Keyword Search Syntax Help

Job Search allows full boolean searches to be specified. The following are the rules for using these searches:

  • Apostrophes (') are not allowed in any of the keywords.
  • The length of the keyword string may not exceed 256 characters.
  • Keywords and/or keyword phrases must be separated by a boolean operator, AND or OR. Example: java and c++ is correct syntax, while java c++ will cause a syntax error.
  • Keyword phrases must be enclosed in quotes ("), e.g., "unix system administrator". Failure to do so will return the error message: Syntax error in search condition 'string-you-entered'.
  • Keywords and Operators are case-insensitive.
  • Parenthesized groups of keywords are allowed.
  • Prefixing of keywords or phrases may be specified with the "*" (asterisk) operator, e.g., "sys*" or "sys pl*". When phrases contains "*", each word contained in the phrase is considered to be a separate prefix.
  • Parenthesized groups are applied first.
  • The boolean operators AND, AND NOT, and OR maybe be specified.
  • AND is applied before OR.
  • NOT may only occur after AND (OR NOT is not allowed).
  • AND NOT may not occur before the first expression, i.e., you must specify something like keyword1 AND NOT keyword2, you may not specify AND NOT keyword or just NOT keyword.

    Be careful using AND NOT. For instance, if you were searching for a job but you don't have Java experience, and you specify AND NOT Java, you may be missing potential jobs! The reason is that a job description might contain wording like "Java a plus, but not required". Even if you match all other criteria for this job, it would not be returned!
     

  • Boolean operators of the same type (AND, OR) are associative, and therefore can be applied in any order.
  • NEAR may be applied in a search, such as UNIX NEAR system NEAR Administrator.

Here are some examples of valid keyword strings:

Java and vbscript and javascript Search for jobs that contain all three of the keywords.
Java AND NOT COBOL Search for jobs for Java programming, but must not have COBOL. See note under rules above concerning the use of NOT!
(system or systems) and administrator Search for "systems administrator" or "system administrator".
"system administrator" or "systems administrator" Same as the previous.
(ASP.NET and VB.NET) or java or ((C++ or C) and C#) or "unix system administrator" or "system administration" An example of mulitple parentheses. In this example, you are searching for a job that must have both ASP.NET and VB.NET, or, java, or, must have C++ or C and C#, or, has UNIX System Administration. (Could have used the Prefix operator here! See below.)
"Sys Admin*" An example of the prefix operator. This will return records containing "System Administrator", "Systems Administrator", "System Admin", "Sys Admin", "System Administration", etc.