How Recruiters Search an ATS: Workday, Greenhouse, LinkedIn
Most advice about "getting past the ATS" imagines a robot reading your resume once and passing judgment. The vendors' own documentation describes something more ordinary: recruiters typing searches, ticking filters and sorting lists. Once you know which searches they can run, you know which words on your resume do the work. This page sets out what Greenhouse, Workday and LinkedIn Recruiter document about candidate search, and what each feature implies for how you phrase things.
Which systems large employers use
Search behaviour depends on the system, so start with who runs what. In the ATS Resume AI analysis of all 503 S&P 500 careers sites and 9,260 live job postings, June 2026, Workday was the most common identifiable ATS, at 87 companies, or 30.2% of the 288 companies whose system we could identify. Greenhouse ran at 23 (8.0%), and Phenom People (39), SAP SuccessFactors (37), Oracle HCM Cloud (29) and iCIMS (26) made up most of the rest (full breakdown). LinkedIn Recruiter sits alongside all of them as a sourcing tool for people who have not applied.
How Greenhouse recruiters search
Greenhouse documents two search paths.
Full-text and Boolean search. From the All Candidates page, a recruiter turns on Full Text Search and can then use Boolean operators (Greenhouse: Boolean queries). AND requires every term; OR accepts any, with the example "trainer OR instructor OR teacher"; NOT excludes, as in architect NOT "software architect". Quotation marks keep a phrase "intact in the exact word order stated." A wildcard covers word forms; Greenhouse's own example is that Java* returns both Java and Javascript. The documentation notes that results include "resumes, notes, or scorecards." Each result shows a snippet of how the terms appear in the profile (Search resumes for keywords).
Talent Filtering during application review. A recruiter searches "for job titles, skills, locations, and other keywords in the full text of resumes and internal notes," marks each keyword Required or Preferred, and then filters "by location, referrals, scorecard status, education, or custom criteria" (Talent Filtering). Greenhouse also offers "suggested keywords generated from your public job post." That last detail matters: the search terms often come straight from the posting you are reading.
How Workday recruiters search
Workday's detailed recruiter documentation is mostly behind customer login, but its public pages describe the shape. Recruiters can search for candidates with relevant skills and use the Find Candidates report to filter by Skills Cloud skills and maintained skills (Workday: Skills in Recruiting). They can save frequently used filters on the candidate grid and create dynamic pools that Workday keeps filling with candidates who match the search criteria (Workday Recruiting manual).
Two Workday features change what "search" means. Skills are standardised: Skills Cloud is an ontology of more than 73,000 skills (Workday datasheet), and Workday suggests skills to candidates from their resume when they apply. And with HiredScore, each applicant gets a grade from A to D based on basic and preferred qualifications, shown in the recruiter's Spotlight view. Our Workday resume tips cover the application form itself.
How LinkedIn Recruiter searches
LinkedIn Recruiter treats its job title, location, company, skills and assessments, school, industry and spoken language filters as Boolean (LinkedIn Help). Each can be set to Must have (AND), Can have (OR) or Doesn't have (NOT). In the Keywords field, LinkedIn ignores a list of stop words that includes and, or, the, of, at, by, to, for, with, in and after. So a recruiter typing "after sales" may effectively search for "sales."
LinkedIn's Boolean guide adds that operators must be typed in uppercase and that wildcards such as an asterisk are not supported. Unlike Greenhouse, a LinkedIn search for "analyst" does not automatically catch "analytics" unless the recruiter lists both.
| Feature | Greenhouse | Workday | LinkedIn Recruiter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boolean AND / OR / NOT | Yes | Not in public docs | Yes |
| Exact phrase in quotes | Yes | Not in public docs | Yes |
| Wildcard (*) | Yes | Not in public docs | No |
| Searches resume full text | Yes, plus notes and scorecards | Not in public docs | Searches member profiles |
| Skills filter | Via keywords | Skills Cloud skills | Skills and Assessments filter |
| AI ranking shown to recruiter | Talent Matching categories | HiredScore grades A to D | Not covered here |
| Keywords suggested from the posting | Yes | Not in public docs | Not in public docs |
Searches are not the only filter
Keyword search ranks and narrows; application questions can decide outright. Greenhouse lets employers attach an auto-reject rule to a Yes/No, single-select or multi-select application question, so that a particular answer rejects the applicant, assigns a rejection reason and can send an email. Its example is a driving role that asks whether you hold a Class A commercial driver's license.
