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1 Free Mini ebook with excerpts from the book, "The Boolean Book for Sourcers and Recruiters featuring iprobe (Integrated Power Recruiting One, Boolean Enabled)" Mini ebook Introduction of The Boolean Book for Sourcers and Recruiters featuring iprobe (Integrated Power Recruiting One, Boolean Enabled) by John Childs, MSEE, BSEE, CIR (video presentation) **** To print this document you'll need legal size paper (8 ½ x 14 inch) and print in Landscape format. COPYRIGHT 2013 by John A. Childs. All rights reserved. In the past when I've taught classes on Boolean recruiting, I would start by going over what AND & OR do when putting together a Boolean search string. Almost every time I would look at my audience and see eyes rolling as if to say, "yeah, yeah, we've seen this before and we know all about AND's & OR's". Yawn. But when I put up a slide with a req/job description and asked them to write the Boolean search string that would find candidates for this req, that is when like pulling down a window shade, a glaze would come over their faces and I knew I had lost my audience. I would plow ahead and continue my teaching, but my audience had already put their minds into 'Park' and pulled up the emergency brake. Frustrating, because I wanted these sourcers and recruiters to "get it". It s a book. It's a workbook. In addition to being a book, this will also be a workbook. You will be given a variety of Boolean search examples and asked to answer multiple choice questions. You'll start with a "budget" resume database consisting of 3 resumes. Then you'll write 3 word Boolean search strings to select one or more of these 3 resumes. It is much easier to grasp these concepts if you do hands- on practical (and fun) exercises each step of the way

2 Speed anyone? This book is about using Boolean to accelerate the recruiting speed and accuracy of sourcers and recruiters. This works with either Google, Indeed.com, or LinkedIn Recruiter or some other paid job board or free web site. In fact, anytime you access a database of any kind, whether it is realized or not, it will be using some form of Boolean. Recruiting System) and also to recognized individual experts such as Shally Steckerl, Irina Shamaeva Glenn Thayer, and others. However, it's very important to remember that these techniques and strategies do need a knowledge of Boolean for optimum power and efficiency! Enhances finding hidden directories, flipping & x- raying too! Here you won't find a big focus on using x- raying, flipping, and other sophisticated tricks and techniques on how to find hidden directories, or other complicated and esoteric techniques on how to find those passive candidates. I leave that to companies such as AIRS (Advanced Internet Starting in the basement Trust me when I tell you that as we move through this book, we are going to move very slowly and very simply. Instead of saying we are going to start on the "bottom floor" and work our way up, we're going to start in the basement! We will begin by dedicating a section, one- by- one, to each of the following Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT, Wild Card Asterisk (*) and Parentheses ( ).

3 Excerpts from Chapter 1 Starting in the Basement: The 'Budget' Database Instead of starting on the ground floor explaining Boolean, we are going to start real basic in the basement and work our way up from there. Imagine yourself in a boat holding a fishing pole with a line in the water and bait on the end of your line. Because you are on the surface of the water you can't see the millions of fish (it's a well- stocked pond) swimming around beneath you. To catch a fish you but some bait on the end of your line and when a fish bites, you pull it up and bring it to the surface. Resume fish Resume fish

4 When searching for resumes in Google, LinkedIn Recruiter, Indeed.com, and Monster. We use terms like "surfacing a resume" or "pulling up a resume". The "bait" we use is the key search words we enter into the database. If the bait is right, we catch resumes, pull them up [pulling up a resume], and bring them up to the surface [surfacing a resume out of a resume database].. Boolean Operators: AND, OR, NOT, Quotation Marks & Parentheses [rules first, exceptions later] The "pond" we will be using is not as well stocked as the one mentioned above because our pond only has 3 resumes in it, hence the classification of 'Budget Database', however, this is how we are going to learn how to fish for resumes. We are going to pull resumes out of our three resume database 'pond' using AND, OR, NOT, and Parentheses. We'll start with AND first. About 'AND': This bait, Senior Technical Recruiter, will 'catch' ANY resume that has ALL 3 words on their resume in ANY order. So if we look at Resume #1 it will be pulled up because it has ALL 3 of the bait words. Same for Resume #2 and Resume #3. Below are nonsense words (actually Latin) to give you a visual / spatial picture of keywords scattered about resumes. Resume #1: John Doe Eum ad duis vivendo. Ei offendit lobortis ius, an vel veniam partem. Adhuc libris quo ut. His et tritani labores I have five years experience as a Senior Technical Recruiter admodum, eruditi hendrerit eu qui, ea nec Resume #2: Richard Roe Elephant Ex aeque periculis abhorreant eum, dicam My daughter is a Senior in high school and she wants to get into a Technical field so she has been talking to an Army Recruiter. iudico Resume #3: Joe Boe Ea elitr iudico corrumpit vis. Alii I am an electrical engineer and I've been having a tough time finding a job as an engineer, so I'm going to get some advice from a friend of mine who is a Senior Technical Recruiter at XYZ Company verterem ut

