by Sarah Porter, former Head Editor, INALJ California
previously published 5/15/13
Search Smarter: becoming an information detective using advanced job searches
One exciting aspect of volunteering as a head editor for INALJ is being an “information detective”: solving the mystery of where some of the hidden non-traditional LIS (Library and Information Science) jobs are and making them more accessible to other LIS job seekers.
Last month, my co-head editor and I assigned keyword searches for our assistants to find more LIS-related jobs in California on Indeed.com and Craigslist. Overall, searching many of these keywords was a success, nevertheless some search terms brought up way too many jobs, while others not enough. In an effort to increase efficiency and find more relevant results, I chose to formulate more advanced searches using Boolean logic and advanced search settings.
Provided that many of you have a background in Library Science, I assume that many of you know what Boolean searching is, even if you do not know it by name. In short, Boolean logic is combining words and phrases into search statements using the Boolean operators OR, AND, NOT to narrow or broaden a search. If you are not familiar with Boolean searching I recommend reading Boolean Searching on the Internet.
Indeed.com has an advanced search that makes narrowing or broadening your search easy. Rather than developing your own formula with Boolean operators, Indeed.com creates the search formula for you based on the specifications you type into search boxes, such as “with these words in title” or “with none of these words”. For more information, here are tips on advanced searching with Indeed.com.
Craigslist lists some paraprofessional library positions and information professional-related tech jobs. Unlike searching Indeed.com, you have to use a little more brainpower to create advanced searches on Craigslist. The Boolean logic operators are slightly different from what you may be used to. For instance, use “- ” in place of OR, and “|” in place of AND. Craigslist provides instructions on how to create an advanced search.
Developing and refining advanced searches for my assistants has been an ongoing process. So far, the biggest improvement has been searching for “data” or “database” jobs. I created a lot of NOT terms, as there were way too many irrelevant results before. I am determined to continue developing better search formulas. I encourage feedback and ideas from my assistants, and anyone who has tips on how to find these elusive library-ish jobs. Paste in the comments below.
http://www.craigslist.org/about/help/search
http://www.indeed.com/intl/en/tips.html
http://www.internettutorials.net/boolean.asp
reposted from 5/13/13
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