Originally Posted by Colin Legg

Yes, you're right. To work around that you have to use a name. Go to formulas tab > define name. Create a name called Instructors (or whatever you want to call it) which refers to ={"teacher","tutor"}

Then your conditional formatting rule becomes:
=COUNT(SEARCH(Instructors,$A1))=0



In the workbook you attached these cells just have #VALUE! errors - no formulas. So I can't see the original formula / answer this question.