5 As an exercise the reader can enter either Yes or No in the blank spaces as shown below. Resumes Selected ("Surfaced" or "Pulled Up") Exercise Number Boolean Search Strings #1 - John Doe #2 Richard Roe #3 Joe Boe 1-01 Senior AND Technical AND Recruiter Yes Yes Yes 1-02 Recruiter AND Senior Yes Yes Yes 1-03 Technical AND Senior Yes Yes Yes 1-04 Senior AND Technical AND Recruiter AND Elephant 1-05 Recruiter AND Elephant 1-06 Recruiter So the fisherman pulls up three fish on one cast. He looks at each and throws #2 and #3 back into the pond because neither of these are resumes of a Senior Technical Recruiter. The hit rate for good resumes was only 33% or one out of three. For me, this is very good bait. There is a good reason why I would be happy with a 33% hit rate. This example is a very, very good illustration as to why Boolean searching is not an exact science. You can come up with what you think are the best key words possible for a search and, as in this case, pull up resumes that are not a fit, so you have to throw some back into the "pond". The alternative is to read a million resumes in a resume database I didn't think you would have the time. So now pulling up and keeping one out of every three resumes doesn't seem so bad. In fact it's a great deal! Now let's change the "bait" the following key words: Senior AND Technical AND Recruiter AND Elephant Resume #1 has to have ALL four key words in order to be selected. The word 'Elephant' is not found anywhere on Resume #1 and therefore that resume is not surfaced or pulled out of our database, even though Resume #1 does have the 3 words of Senior, Technical, & Recruiter. The same is true of Resume #2 and Resume #3. Our "bait" didn't work as a search string because it pulled up zero resumes.

6 Boolean searching is a 50% intuitive and 50% analytical thought process. But if you are searching a resume database with a million resumes, the alternative is to go through and read a million resumes! If you did this you would always have a 100% hit rate, but it would take you a while to get there. Boolean is best!! Just for this example the bait key words, Senior Technical Recruiter, will pull up or surface the same resumes as if the bait key words were Senior AND Technical AND Recruiter. The resume fish think these two baits are the same. When you use Senior Technical Recruiter, it is understood / implied that 'AND' is between these three words: Senior AND Technical AND Recruiter. Senior Technical Recruiter = Senior AND Technical AND Recruiter As stated before, ALL resumes have to have ALL three on them for them to be selected. At this point, the words can appear in any order which means that Recruiter AND Technical AND Senior would yield the same results as the previous string, so we can say: Senior Technical Recruiter = Recruiter Technical Senior = Senior AND Technical AND Recruiter = Recruiter AND Technical AND Senior In this AND example the words can be in any order. When we later discuss Quotation Marks, then the order of the key words does become important.but not for now. We will start calling the 'bait' what it really is and that is a Boolean search string.. About 'OR': When we connect key words with OR, it means that in order for a resume to be selected, each resume has to only have one of the key words on it. The resume can have more than one key word on it, but it must have at least one key word. Resume #1: John Doe Eum ad duis vivendo. Ei offendit lobortis ius, an vel veniam partem. Adhuc libris quo ut. His et tritani labores I have five years experience as a Senior Technical Recruiter admodum, eruditi Resume #2: Richard Roe Elephant Ex aeque periculis abhorreant eum, dicam My daughter is a Senior in high school and she wants to get into a Technical field so she has been talking to an Army Recruiter. iudico tacimates ne Resume #3: Joe Boe corrumpit vis. Alii I am an electrical engineer and I've been having a tough time finding a job as an engineer, so I'm going to get some advice from a friend of mine who is a Senior Technical Recruiter

7 As an exercise the reader can enter either Yes or No in the blank spaces as shown below. Exercise Number Boolean Search Strings Resumes Selected ("Surfaced" or "Pulled Up") #2 #1 - John #3 Joe Richard Doe Boe Roe 1-07 Senior OR Technical OR Recruiter Yes Yes Yes 1-08 Senior OR Technical OR Recruiter OR Elephant Yes Yes Yes 1-09 Senior AND Technical AND Recruiter AND Elephant No Yes No Recruiter OR Senior Recruiter OR Elephant Elephant Senior

8 About NOT: NOT is used at the end of a Boolean search strings when you want to EXCLUDE all resumes that have one or more of the keyword that follow the NOT. Resume #1: John Doe Eum ad duis vivendo. Ei offendit Airplane ius, an vel veniam partem. Adhuc libris quo ut. His et tritani labores I have five years experience as a Senior Technical Recruiter admodum, eruditi hendrerit eu qui, ea nec Resume #2: Richard Roe Elephant Ex aeque periculis abhorreant eum, dicam My daughter is a Senior in high school and she wants to get into a Technical field so she has been talking to an Army Recruiter. iudico tacimates ne eam. Nec Resume #3: Joe Boe Ea elitr iudico corrumpit vis. Alii I am an electrical engineer and I've been having a tough time finding a job as an engineer, so I'm going to get some advice from a friend of mine who is a Senior Technical Recruiter at XYZ Company verterem ut As an exercise the reader can enter either Yes or No in the blank spaces as shown below. Resumes Selected ("Surfaced" or "Pulled Up") Exercise Number Answers to Boolean Search String Exercises #1 - John Doe #2 Richard Roe #3 Joe Boe 1-14 Senior OR Technical OR Recruiter NOT Airplane No Yes Yes

9 Senior OR Technical OR Recruiter NOT Elephant Yes No Yes Senior AND Technical AND Recruiter NOT Bird Yes Yes Yes Technical AND Recruiter NOT Elephant Recruiter NOT Elephant Senior AND Techncial NOT Bird Senior NOT Elephant Recruiter NOT Recruiter

