Use smart search first — it is instant and handles most queries. Switch to boolean when natural language is being too loose and you want exact operators. Reach for AI deep search only when smart search clearly didn't understand what you asked for.
All three modes use the same query bar. The bar has a mode toggle: a magnifying-glass icon for standard search and a lightning-bolt icon for AI search. Boolean isn't a separate button — you get it by typing boolean operators into the standard bar.
The three modes
| Smart search | Boolean search | Deep search | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed | Instant | Instant | ~30 seconds to a few minutes |
| What it searches | Parsed fields, skills, and free text on candidates already in Chosen | The same, matched literally | The same, plus resume body, with an LLM rating each candidate |
| How you write it | A plain sentence | AND / OR / NOT, quotes, parentheses | A plain sentence |
| When it's right | "Engineers in NYC" | "senior engineer" must mean the phrase, not two words | "Engineers who worked on payments infra at a Series B" |
| Cost | Free | Free | Counts against an expensive usage tier |
Smart search — the default
Type the thing you would say to a recruiter sitting next to you. An interpreter maps your sentence to candidate field filters plus a meaning-based match, then runs it against the people in your system. It is instant, and it is right most of the time.
Good queries for smart search:
senior backend engineers in NYC, ideally with payments experiencedesigners who have led 0-to-1 product work at startupsdata scientists with healthcare domain experience
Be specific about what matters. "Engineer" is too vague to be useful; "engineer with iOS experience" gives you a real result set.
Boolean search — when natural language is too generous
Sometimes smart search is too eager. It matches "senior" and "engineer" separately when you needed the exact phrase, or it pads the results with near-misses. Boolean mode hands you the controls: uppercase AND, OR, NOT, double quotes for exact phrases, parentheses to group.
"senior engineer" AND payments AND (NYC OR remote)
That is precise in a way a sentence can't be. The boolean syntax page is the full cheat-sheet.
Deep search — when smart search didn't get it
Deep search is a multi-stage AI pipeline. It plans your query, pulls a candidate set, has an LLM read each resume and score fit, and builds result columns specific to what you asked. It also adds columns smart search can't — for "people who worked at FANG," a column listing which FANG companies appear on each resume.
It is slower and it costs against a usage tier, so it is not the everyday tool. Use it for the queries where smart search returned ten people who look loosely related and you can tell it didn't really understand. The deep search run page walks through what happens during one.
When it gets it wrong
- Smart search pads results. If a query returns near-misses, tighten the wording or switch to boolean for exact phrases.
- Boolean returns nothing. Usually too many
ANDclauses stacked together — see why a search returns no results. - Deep search still misses someone. A candidate has to make the recall set before the AI scores them. If your pool is large, narrowing the query helps more than re-running it.
Limits
None of these search the open web. They run against candidates already imported into Chosen. Finding new people is a separate flow — sourcing. Search also treats a five-year-old resume like a current one; if you want recent candidates, add a date filter.