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People often express frustration when they can’t find what they want on Google.  Google is not perfect, no question.  However, it is very, very good.

Often when someone is describing their Google “problem” they demonstrate some confusion with how Google works, so here are some “ground rules” to keep in mind when you are using Google for search:

1. Google uses “stemming” to find all variations of a word.  So if you search on the word “job,” it will typically also show you pages containing the word “jobs.”  A search on “engineer” will typically also find “engineers,” “engineering,” and “engineered.”  But it doesn’t do the reverse – if you enter “engineered” (or some other word with no additional variations), it won’t find pages containing variations of the word “engineer.”

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More About Using Google for Job Search: Google for Job Search Home Google Search Ground Rules Using Google to Find Job Postings Google-izing Your Job Search Setting Up Google Alerts Finding Jobs with Google 50 Ways to Use Google to Avoid Layoffs 5 Ways to Use Google Alerts for Your Job Search Google Alerts to Monitor Your Reputation Finding Jobs on Employer Websites Finding Hidden Jobs on Dot-Jobs Websites

1. Spelling counts.  If you can’t find something in Google, be sure you are spelling the term correctly in the search bar.  For example, if you are looking for an “administrative assistant” position, be sure you aren’t searching on “administrative assistance” because that’s a different thing. 
2. Capitalization doesn’t count (usually). If you leave all of your search terms in lower case, Google will look for all versions.  If you capitalize your terms, Google will look only for the capitalized versions. In some cases, capitalization might eliminate some relevant entries from the results, so best to stick to lower case, even for proper names.
3. Not every webpage of every website is included in Google.  Some are excluded on purpose (banned content, password-protected content, etc.), but many others are either too new, too poorly designed, or not linked from other websites, so not found by Google.
4. More results are not necessarily better results. Who has time to look through 5,000 or 500,000 (or more!) webpages? Relevance is what you are seeking, but greater results may mean a “larger net” was used which could be good (including what you need) or bad (including too much stuff you don’t need).  Often the more specific you are in your search, the fewer results you have, and those results have greater value to you because they are more relevant. 

When you have a large pool of results (too large), you can winnow that down by adding additional search terms to dig out only the results you want.

For more tips on using Google for your job search, check out the articles in the box on the upper right in this section.

© Copyright, 2011, Susan P. Joyce. All rights reserved.

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About the author…

Online job search expert Susan P. Joyce has been observing the online job search world and teaching online job search skills since 1995. Susan is a two-time layoff “graduate” who has worked in human resources at Harvard University and in a compensation consulting firm. In 1998, her company, NETability, Inc. purchased Job-Hunt.org, and Susan has been editor and publisher of Job-Hunt since then. Follow Susan on Twitter at @jobhuntorg.

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Posted Monday, April 25th, 2011 at 2:57 pm in Job Search Technology.