10 About Quotation Marks: When you put quotation marks around two or more key words, then the Boolean search string will only pull up resumes that ALL the key words in the SAME ORDER. For example, the phrase "Senior Technical Recruiter" would pull up Resumes #1 and #3. But if we change the order of the key words to "Recruiter Senior Technical" then none of our three resumes would be pulled out of our budget database because the phrase "Recruiter Senior Technical" does not appear anywhere on the three resumes. The two phrases were different and they don't match. Resume #1: John Doe Eum ad duis vivendo. Ei offendit lobortis ius, an vel veniam partem. Adhuc libris quo ut. His et tritani labores I have five years experience as a Senior Technical Recruiter admodum, eruditi hendrerit eu qui, ea nec Resume #2: Richard Roe Elephant Ex aeque periculis abhorreant eum, dicam My daughter is a Senior in high school and she wants to get into a Technical field so she has been talking to an Army Recruiter. iudico tacimates ne eam. Nec Resume #3: Joe Boe Ea elitr iudico corrumpit vis. Alii I am an electrical engineer and I've been having a tough time finding a job as an engineer, so I'm going to get some advice from a friend of mine who is a Senior Technical Recruiter at XYZ Company verterem ut

11 As an exercise the reader can enter either Yes or No in the blank spaces as shown below Enter your Yes / No answers below. Resumes Selected ("Surfaced" or "Pulled Up") Exercise Number Answers to Boolean Search String Exercises #1 - John Doe #2 Richard Roe #3 Joe Boe 1-22 "Senior Technical Recruiter" Yes Yes Yes 1-23 "Technical Recruiter Senior" No No No 1-24 "Senior Recruiter" No No No "Senior Technical" "Technical Recruiter" "Technical Recruiter Senior"

12 About The Wild Card Asterisk (*): In the card game of five card poker, the wild card can be used or substituted for any card in a deck of 52 cards. Let's say the Joker card is the wild card and you are dealt a hand with three Aces, the Joker, and the 2 card as shown below: Joker If you have 5 numbered cards in sequential order such as , in poker this is called a' Straight' and a highly likely winning hand. If you have a hand of Joker, the Joker can count as the 6 card. 2- Ace- Ace- Ace- Joker With this hand of cards, we want the Joker to be another Ace and now you hold a card hand of four Aces! Perhaps they call the card "wild" because it is unpredictable in revealing its chameleon identity that constantly is varying depending on the hand of cards you are holding. So in the Boolean world, the asterisk (*) is the "wild card". If I enter manage* by itself into a Boolean key word field, it will surface all resumes that have the first six letters of m- a- n- a- g- e followed by any other letters or numbers. For

13 this example, manag* would be used to pull up resumes that had managing, manage, manager, managers, and management on them. Key points about the asterisk and databases: a) not all resume databases allow or support the use of asterisks, for example, Monster does support the use of the asterisk, but as of this writing, LinkedIn Recruiter does not; and b) the asterisk is only used at the end of a word and not in the beginning or middle of a word..unless you are using Google which allows you to almost put it anywhere. More on this later. As we move up out of the "basement" into more advanced examples, you'll see that the asterisk can be a very handy and time- saving tool! Resume #1: John Doe Eum ad duis vivendo. Ei offendit lobortis ius, an vel veniam partem. Adhuc libris quo ut. His et tritani labores I have five years experience as a Senior Technical Recruiter admodum, eruditi hendrerit eu qui, ea nec Resume #2: Richard Roe Elephant Ex aeque periculis abhorreant eum, dicam My daughter is a Senior in high school and she wants to get into a Technical field so she has been talking to an Army Recruiter. iudico tacimates ne eam. Nec Resume #3: Joe Boe Ea elitr iudico corrumpit vis. Alii I am an electrical engineer and I've been having a tough time finding a job as an engineer, so I'm going to get some advice from a friend of mine who is a Senior Technical Recruiter at XYZ Company verterem ut As an exercise the reader can enter either Yes or No in the blank spaces as shown below Enter your Yes / No answers below. Resumes Selected ("Surfaced" or "Pulled Up") Exercise Number Boolean Search Strings #1 - John Doe #2 Richard Roe #3 Joe Boe 1-28 Technical* Yes Yes Yes 1-29 Tech* Yes Yes Yes

14 1-30 Tech*nical [valid in Google Search only] Not Valid Not Valid Not Valid 1-31 *Technical [valid in Google Search only] Not Valid Not Valid Not Valid Senior Tech* Senior AND Tech* Techni* Sen*

15 About Parentheses ( ): Parentheses are the key to pulling everything together. In the next chapter, we are going to really get into it and have a Blackberry Pie Baking Contest featuring parentheses, but that's for later. Here are our three resumes again: Resume #1: John Doe Eum ad duis vivendo. Ei offendit lobortis ius, an vel veniam partem. Adhuc libris quo ut. His et tritani labores I have five years experience as a Senior Technical Recruiter admodum, eruditi hendrerit eu qui, ea nec Resume #2: Richard Roe Elephant Ex aeque periculis abhorreant eum, dicam My daughter is a Senior in high school and she wants to get into a Technical field so she has been talking to an Army Recruiter. iudico tacimates ne eam. Nec Resume #3: Joe Boe Ea elitr iudico corrumpit vis. Alii I am an electrical engineer and I've been having a tough time finding a job as an engineer, so I'm going to get some advice from a friend of mine who is a Senior Technical Recruiter at XYZ Company verterem ut When we were looking for a Senior Technical Recruiter, we said it could be written as Senior AND Technical AND Recruiter or we could write our search string as Senior Technical Recruiter. There is another way we could have written it using Parentheses: (Senior) AND (Techncial) AND (Recruiter) The parentheses in the above example are really not necessary, but I want to set the form for when more than one keyword is inside each of these sets of parentheses. Within each set of parentheses, multiple keywords have to be

