Keyword Help Guide
Before you begin, review these helpful notes.
Don't worry about singular and plural words, and word variations.
Our search uses functionality called "stemming" by default and will return results that include words that share the same root or stem as the keyword(s) specified. For example, if you search for nurse, we will return results including nurse, nurses and nursing by default. If you do not wish to have stemming applied to your search term(s), simply enclose them in quotation marks. A search for "nurse" will return only results including the exact word nurse.
Do include common acronyms and abbreviations, as well as full words and phrases.
For example, if you are searching for registered nurses, you would want to enter a query similar to: RN or "registered nurse" to pull back more, relevant candidates in just one search.
Generally, special characters and punctuation are supported by our search.
You may search using punctuation and special characters, and we will look for them in search results.
The only exceptions are the following: ( ) - + ,
These characters are search operators, and are used to group words, exclude words, require words, and separate words. We will not look for them in your search results.
Don't worry about cases.
Our search is not case sensitive. Searches for Software Engineer and software engineer or HTML and html will yield the same results.
Do be conscious about spelling.
Our search does not look for common misspellings of words. So, if you enter a keyword spelled correctly, you will only receive results with that word spelled correctly. Likewise, if you enter a keyword spelled incorrectly, you will only receive results with that word spelled incorrectly.
Avoid ignored words.
Some common words are ignored in search. They include: a, an, are, as, at, be, but, by, for, if, in, into, is, it, no, of, on, such, that, the, their, then, there, these, they, this, to, was, will and with.
Please also note that some words are used as search operators, not search terms. These include: and, or, not and and not (note once more that our search is not case sensitive, not even for Boolean operators).
If you wish to include ignored words or Boolean operators in your search terms, you may do so by enclosing them in quotation marks. For example, if you are searching for operating room nurses, "OR Nurse" will deliver your expected results, whereas OR Nurse will exclude the word OR and only return results with the word nurse.
Which search queries are supported?
Search for words that must be included.
Our standard search functionality is based on a proximity search. If you enter the words software engineer into the search box, we will look for both words in your results and both words must be within close proximity of each other. If there is more than one phrase that must be included in the results, you should separate all of the words/phrases with the AND Boolean operator. For example, if you are searching for sales and retail candidates, you would use a query like sales AND retail. This will result in candidates that have the words sales and the word retail anywhere in their information.
Exclude a word.
There are three ways to exclude a word from your search results. You can use any of the following operators: NOT, AND NOT, - (the minus sign).
For example:
Product Manager NOT Senior
Product Manager AND NOT Senior
Product Manager -Senior
All of the above will return results containing the words product and manager but not including the word senior.
Search for either word or phrase.
You can search for any of a number of words by separating each word of phrase by a comma. Using a comma will be treated as an OR operator. For example, if you are searching for registered nurses, you may want to use a query like RN, R.N., "registered nurse" so that you get one result set including all the appropriate candidates. Another example, if you are searching for account manager type candidates, you may want to use a query like Business Development Manager, Account Executive, Account Manager so that you get results that will have candidates with any of these phrases.
Search for an exact word or phrase.
Use quotation marks to indicate that you want us to find the keywords you've entered, exactly as you've entered them. This can be useful when searching for very specific words or phrases, but please also be aware that by using quotes, you could be excluding helpful results by mistake.
For example, if you are looking for project managers, enclosing the phrase in quotes – "project manager" - will get you fewer, but potentially more relevant results.
As noted above, quotes can also be used to include punctuation, special characters and ignored words that would otherwise be excluded from your search. They can also be used to prevent stemming on your search terms.
Search using parentheses.
Parentheses are used to group keywords, allowing operators to be applied in more specific ways. Our search also supports nested parentheses. Below are two examples of queries that are supported in our search.
Parentheses: ("human resources" OR HR) AND "customer service"
Nested Parentheses: ICURN OR ((ICU OR "Intensive Care Unit") AND ("Registered Nurse" OR RN))
Search within a member's title only.
Add title: prior to your search terms to find results where your keywords are included in the member's title. An example query would be title:project manager, which would only result in candidates who have the words project and manager in their titles. This will usually result in a smaller, more relevant result set.
Search within a member's portfolio only.
Add portfolio: prior to your search terms to find results where your keywords are included in the member's portfolio. An example query would be portfolio:javascript, css, .net, which would result in candidates who have the words javascript, css and .net in their portfolios.
Wildcard Search (Asterisk).
The wildcard operator * is a character that some services use to either "fill in the blank" between two words or to apply stemming to the root of a word. Examples include:
Senior * Developer would find senior web developers, senior software developers, senior java developers, etc.
Nurs* would find nurse, nurses and nursing.
Which search queries are unsupported?
Wildcard Search (Question Mark).
Some services also support the use of a question mark in the middle of a word to find spelling variations. For example reali?ation would find realisation and realization.
This function is not supported in our search.