If you’re not a world renowned company you would most likely have to reach out to candidates more than they would have to reach out to you.
Places where you would find candidates will differ depending on a number of factors: industry, type of position you’re trying to fill, skill set, seniority, company, etc. Taking this into account you will find that a variety of sources will work for your candidate search not just one.
However, let’s take a look at the most popular places where you could find Software Developers:
Traditional Paid Job Sites
Monster, CareerBuilder, Indeed, GlassDoor, Simply Hired, ZipRecruiter. These are good places if you’re trying to find activate candidates on the market. However, by using this method you have very little information about the quality of the candidate. Which means you would have to do in-depth screening to verify their skills. You will also find lots of government contractors here which might be relevant to the position you’re trying to fill as well as candidates that are represented by third-party agencies.
Free Job Sites
The list here can be pretty big and some of the sites can be included from the previous point since they are free for job seekers, but from my personal experience Craigslist works the best from this category. Although Craigslist has a whole array of categories, job seekers are one of them and based on the technical prescreens that we performed, the quality of those candidates is high. Also candidates are pretty responsive there.
Job Fairs
Job Fairs usually work well if you’re looking for fresh out of college or Junior Developers. These types of candidates usually don’t have a profile online or if they do there’s not much on it. So meeting them in-person and testing their abilities will give you a great insight on their experience. Also posting on University boards is a great way to attract their attention. Just make sure that your pitch is solid since Junior Developers are often aiming for the big famous companies and they might not be that interested if you don’t position yourself correctly.
Internal Database/Referrals
In terms of quality these stand out the most since they already went through the recruiting funnel and if you asked the right questions you would know who’s good and when they are making a career move. Depending on the size of your internal database you might find more active candidates, but the majority would be passive, not actively seeking, so you would have to convince them to make a move. In addition, candidates which are good would refer to you other candidates of the same quality. Just make sure that you offer the candidate some kind of an incentive for that referral. Bonuses usually work well in these cases.
Social Networks
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn. Among all 4 LinkedIn seems to be the most popular for the candidate search since it’s a professional network for doing business and unlike the other 3 it’s easier to reach out for business. Yet at the same time being so popular LinkedIn creates more competition for your as a Recruiter/HR, so your message has to really stand out to the candidate otherwise it might get lost among other messages. On LinkedIn it’s a lot easier to tell the quality of the candidate unlike on traditional job boards, since there are many indicators that can help you identify the right fit.
No matter the industry, it’s always useful to use creative and innovative interview questions that boost your recruiting game.
Ok, so now you found the source. How do you know if the candidate is good? How do you know if what you’re offering is a match to what the candidate is seeking? How do you know if the timing is right?
We will discuss these in our upcoming posts.
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