16 connected with OR's. The above example is easy because there is only ONE keyword within each set of parentheses: (Senior) AND (Techncial) AND (Recruiter) Boolean Bob Boolean Bob is the software behind all Boolean searching. When you enter a Boolean search string into a database such as LinkedIn Recruiter, Boolean Bob writes the search string on a piece of paper and holds it in his left hand. Next he looks at the first resume in the LinkedIn Recruiter database and holds it in his right hand. He looks at at the keywords connected by OR's in the first set of parentheses. If he finds one or more keywords anywhere on that resume, then he goes to the second set of parentheses and looks at its keywords and sees if he can find one or more of these keywords anywhere on the resume, if he does, he moves on to the third set of parentheses and repeats the process. Let's say that Boolean Bob is going down the line and checking to see that a resume has one or more of the keywords on it from each set of parentheses and the resume passes each inspection, then Boolean Bob 'pulls up' or 'surfaces' that resume from the LinkedIn Recruiter database. However if Boolean Bob gets to a resume that doesn't have matching keywords from each set of parentheses, the inspection process goes no further as the resume is rejected You'll be hearing much more about Boolean Bob.

17 Three New Resume Examples Again, in order for a search string to select a resume out of a database, ONE OR MORE keywords from EACH set of parentheses MUST be found on a resume in order for it to be pulled up. This will be demonstrated by the three new example resumes shown below of Delilah Doe, Rose Roe, and Betty Boe (coincidentally, these are the resumes of the wives of John, Richard, and Joe respectively). Resume #4: Delilah Doe Ex putent eruditi eos, vel solet sanctus quaers endum at, Manager Human Resources Eu cum esse rebum, an wisi aliquam perpetua quo Vivendum facilisis at ius, qui bonorum adipiscing eu. Ea, Resume #5: Rose Roe Human Resources Manager mei, mea in iusto choro nonumes. Usu ludus iudico maiestatis ex. mnis impetus efficiendi sea ex. Mea cu facete suscipiantur disputationi, est viris homero blandit ea, vim Resume #6: Betty Boe neglegentur oportere ut, per et ignota efficiendi, quo at detraxit HR Manager explicari consequat. Id malis iracundia vel, ei eos mutat dicunt, eu harum nominavi du detracto mnesarchum sed eu, in usu

18 Requisition #: 1001 Title: Human Resources Manager Job Description: We are looking for a candidate that has a solid background in Human Resources. Also candidate must have strong experience as a manager in HR. We look at the Job Description and see that it has two requirements which we enter into the table below. Then in the right hand column we enter the keywords that would most likely be found in good target resumes. # of Required Skills Required Skills: A phrase or keyword from the Job Description calling for a specific skill set. 1 Must have experience in Human Resources Keywords most likely to be found on desired resumes. "Human Resources" OR HR 2 Must have experience as a Manager in a Human Resources department. Manager Because we had two required skills, we needed two sets of parentheses. If we had three required skills, we would have needed three sets of parentheses, etc. ( ) AND ( ) It isn't required, but in order to maintain consistency for future examples, we'll use parentheses around (Manager) anyway. ("Human Resources" OR HR ) AND (Manager ) We take the keywords we entered into the ' Keywords most likely to be found on desired resumes' column above and insert them into the two sets of parentheses as shown below. In the search string, Manager is in Parentheses.

19 Exercise Number Resumes to be selected or not (Yes / No) Boolean Search Strings #4 Delilah Doe #5 Rose Roe #6 Betty Boe 1-36 ("Human Resources" OR HR) AND (Manager) Yes Yes Yes Now I am going to change Delilah Doe's resume and replace the word Manager with Management. There will be resumes that will have Human Resources Management on them. Resume #4: Delilah Doe Ex putent eruditi eos, vel solet sanctus quaers endum at, Human Resources Management Eu cum esse rebum, an wisi aliquam perpetua quo Vivendum facilisis at ius, qui bonorum adipiscing eu., Resume #5: Rose Roe Human Resources Manager mei, mea in iusto choro nonumes. Usu ludus iudico maiestatis ex. mnis impetus efficiendi sea ex. Mea cu facete suscipiantur disputationi, est viris homero blandit ea, vim Resume #6: Betty Boe neglegentur oportere ut, per et ignota efficiendi, quo at detraxit HR Manager explicari consequat. Id malis iracundia vel, ei eos mutat dicunt, eu harum nominavi du detracto mnesarchum sed eu, in usu

20 However the string below would exclude Delilah Doe from the search because she now no longer has Manager anywhere on resume. ("Human Resources" OR HR) AND (Manager) We can fix that by modifying the string as shown below by connecting Manager & Management with an OR and putting them within the same set of parentheses. The string will now once again select all three resumes because we have satisfied the Boolean rule that says all three resumes are required to have one or more keywords from each set of parentheses in order to be pulled up or surfaced. ("Human Resources" OR HR) AND (Manager OR Management)

