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Tech Rec 13th November
16 November 2018
On Tuesday 13th November, Talentful hosted the first Technical Recruitment (‘Tech Rec’) meetup focussing on creative sourcing. Over 70 people turned up to hear from our wonderful panel of experts: Charlie Lower and Chris Murphy from Talentful, Alex Jones from Contino and Hannah Mansour from Hostmaker. For those of you who couldn’t be with us, here is what we learnt...
Sourcing on Github:
Charlie opened with a talk on how to use the open-source sharing platform, ‘Github’ as a way to find untouched talent. Through a comprehensive explanation of a particularly good profile (of a candidate named Bruno), Charlie quickly convinced us that there were certainly some hidden gems to be found. With only 10% (taken from a sample of 120 recruiters) accessing the 31 million devs that can be found on Github, you can imagine how this revelation went down!
Niche Tech Hiring
Alex spoke next, presenting on the enormous challenge in which Contino specialises: hiring Enterprise DevOps and Cloud specialists into their consultancy. In order for him to succeed, as an in-house tech recruiter, the team has developed some unique selling points and techniques.
- All teams within Contino use the agile methodology; a practice used by many tech that enables them to be reactive and, therefore, efficient. Alex finds this ‘practice what you preach’ approach builds his credibility and understanding of those he hires.
- Youtube campaigns have been created showing ‘a day in the life’ to encourage direct applicants.
- They drive referrals through a generous referral bonus and a flawless candidate experience.
Candidate experience is so important. Contino achieve this through standardising their Interview processes and ensuring candidates are made to feel special throughout throughout.
X-Ray Searching:
Chris Murphy began his discussion on X-Ray searching with a warning that this method can be time-consuming, but a reminder that it’s useful when the Linkedin river runs dry. It is also worth remembering that this sourcing method will only work when searching publicly available directories.
As any recruiter knows, a good boolean search is an art form and sometimes the standard AND, OR, NOT is insufficient. Chris talked us through some additional weapons to help ensure our search is as effective as possible:
- To specify which website from which you would like your profiles to come use ‘site:’ e.g. site: uk.linkedin.com/in
- To specify something in the URL of a website use ‘inurl:’ e.g. ‘inurl: (CV OR Resume)’
- To specify something in the title of a document use ‘intitle:’
- To specify something to appear in the text of a webpage use ‘intext:’ – particularly useful if looking for a certain skill!
- You can also use NOT, AND and OR in conjunction with these e.g. ‘inurl: (CV OR Resume) NOT intext: (CV OR Resume)’ (Hint: This can be particularly helpful when filtering out job ads)
Charlie recommended recruitin.net for those just starting out, before you really get the hang of a good boolean.
Linkedin and Google plugins
To conclude the evening, Hannah acknowledged how time consuming and frustrating sourcing can be. She highlighted the importance of sourcing well so you can move on to hiring as soon as possible and avoid damaging your personal brand by reaching the wrong people.
Hannah recommended a few tips and tricks to help write an effective message:
Be concise. Most candidates look at messages on a mobile on the go so it’s important that your message is engaging and short. LinkedIn recommends no more than 500 words… challenge accepted!
Use Crystal; a fun plug-in tool that claims to reveal the personality behind a candidate profile, allowing you to personalise your outreach effectively.
Follow up: after a few days, send another message reminding your candidate of your offer.
And most importantly, use your time efficiently. Manage the expectations of your stakeholders and re-evaluate the hiring process if it takes to long!
There was far too much fantastic advice to fit into an hour – and even less I could fit into this blog – so I understand if you’re hungry for more! Watch out for the next Tech Rec again and come along for free pizza, wine and wisdom….
