When entering data into the Keyword Search field on OhioMeansJobs.com web site, the following are a few helpful hints to help narrow your results. Let's take a look at the three basic operators; quotes, wild card, parentheses, and the four basic commands OR, AND, AND NOT, NEAR.

Operator: QUOTES " "

While commands are very helpful, they alone are not enough to effectively target your ideal job. Luckily, there are three Search operators that can assist in this area. The first are quotes. Quotes offer you the ability to search for multiple keywords as an exact phrase, like Project Manager, Administrative Assistance, etc. Simply place quotes around the words you would like the search engine to find on the job posting. For instance, by entering the following operator you can search for the job title Project Manager.

Your sample search string would be "Project Manager".

Operator: WILD CARD *

The wild card is the next search operator. This feature allows you to search for all words in a job posting that begin with the letters before the wildcard.

For example, if you were looking for management jobs, you could use this wildcard to eliminate multiple keyword entry. Simply typing in manag* will return job postings containing the words manage, manager, managing, managed, management, etc.

Your sample search string would be manag*

Operator: PARANTHESES ( )

Parentheses are the next search operator. This feature groups keywords together to create a sub-search within a complex string.

If you want to build a search string containing multiple commands, parentheses are a must. Furthermore, anytime you use the OR command, it is a best practice to use parentheses.

Your sample search string would be nurse (icu OR "critical care")

Operator: OR

The first basic command we will discuss is the OR command. Simply stated, OR requires that one of the keywords you enter be in the job posting. Once the system finds one of the words, a list of job postings will be returned as a result.

In this example, you are looking for an engineering job. You know that the engineering field could have various job titles. OR allows you to expand our search to include multiple keywords, of which at least one will be in the job posting.

Your sample search string would be (developer OR engineer)

Operator: AND

While OR helps you to expand the search, it will quickly become necessary to further refine your results. Simply stated, AND links words or phrases together to ensure that both are included in the results.

In this example, you would like jobs that involve using both software and engineer.

Your sample search string would be software AND engineer

In this case, any of the results you receive will contain both words software AND engineer.

Operator: AND NOT

To further refine your search the next command you will use is AND NOT. There may be times that you wish to exclude terms from your results. The search command associated with this functionality is AND NOT.

If you were looking for a more an experienced position, you might want to eliminate those jobs that listed as entry level. In this scenario, you could add AND NOT entry level to your search string.

Your sample search string would be (developer or engineer) AND NOT "entry level"

In this case, any of the results you receive will not contain the word entry level. It will contain developer or engineer.

Operator: NEAR

The last command that may be used is NEAR. When used between keywords, NEAR allows you to search for terms situated within a specified distance of each other in any order. The closer they are, the higher the document appears in the results list.

If you were looking for a more an experienced position, you might want to eliminate those jobs that listed as entry level. In this scenario, you could add AND NOT entry level to your search string.

The search string "sales NEAR management" returns those job postings that have sales and management within 10 words of each other.

Things to Remember