21 Chapter 2 Five Easy Steps to Building Winning Boolean Search Strings! These Five Easy Steps will work on ANY Boolean search for ANY requisition / job dscription with ANY degree of complexity. I'm going to start off by giving a quick summary of these Five Easy Steps and then we'll start over with first step and then go back through each of the steps in more detail. At the end of this section, I'll repeat the 5 Easy Steps to tie everything together Summary of the 5 Easy Steps to Building a Winning Boolean Search String Step 1. Read the job description and extract the REAL (not always stated on req) Required Skills and the REAL Preferred Skills. This is VERY important. Then determine keywords that would relate to each of the required and desired skills. These are the keywords that would most likely found on the resumes you are seeking. Step 2. If you have three requirements, write three sets of blank parentheses connected with AND. If you have four requirements, then you would write four sets of blank parentheses connected with AND, etc. ( ) AND ( ) AND ( ) are those that would likely be found on your qualified resumes. Inside the parentheses, connect these keywords or phrases with OR's. Step 4. Keep ALL RELATED key words within ONE set of parentheses. Don't mix unrelated key words!!!! Doing this will wreck a search string. Step 5. The Boolean software program known as Boolean Bob will take over at this point. He will start reading every resume in the resume database (even a million resumes.but in just a few seconds!). As Boolean Bob reads a resume, he will go down the line of parentheses to determine if EACH resume has ONE OR MORE KEY WORDS from EACH set of parentheses. If so, then the resume is pulled up or surfaced. Step 3. Enter the keywords determined in Step #1 into the first set of blank parentheses which corresponds to your first required skill. These keywords

22 Below is another job description, but this time we will be starting with a more realistic example of what a full and detailed job description looks like with all the verbiage found in a typical resume including information about the company and how this position fits into the overall organizational structure, etc. Also included, in addition to the hard skills, there will be listed the requisite soft skills such as must be a team player, ability to work in a fast-paced environment, etc. While these skills are important, at this stage of the process, they are not the main drivers for determining the keywords for our search string. We will need to be sifting through the job requisition / job description to find the hard skills that will give us the keywords for our Boolean search strings. Once candidates have been identified based on their hard skills, they can be brought in for interviews and then the hiring manager will then be able to make assessments based on the candidate's required soft skills. If the hard skills such as HR Management experience, demonstrated expertise in certain software programming languages, etc. are naot there, then the soft skills don't really matter until it is confirmed that the candidates have the required hard skills. In summary, when we are reading a job description, the first thing we are going to be doing is reading through it to find the hard skills which will give us the keywords needed to build a successful Boolean search string. So below is what a typical full-blown and detailed job description would look like for a company looking for a Manager Human Resources. We will build the search string first and then apply it to our 'database' of the three resumes of Delilah Doe, Rose Roe, and Betty Boe to see which resumes are pulled up or surfaced by the search string we wrote.

23 Req # Manager Human Resources at Grits Inc. (acquired LIS-EDF Electronics) Job Description: Grits Inc. is a great place to work! We are committed to a culture of creativity and innovation while at the same time creating a inner culture and creativity within the individual. We continue to raise the push the envelope on technology; we highly value quality, innovation, and style and design; and we stretch the boundaries of current technology. At Grits Electronics, there is no limit to what you can innovate. A job at Grits Inc. is not a job, it's a pathway to growth and good eating. The Human Resources organization currently has an opening for a Human Resources Manager to provide human resources support for our manufacturing organizations in various locations in the U.S. The HR Manager will provide proactive leadership, direction and professional expertise in all areas of human resources management, with a specific emphasis on staffing and recruiting, talent management and employee and labor relations and health and safety. The role will report to the CTO (Chief Talent Officer). This person will be a proactive, hands-on manager skilled in functioning in a fast paced, team-oriented business environment and must have well-developed interpersonal skills necessary to function across all levels of the organization. Required Skills: Must have experience in related broad-based human resources experience with increasingly significant levels of responsibility involving major business decision Must have management experience. Must be able to define human resources strategy and program development as a member of a management team, while also proactively addressing the hands-on tactical and human resources operational needs of the business organization at all levels Demonstrated consultative and influencing skills with an ability to interact with all levels of an Medical or Hospital company. Team and customer focused with a collaborative work style Demonstrated ability to identify and assess organizational issues and to develop and execute action plans to address concerns

24 Step 1 of 5 Steps Read and sift through the req's job description and pick out the real requirements called for in the JD (job description). I use the phrase, "real requirements", because very, very rarely are the stated Required and Preferred skills on a req are 100% accurate. This is because it eventually becomes known to the sourcer and the recruiter that oftentimes: Required Skills turn out to be Desired Skills; Desired Skills turn out to be Required Skills; Then there are Required Skills that aren't listed anywhere on the req job descripton. The above is so important that I devote an entire chapter on this subject later in the book. It's at Step #1 that you have to ask yourself the question, "When do I want to know what the hiring manager is really looking for?" I have discovered a unique technique that has worked amazingly over the years that gives me the answer to this question. This Step #1 is the foundation of building a good Boolean search string. If the foundation isn't right, then Boolean becomes of little use. In the two column table below, in the left hand column, itemize and briefly describe each of the requirements in just a few words. In the right hand column list all the keywords in a resume that would point to or indicate a candidate has one or more of these skills. This is Step 1 of 5 Steps. In the example below, we go into the above Job Description for a Manager Human Resources at Grits Inc. and extract first the hard or Required Skills. Then for EACH Individual itemized REQUIRED SKILL We need to decide on the best keywords, that if found on a resume, would indicate that this resume/candidates had this required skill. Two different candidates could use different keywords that mean the thing, so in order to make sure we cast the net wide enough to find ALL the best candidates, we put all those related or equivalent keywords into that one set of parentheses for that one particular skill set (or Required Skill).

