Conceptual Search
Conceptual Search is an alternative way to search candidate files that broadens the search result by including documents that are similar based on concepts and proximities. The retrieved documents do not need to contain everything entered as search criteria, only related concepts.
In a Conceptual Search, most of the structured data elements are not part of the candidate file and are leveraged by the Advanced Search engine. Although Conceptual Search might be the preferred search method of some users, the Conceptual Search engine was built to complement the Advanced Search. Advanced Search can retrieve candidate files with more precision, using mandatory criteria used to source candidates for a specific requisition and can clearly define the required criteria set for a specific job. But what if you don't have precise criteria for a search? What if you have candidates without structured data and who have simply a pasted resume or an attached file? Or perhaps you cannot find any candidates using the Advanced Search and want to know what your database holds with regard to a hard-to-fill job description or candidates used as a basis to find other candidates. These are scenarios for which the Conceptual Search is most suitable.
Once the Conceptual Search module is enabled, the system administrator can control which users will have access to Conceptual Search by granting them a user type permission.
The Conceptual Search is available via the Advanced Search. When selecting the Conceptual option, users must enter significant text in the Keywords field (typically taken from a candidate's resume or a job description) to search for candidates. The search engine then looks through the following content of the candidate file:
| Content Searched by the Conceptual Search |
|---|
| Pasted resume from the general profile. |
| Career objectives from the general profile. |
| Additional information from the general profile. |
| Education (Other Institution, Other Program, Education Level (Achieved), and text-based User Defined Fields) from the general profile. |
| Work Experience (Other Employer, Other Job Function, Achievements, and text-based User Defined Fields) from the general profile. |
| Text-based answers to questions from the library. |
| Text-based user-defined field answers. |
| The last three attachments per candidate provided the attachments use one of the following supported file formats:
|
The conceptual search cannot retrieve disqualified candidates because they are not indexed in the database.
Below are a few tips when using Conceptual Search.
Tip 1: Provide enough text in the Keywords field
If you only need to type a few words, it is usually advisable to perform a Keyword search or Related Terms search instead of a Conceptual Search. The Conceptual Search analyzes a text, extracts the most significant elements and compares them with significant words and relationships between words extracted from a sample of about 100,000 candidate files from your database. The system discards non-significant words from its reference list in the knowledge base. A word used by only a few candidates or another used by almost all candidates might not have any weight in the Conceptual Search "brain".
If you performed a Conceptual Search using only a few words, chances are that some of the words would be non-significant. You would better off pasting entire paragraphs and let the system determine what is important in each one and identify the best candidates based on this information.
Tip 2: Sort results by decreasing relevancy
The Conceptual Search engine tends to retrieve a lot of candidates. What distinguishes them is the relevancy between the candidate file and the Conceptual text box. You will typically want to sort the retrieved candidates from most relevant to least relevant.