George Boole was a 19th century British mathematician who figured out a way to express relationships between different factors. In everyday language, that means he devised the method by which most search engines are told what to look for in a database.

At recruitment web sites, Boolean operators are used to combine and organize the characteristics that a job seeker wishes to see in an open position. They are the criteria that a search engine uses to pull your posting out of a database of thousands, even tens of thousands of jobs.

For example, if someone is looking for a marketing job in Denver, he might tell the computer "marketing and Denver." In this case, the Boolean operator "and" tells the computer to select only those job postings which contain both the word "marketing" and the word "Denver." It will overlook all other marketing positions and all other open jobs in Denver. It will not identify a marketing job in the Denver suburb of Aurora, and it will ignore a "business development" position in the heart of the city.

In short, Boolean operators are the key to making sure job seekers find your job postings. There's only one problem, most job seekers wouldn't know a Boolean operator from a telephone operator (provided they could even get one on the line). Equally as distressing, most don't know what they don't know. They think searching a database is like asking a gas station attendant for directions. Turn left, turn right, bitta-bang, bitta-boom, and you're there.

First, post your job openings on those recruitment web sites that offer the most intuitive and user-friendly interface for their search engine. Look for sites that provide clear and simple directions and a comprehensive set of frequently asked questions (also called FAQs). These instructions should be prominently displayed and written in English, not techno-babble, so that they will attract and help job seekers.

Second, wherever possible, use sites which organize their job postings into channels. Channels are nothing more than categories of jobs. The most prevalent channels at recruitment web sites today are industry, function and location. It's hardly rocket science, but setting healthcare positions apart from engineering jobs dramatically increases the likelihood that "Boolean-challenged" candidates will find the opening you have that applies to them.

Third, if you're posting openings on your own corporate web site, introduce George Boole. All databases are different and use slightly different versions of Boolean logic. Work with your IT staff (or whoever is responsible for the design and maintenance of your corporate web site) to develop a mini-tutorial on using Boolean operators. Then, translate those guidelines into terms that the non-IT population (i.e., most of us) can understand and add it to your site. Finally, make sure that you present the tutorial with an engaging and believable explanation of its value, or job seekers will simply pass on by.

Fourth, write a good job posting. In cyberspace, internal position descriptions and the text of traditional classified ads are nothing more than space junk. The only way that job seekers will find and read your posting is if you write it for the way they pick jobs out of a database. A good job posting bulges with the very same words that job seekers use to specify their employment criteria to a search engine. In short, use their vocabulary to describe the essential characteristics of the position and hot buttons to sell your position and make it more attractive than the other guy's.

And if you really want to make sure that job seekers will pick your posting out of a database, test it. Many recruitment web sites now offer free trials. Post your job on one or more of these sites and ask several of your employees to search their databases. As with a marketing focus group, select those individuals whose qualifications and attributes most closely match those of your target candidate population. If they come up empty-handed, it's likely that Mr. Boole will stump the candidates you're trying to recruit, as well.

More and more recruiters are discovering that the Information Superhighway can move millions candidates to job postings at warp speed. To keep that traffic from getting routed around your opportunities, however, you've got to take the Boolean bump out of the road.