25 of Required Skills 1 Required Skills: A phrase or keyword from the JD calling for a specific skill set. Must have experience in related broad-based human resources experience Related OR Equivalent keywords to search for that would indicate a resume has that skill set HR OR "Human Resources" 2 Must have management experience. Manager OR Management 3 Demonstrated consultative and influencing skills with an ability to interact with all levels while working for either a Medical OR Hospital company Medical OR Hospital In Required Skill #1, in the right column for keywords, we have Human Resources OR HR. These are Equivalent keywords and they are also Related keywords. Speaking of requiring keywords within a given set of parentheses to be equivalent and/or related, there appears to be an exception to our Boolean rule, but it isn't. Suppose Required Skill #3 were temporarily changed as shown below: 3 Demonstrated consultative and influencing skills with an ability to interact with all levels while working for either a Medical OR Telecom company Medical OR Telecom We would now have (Medical OR Telecom) in one set of parentheses. Although theses terms are not at all related to one another, they are both directly related to what is called out in Required Skill Set #3! On reqs you'll see this come up when you get a requirement phrased this way: "Candidates must have experience in one or more of the following industries: Medical, Telecom, Agriculture, Accounting, or Advertising." You would then have a set of parentheses like the following: AND (Medical OR Telecom OR Agriculture OR Accounting OR Advertising).

26 So within a set of parentheses, keywords connected by OR within the parentheses MUST either be related to other keywords within the same set of parentheses.or if keywords within the set of parentheses are not related to one another, they MUST be related to the specific associated skill set description. Now going forward we are going to drop the (Medical OR Telecom) example and continue with our original (Medical OR Hospital) keywords. Step 2 of 5 Steps. Because we had three required skills like the ones above, we would start off with three sets of blank parentheses connected together with AND. If we have a req with two required skills, we would set up two blank sets of parentheses connected with AND. [Note: Most resume databases require that AND, OR, & NOT be in all caps] ( ) AND ( ) AND ( ) Step 3 of 5 Steps. As the outside of parentheses are connected with AND's, keywords inside each set of parentheses are all connected with OR's. In these examples, there are no AND's INSIDE any of the parentheses, just all OR's. From the keywords section in the right column of the above table, enter The keywords from Skill Set #1 into the first set of parentheses. Do the same with the second and third sets of parentheses. (HR OR "Human Resources") AND (Manager OR Management) AND (Medical OR Hospital)

27 Step 4 of 5 Steps. Within each set of parentheses ONLY insert keywords that are either equivalent or related. Don't mix not equivalent or unrelated keywords within the parentheses. For example in the first set of parentheses you would NOT want to put the keyword Medical in the first set of parentheses because obviously Medical isn't related to Human Resources. Let's see what Boolean Bob would do as he examined the resume of Bill Brown and compared it with each set of parentheses. The faulty Boolean search string now becomes: [BAD STRING!!!] (HR OR "Human Resources" OR Medical) AND (Manager OR Management) AND (Medical OR Hospital ) Bill Brown is in medical sales. He has no HR experience whatsoever. He does have Management experience on his resume and he has Hospital on his resume.. Boolean Bob would select this resume because Bob found Medical, Management, & Hospital on Bill Brown's resume and Boolean Bob's selection rules state if a resume has one or more keywords from EACH set of parentheses, then that resume is pulled up. Bill Brown's resume met all three of these conditions. This would be a mistake and a bad search string because Bill Brown has no HR experience!

28 Step 5 of 5 Steps Really all you have to do in this step is enter the Boolean search string into the Keywords search field for LinkedIn Recruiter, as an example, and then let Boolean Bob do his thing. That's it. Those are the 5 easy steps, however in a later chapter we'll cover some of the exceptions that could pop up infrequently. As we saw in some of the earlier excercises and examples, this is by no means an exact science. We can write what we think is a great Boolean search string for a req and then pull up resumes that are not even close to what we are looking for. It's like pulling up what you think is a big fish, but when you get it to the surface, you discover that it's an old boot. If one third of my search results yields good possible resumes, then I have written a successful Boolean search string. Boolean searching is 50% analytical and a 50% intuitive process. I can teach you the 50% analytical portion and also get you going in the right direction on the intuitive part, but the intuitive part will just take some patience and practice. Enjoy the journey of discovery!

29 Here's what our Boolean string would look like if pasted into LinkedIn Recruiter.

30 Below is a repeat of Boolean Bob's job description: Job Description for Boolean Bob Boolean Bob is the software behind all Boolean searching. When you enter a Boolean search string into a database such as LinkedIn Recruiter, Boolean Bob writes the search string on a piece of paper and holds it in his left hand. Next he looks at the first resume in the LinkedIn Recruiter database and holds it in his right hand. He looks at at the keywords connected by OR's in the first set of parentheses. If he finds one or more keywords anywhere on that resume, then he goes to the second set of parentheses and looks at its keywords and sees if he can find one or more of these keywords anywhere on the resume, if he does, he moves on to the third set of parentheses and repeats the process. Let's say that Boolean Bob is going down the line and checking to see that a resume has one or more of the keywords on it from each set of parentheses, and the resume passes each inspection, then Boolean Bob 'pulls up' or 'surfaces' that resume from the LinkedIn Recruiter database. However if Boolean Bob gets to a resume that doesn't have matching keywords from each set of parentheses, the inspection process goes no further as the resume is rejected.

