Guide

LinkedIn Recruiter boolean search: Keywords, Job titles and limits

LinkedIn Recruiter and Recruiter Lite accept boolean in several fields, not only in Keywords. A string split between the fields is easier to read and to change.

Fields that accept boolean

Recruiter accepts boolean in Job titles, Location, Companies, Skills and Assessments, Schools, Industries and Spoken languages. Quotes and modifiers work in Job titles, Companies and Keywords.

The Project filter does not accept boolean.

Split the string by field

Put the group of titles in the Job titles field, for example "Data Engineer" OR "ETL Developer".
Put the skills and exclusions in the Keywords field.
Set the location with the Location filter.

The Recruiter help says that too many facets in one boolean query can cause a search result issue, and advises moving parts of the string into separate filters.

Rules

Type NOT and OR in capital letters.
Recruiter skips these words in Keywords: and, or, the, of, at, by, to, for, with, in, they, have, from, not, but, after. So and in lower case is not an operator.
The + and - operators are not officially supported.
Recruiter and Recruiter Lite have no limit on the number of boolean operators. LinkedIn publishes no character limit.

AI-Assisted Search

Reports from 2026 say that AI-Assisted Search is now the default search in Recruiter. The Recruiter help still describes classic boolean in the fields and filters.

Example