Do you want to become a Boolean search expert?

Using Boolean operators such as AND, OR and NOT can refine your search in Loxo, LinkedIn, Google, and other search engines. This article shares tips and tricks for using Boolean search in Loxo.

Note: there is NO space after the colon when using Boolean, and the Boolean operator must be capitalized, ie 'AND' works, 'and' does not

You can create "and" searches in your database. It should be used for targeting required skills, experience, technologies, or titles you would like to limit your results to. Unless you are searching for common words, with every AND you add to your Boolean query, the fewer results you will typically get. An example is: 

Java AND Oracle AND SQL AND AJAX

You can use "or" to search your database. The OR operator offers flexible inclusion, and typically broadens your search results. Many people incorrectly think the Boolean OR operator is an either/or operator, when in fact it is not.

The OR operator is technically interpreted as “at least one is required, more than one or all can be returned.”

You need to encapsulate OR statements with parentheses, if you don’t your search will run but execute in a way that you probably did not intend.  Always use parentheses around OR statements as a matter of good search syntax.

Example: Java AND Oracle AND SQL AND AJAX AND (apache OR weblogic OR websphere)

The returned results must mention at least one of the following: apache, weblogic, websphere.

The best ways to use OR statements is:

You can create "not" searches in your database to remove specific criteria from a search. To create a not string, you'll need to capitalize the word not. You could combine it with a field name search above to exclude something. For example, let's say I have tagged people "do not contact" in my database. I want to exclude these people so I can easily bulk email. My search string would look like:

NOT tag_names: "do not contact"

Each field has a specific name that you can search using the power search bar. When you search these specific fields you are searching just those fields instead of keywords. For example, you could search your database for people who had the past title of "VP of Sales" for example. To do that you would create:

titles:"VP of Sales"

Or you could search your database for people with the current title of VP of Sales. That search would look like:

current_title:"VP of Sales"

The above two searches are different than just searching "VP of Sales" in your power search bar. The difference is they are searching specifically past title and current title fields only, respectively.

So how do you know what the specific field names are? Below is a list of the most common that you can use. Remember, this format (with the colon) when you are using these searches:

field_name:"search words"

You can add extra emphasis on certain searches by using the carrot ^ . For example, if I am looking for a ruby and java developer but ruby is 5 times more important, I can notate that as follows:

"java developer" and "ruby"^5

You can use an asterisk * to find the root/stem of a word. The asterisk can be used on most resume databases and non-Internet search engines as a root word/stem/truncation search. In other words, the search engine will return and highlight any word that begins with the root/stem of the word truncated by the asterisk.

For example: admin* will return: administrator, administration, administer, administered, etc.

The asterisk is a major time saver because it saves you from creating long OR statements and having to think of every way a particular word can be expressed.

Use the ~ symbol to look for phrases that are not exact matches. For example, let's say you are looking for people that have won some type of Sales Award. Typically, a sales award isn't going to be called a sales award on a resume. So you can search for a sales award by telling the system to find results that have the words "sales" and "award" a specific distance from each other (in the below example - 5 words apart). So you might find the "Top Regional Sales of Automotive and Sales Design Award" and the "The John Smith Sales Winner" award, etc. Your search string would be:

"sales award" ~5 

Trying to clean up your data base? Use Boolean strings to filter for contacts with missing information. Simply add this string into the search bar:

To get a list of all people without an email address on their profile:
not _exists_:emails

To get a list of all people without a phone numbers on their profile:
not _exists_:phones

To get a list of all people without a current company on their profile:
not _exists_:companies

To get a list of all people without an owner on their profile: not _exists_:owned_by_id

To get a list of all people without a location on their profile:
(NOT _exists_:city) AND (NOT _exists_:location) AND (NOT _exists_:state) AND (NOT _exists_:address) and (NOT _exists_:country) AND (NOT _exists_:zip)

To find people with this data, remove the "not" ie "_exists_:emails"

Search your database for all the companies that are blocked / locked in your database:

blocked:true

Search your database for all the records that have no owner. 

not _exists_:owned_by_id

To search for blank text fields use the following:

not _exists_:custom_text_1_values

To search for blank numeric fields use the following:

not _exists_:custom_numeric_range_1_values

To search for blank date fields use the following:

not _exists_:custom_date_range_1_values

To search for blank hierarchy fields use the following:

not _exists_:custom_hierarchy_1_values

(scroll down to learn how to find the custom hierarchy value # for a custom field)

Search your database for published and unpublished jobs. Simply navigate to your Jobs page and enter either of the boolean strings:

published:true

(-published:*) OR published:false"

Search your database by who recently updated a person:

updated_by_id

You can also add not _exists_: or _exists_: to the front of the string

If you have created custom fields, you may filter them using the below strings. If you have more than one hierarchy column update the "1" to the represent the desired column number

_exists_:custom_hierarchy_1_values. (see below to learn how to identify the custom hierarchy field number)

_exists_:custom_text_1

_exists_:custom_numeric_range_1

_exists_:custom_date_range_1

not _exists_:last_contacted_at

The formatting for dates is YYY/MM/DD.

To search by excluding a date range, use the following:

last_contacted_at:[2021-01-01 TO 2021-02-01] OR last_contacted_at:[2021-04-01 TO 2021-04-15]

To search your people page by who is in a job you can use the following search

candidate_job_ids:xxxxx

Where xxxxx is replaced with the specific job id. This will allow you to be on your people page and see who is in that job.

To search your people page by who is not in a job you can use the following search

NOT candidate_job_ids:xxxxx

Where xxxxx is replaced with the specific job id. This will allow you to be on your people page and see everyone but those who are in that job.