31 Again without the Boolean Bob software program, would you really want to read a million or more resumes in a resume database every time you were looking for good candidates? I didn't think so, but that's why we have Boolean. Boolean Bob can 'read' millions of resumes in less than a second! Since so much time was spent on the Step 5 of 5 Steps section, I thought it would be good to repeat the summary to retain the overall perspective. Summary of the 5 Easy Steps to Building a Winning Boolean Search String Step 1. Read the job description and extract the REAL (not always stated on req) Required Skills and the REAL Preferred Skills. This is VERY important. Then determine keywords that would relate to each of the required and desired skills. These are the keywords that would most likely found on the resumes you are seeking. Step 2. If you have three requirements, write three sets of blank parentheses connected with AND. If you have four requirements, then you would write four sets of blank parentheses connected with AND, etc. ( ) AND ( ) AND ( ) Step 3. Enter the keywords determined in Step #1 into the first set of blank parentheses which corresponds to your first required skill. These keywords are those that would likely be found on your qualified resumes. Inside the parentheses, connect these keywords or phrases with OR's Step 4. Keep ALL RELATED key words within ONE set of parentheses. Don't mix unrelated key words!!!! Doing this will wreck a search string. Step 5. The Boolean software program known as Boolean Bob will take over at this point. He will start reading every resume in the resume database (even a million resumes.but in just a few seconds!). As Boolean Bob reads a resume, he will go down the line of parentheses to determine if EACH resume

32 Let's now apply these 5 steps to finding candidates pulled up out of our 3 Resume 'database' for the req below. Delilah Doe, Rose Roe, and Betty Boe will be applying for this position. We'll see which are accepted and which are rejected by our search string. Req # Manager Human Resources at Grits Inc. (acquired LIS-EDF Electronics) As a repeat, here is the matrix for the required skills and their associated keywords. # of Required Skills 1 Required Skills: A phrase or keyword from the JD calling for a specific skill set. Must have experience in related broad-based human resources experience All keywords to search for that would indicate a resume has that skill set HR OR "Human Resources" 2 Must have management experience. Manager OR Management 3 Demonstrated consultative and influencing skills with an ability to interact with all levels of an Medical or Hospital company Medical OR Hospital Below are the resumes of Delilah Doe, Rose Roe, and Betty Boe. They are all applying for this job

33 Resume #4: Delilah Doe Ex putent eruditi eos, vel solet sanctus quaers endum at, Human Resources Management Eu cum esse rebum, an wisi aliquam perpetua quo. Resume #5: Rose Roe Human Resources Manager mei, mea in iusto choro nonumes. Usu ludus iudico maiestatis ex. mnis impetus efficiendi sea ex. Mea cu facete Medical suscipiantur disputationi, est viris Resume #6: Betty Boe neglegentur oportere ut, per et ignota efficiendi, quo at detraxit HR Manager explicari consequat. Id malis iracundia vel, ei eos mutat dicunt, eu harum Hospital nominavi du detracto mnesarchum sed eu, The Boolean search string for this search: ("Human Resources" OR HR) AND (Manager OR Management) AND ( Medical OR Hospital) Delilah Doe, Rose Roe, and Betty Boe are all going to have interviews with Boolean Bob who is the hiring manager for this position. Delilah Doe: 1. Boolean Bob picks up Delilah Doe's resume and determines that she meets the requirements of having one or more keywords in her resume that appear in the first set of parentheses, and that keyword or "key phrase" is Human Resources. 2. In the second set of parentheses, Delilah has the keyword, Management, so she passes Boolean Bob's test here. 3. Unfortunately Delilah doesn't have either Medical OR Hospital anywhere on her resume, so without going any further Boolean Bob rejects her at this point and she is not pulled up from the database.

34 Betty Boe: 1. Betty passes Boolean Bob's test of the first set of parentheses because she has Human Resources on her resume 2. Betty passes Boolean Bob's test of the second set of parentheses in that she has Manager on her resume. 3. Betty passes Boolean Bob's test of the third set of parenthese which requires that her resume have either the keywords Medical or Hospital. Betty has Hospital on her resume. 4. Betty also made it to having an interview with the hiring manager. Rose Roe: 1. Rose passes Boolean Bob's test of the first set of parentheses because she has "Human Resources" on her resume. 2. Rose passes Boolean Bob's test of the second set of parentheses in that she has Manager on her resume. 3. Rose passes Boolean Bob's test of the third set of parentheses which requires that her resume has either the keywords Medical OR Hospital on it and Rose had Medical on her resume. 4. Rose made it through to having an interview with the hiring manager

35 Chapter 3 Blackberry Pie Baking Contest Another way of illustrating how resumes are selected from a database is to use the analogy of a Blackberry Pie Baking Contest. Before a contestant can get into the mega kitchen with many stoves, they have to go through several check points. Each check point has a checker who is only looking for one of the required ingredients in their basket (set of parentheses). If a contestant has that ingredient, then they are passed along to the checker at the next checkpoint (2 nd set of parentheses). This continues until all contestants have either been rejected for not bringing all the ingredients or else have cleared all checkpoints having all the required ingredients for Blackberry pie, and are allowed into the large competition cooking kitchen with multiple stoves. May the best man or woman win or in our recruiting, may the best man or woman who has all the right "ingredients" / skills which are the required skills listed on the requisition job description pass the interview and get the job!! In the book will be a cool diagram illustrating the Blackberry Pie Baking Contest and it related to Boolean search strings.

