:
Sales AND “new business” AND outbound AND “top performer”
The database will return candidates whose CVs contain all of the terms and phrases entered
Boolean logic
Note that the Boolean operators AND OR and NOT must be entered in uppercase.
Boolean logic is a more sophisticated way of querying the database. It can be used to construct highly-customised search criteria, describing precisely which terms and phrases are most important to you in your search for suitable candidates.
The clearest style to use is the words AND OR and NOT in your search query, optionally using parentheses to denote the exact groupings desired:
(“business development” OR “account manager”) AND (medical OR healthcare)
The word NOT can be used to suppress candidates whose CV contains the negated terms or phrases from being returned in a search.
The NOT operator is very broad and can cause significant numbers of results to be eliminated from your results. It may therefore be preferable to focus on terms and phrases which do match your search, and then refining your results using groupings, relevancy weightings and other search features, rather than using NOT excessively to eliminate candidates from consideration based on terms which happen to appear in their CVs.