Boolean Search for Recruiters: 2026 Cheat Sheet

The 6 operators every recruiter needs

What works where

The most common sourcing mistake is building a perfect string for a platform that ignores half of it. This table is the one to bookmark.

LinkedIn quirks that silently break your search

• Operators must be UPPERCASE. A lowercase "and" is treated as a search word, and your logic breaks with no error message.
• No wildcards. LinkedIn ignores the asterisk. If you built the string in Google first, strip the asterisks before pasting.
• No proximity operators. NEAR and W/n do nothing.
• Boolean only works in the keyword field, not the Job Title or Project filter fields.
• The + and - symbols are not supported. Use AND and NOT.
• Strings are capped at roughly 2,000 characters, and deeply nested parentheses get unpredictable.
• Location does not belong in the string. Set it in the location filter so you do not waste characters and lose remote candidates who wrote the city differently.
• A space acts as an implicit AND. "software engineer Python" equals software AND engineer AND Python, which is why unquoted multi-word titles match loosely.
• Operator precedence is: quotes, then parentheses, then NOT, then AND, then OR. When in doubt, parentheses make your intent explicit.

GitHub: search the code, not the keywords

For technical roles, GitHub's native search finds developers by what they actually build. It uses its own qualifiers instead of classic Boolean.

Combine qualifiers freely. For Boolean-style power on GitHub, use Google X-ray: site:github.com "machine learning" (Python OR TensorFlow) "San Francisco".

Debug a broken string in five steps

1. Start simple: one title, one skill. Confirm you get results before adding complexity.
2. Add one operator at a time, testing after each. This isolates which addition broke the search.
3. Check operator case. LinkedIn silently ignores lowercase and/or/not.
4. Count your parentheses and quotes. An unmatched pair breaks the string with no warning.
5. Test the Google X-ray version first. Google gives clearer feedback than LinkedIn; if it works there, adapt it back.

Google X-ray: the free power tool

Google supports every operator plus its own modifiers, so the site: operator turns any public site into a sourcing database.

Starter strings for common roles

Built for LinkedIn's keyword field (uppercase operators, no wildcards). For Google X-ray, prepend site:linkedin.com/in and swap NOT for the minus sign.

The mistakes that shrink your pool

1. Lowercase operators on LinkedIn. No error, just bad results.
2. Missing quotes on multi-word terms. "Machine learning engineer" without quotes matches the three words separately.
3. Wildcards pasted into LinkedIn. LinkedIn ignores them entirely.
4. Stacking NOT exclusions. Excluding "manager" also removes the candidate who "managed a team of five." Scan what you excluded before you keep it.
5. Forgetting parentheses. "data scientist" OR "data analyst" AND Python reads as "data scientist" OR ("data analyst" AND Python).
6. One title variation. This is the big one. Brainstorm three to five before you touch a skill.

Build a string in five steps

1. List every title variation candidates actually use, connect with OR, wrap in parentheses.
2. Add two or three must-have skills with AND. Quote multi-word skills.
3. Add location only where the platform wants it: a filter on LinkedIn, a quoted term in Google.
4. Exclude with NOT, one term at a time, checking what each exclusion removes.
5. Run it, scan the first 20 results, then tighten with AND or widen with OR.

Sources

• Use Boolean search on LinkedIn (LinkedIn Help)
• Refine Google searches with operators (Google Search Help)
• Searching users (GitHub Docs)