36 Chapter 4 Slight Differences in Boolean Strings for Different Resume Databases Regardless of the cars anyone drives, we all either put a key in the ignition or push a button to start the car. These basic steps are all the same, however the differences occur because you have different keys for different cars or else different buttons to push for different cars. This is similar to slightly altering the writing of Boolean search strings to accommodate the unique requirements of search engines for different resume databases. There are differences but the Boolean basics are the same for every database. 1. LinkedIn Recruiter (paid version) 2. LinkedIn Basic (free version) 3. Google 4. Monster In the Book we are going to explore these differences by writing a search string for each of the databases below. We will take example job descriptions of the following positions and then use EACH of the 7 databases below to look for candidates for the same position. Positions may include candidates for the following: Administrative Assistant; Recruiter; Accountant; Salesman/Saleswoman; Project Manager; Marketing Manager; IT Support Technician; and any suggestions you might have. Suggestions are welcomed as the book has not been completed as of this writing. 5. Indeed.com 6. Taleo Business Edition 7. Infogist (How would you like to be able to write one search string and use it to search 580 databases SIMULTANEOUSLY!) In the Book: A chapter in the book will be dedicated for each of the above databases used to find resumes for each of the example reqs mentioned above! This section could be expanded into 30+ chapters if, for example, we took LinkedIn Recruiter and then wrote a chapter for recruiting an Administrative Assistant; Recruiter; Accountant; Salesman/Saleswoman; Project Manager; Marketing Manager; and IT Support Technician. And then repeated the steps for each of the remained 6 databases listed above.

37 How would you like to be able to write only one search string and be able to search 580 paid and free resume databases simultaneously and 700 databases total? Pay/Subscription Resume Sources LinkedIn Recruiter Monster Dice CareerBuilder More Web Sites Applicant Tracking Systems Taleo BE Bullhorn Cyber Recruiter Open Hire Brassring + 15 More ATS College and University Sites MIT Georgia Tech Harvard Cal Poly Alumni Cornell Carnegie Mellon More Boolean Search String InfoGIST Web Sites and Communities Google Yahoo! Bing Twitter AltaVista Fortune City Google+ Tripod.com Free Resume Sources LinkedIn Basic Indeed.com AEPS Allied Careers Andersen Alumni Craig List + 80 More Web Sites International Resume Sources Canada Pacific Rim Europe India & others 93 Sites Total

38 Chapter 5 Mouse Catches Cat Before we jump into finding Waldo and doing the Card Trick, let's first set the stage by playing a little game of cat and mouse. From there you and I will take turns finding Waldo (or finding my resume followed by your resume) in a stack of millions. After we feel comfortable with that, we will get into finding a group of resumes just as we would be doing as a sourcer or recruiter tasked with filling a req. OK, our cat and mouse game will start with going into Google and sorting through a million documents/resumes that have the three words below in them. Well, there'll be a little more to it than that. With these three words we are going to create two different phrases by changing the order of these three words and then creating a specific Boolean phrase by putting quotation marks around these three words. For a phrase, the order of words is obviously important as in what journalists refer to as 'news'. "Dog bites man" is not news, but "man bites dog" is news. Same three words in each case, but with different meanings because they are two very different phrases (I know, I know, this is very elementary not to mention repetitive, but hang with me). This will be a demonstration of the power of a simple Boolean search by sorting through millions and sometimes billions of documents in Google and comparing the differences in number of results between the phrase, "cat catches mouse" and "mouse catches cat". In the Book: Detail examples and analysis will be given.

39 Chapter 6 Finding Waldo and the Card Trick Have you ever tried to find Waldo in one of the classic children's books? It's hard. You really had to look to find this tiny cartoon character in a sea of similar cartoon characters on each page in different settings. Have you ever done the card trick in which you hold out a fanned deck of 52 cards and asked someone to pick one out of the stack without you seeing it. Your subject then slides the card back into the deck. You shuffle the deck and then you find the same card that was pulled out. In both of these cases we are trying to find someone or some thing amongst a group of many others that are similar, but only one Waldo and only one card is selected. I have my resume on the internet as a website with its own URL. There are millions of documents on Google and we are going to play a game of trying to find my resume and my resume only and exclude all the millions of other documents. We'll start off with (inurl:resume OR intitle:resume) AND. then add other key words until we come up with the right combination of keywords that finds my resume and excludes all others. Next we're going to do the same with your LinkedIn profile. If you have a LinkedIn profile, you can make one click and have your own website containing your LinkedIn profile and it will also be searchable with (inurl:resume OR intitle:resume) AND In the previous example with Mouse Catches Cat, we were comparing the number of results using two different phrases. In this example we will be sorting through millions and billions of Google documents to find just one document!! In the Book: Detailed examples and analysis will be given.