All too often, expensive resume database access is wasted because there is a common assumption that it’s easy to search a database. It’s a task frequently assigned to the most junior member of the team.

My experience is that database searching is a unique skill — it’s even different from Internet research using search engines. For instance, Boolean that works on Google may not work in Monster and vice versa.

We have the data! We just need to use it better. With 50 million resumes in one database or another, about half of the US workforce can be found… if we just learn how to find them.

What if the hiring manager wants someone with an engineering degree from a top school and 5 to 7 years experience? There’s no string for that. And we’re still only really talking about the education part of the resume. When adding skills to the search you’re even more likely to lose great people.

People feel like Boolean works because the answer is exactly what they described in the search set-up. The problem is that they never see what wasn’t found. People who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in engineering usually call the degree an ‘S.B.’ So the string above excludes MIT grads.

But, since many people are stuck with Boolean search, here is a helpful string to find some (but not all) software engineers:

(+(java OR C# OR .net OR software OR ?web application? or ?software development? or ?software engineering?) AND (engineer OR programmer OR developer OR architect OR team lead OR analyst OR designer)) OR (?member of the technical staff?))