Why are quotation marks essential in Boolean search AND how do exact phrase matches work?

Without quotation marks, search engines break multi-word phrases down into individual words and apply an implicit AND operator between them. For example, if a sourcer inputs Product Marketing Manager without quotation marks, the search engine interprets the query as Product AND Marketing AND Manager. As a result, the query will return candidate profiles where “Product” appears in an old retail job, “Marketing” appears in a college degree description, and “Manager” appears in their current title as an “Operations Manager.” The candidate is completely unqualified for a Product Marketing role, yet their profile matches the unstructured query.

Use quotation marks for multi-word job titles (“Human Resources Generalist”), compound technical stacks (“Spring Boot”, “Machine Learning”), multi-word certifications (“Chartered Accountant”), and multi-word cities (“New Delhi”).