That rule runs on your answer, not your resume, and no amount of keyword work changes it. Read every screening question literally. If a question asks whether you have "5+ years" of something and you have four and a half, the honest answer is no, and the place to make your case is a role where that is not a hard requirement.
The AI ranking layers are documented differently. Greenhouse's Talent Matching FAQ states that it "does not auto-reject or auto-advance any candidate." Instead, Greenhouse groups candidates by match category, ordered by application date within each group, for a person to review; Workday shows HiredScore grades to the recruiter in Spotlight.
What this means for your wording
Four rules follow directly from the documentation.
Use the posting's exact job title somewhere. Quoted phrase search and exact-match filtering both look for the words in order. "Customer Success Manager" will not match "Client Success Lead." If your real title differs, add the posting's title honestly, for example in a headline; see changing a job title for ATS.
Write tools both ways once. A recruiter may type "Amazon Web Services" or "AWS." Without a documented synonym expansion in keyword search, the safe move is to include both forms once.
Write word forms out where it matters. Greenhouse wildcards catch "manag*" variants only if the recruiter types the asterisk; LinkedIn has no wildcard at all. If the posting says "project management" and you wrote "managed projects," add the posting's phrase.
Put location and work authorisation in plain text. Location is a filter in Greenhouse Talent Filtering and LinkedIn Recruiter. City and region in your contact line costs nothing.
Build the search a recruiter would run
Pull the title and three must-haves from the posting
Write down the exact job title and the three requirements that look non-negotiable: a tool, a certification, a domain.
Write the Boolean string
Format it the way the docs describe, for example: "data analyst" AND (SQL OR "Structured Query Language") AND Tableau. Add a location if the role is on-site.
Run it against your resume with Find
Search your resume for each quoted phrase exactly. Each miss is a search you would not appear in.
Fix misses with true wording
Add the exact phrase where it accurately describes your work, in a bullet or skills line.
Check your LinkedIn profile too
Recruiter filters run on titles and skills in your profile. Match the title and add the posting's skills you genuinely have.
For deciding which terms to put in the string, our ATS resume keywords guide and the free resume keyword generator help.
Sources
- Greenhouse Support, "Search candidates using Boolean queries"
- Greenhouse Support, "Search resumes for keywords"
- Greenhouse Support, "Talent Filtering"
- Workday, "Setup Considerations: Skills in Recruiting"
- Workday, Recruiting for Administrators course manual: Prospects and Candidates
- Workday, Skills Cloud datasheet
- Workday HiredScore documentation, "Reference: Candidate Grades"
- Greenhouse Support, "Auto-reject"
- Greenhouse Support, "Talent Matching FAQ"
- LinkedIn Help, "Use Boolean to filter search results in Recruiter and Recruiter Lite"
- LinkedIn Help, "Use Boolean search on LinkedIn"
Frequently asked questions
- Do recruiters search resumes or LinkedIn profiles?
- Both, in different tools. Greenhouse and Workday searches run on applications and resumes inside the employer's system. LinkedIn Recruiter searches LinkedIn profiles, so your profile title and skills need the same wording as your resume.
- Will a recruiter search find 'Javascript' if I wrote 'JavaScript'?
- Spelling and spacing are the risk: 'JavaScript' and 'Java Script' are different strings to an exact-match search. Greenhouse's documentation shows Java* matching Javascript, but only when the recruiter uses the wildcard.
- Can recruiters filter by education or degree?
- Yes in Greenhouse Talent Filtering, which lists education among its filters, and LinkedIn Recruiter has a Schools filter. Write your degree name and institution in full.
- Does a recruiter see why my resume matched a search?
- Often. Greenhouse full-text search shows a snippet of how the search terms are used in your profile, and its AI review highlights matched keywords on the resume preview.