After last week’s blowout report from LinkedIn, we can all be forgiven for wondering if anyone sources candidates anywhere else. With 20,000 recruiter accounts, it’s not surprising that candidates for the most in-demand jobs get multiple contacts a month. It’s equally not surprising that those same candidates don’t respond to InMails, emails, telephone calls, or whatever other method resourceful recruiters come up with.
But if you want to fish away from the madding crowd, where you may find that special candidate who chooses not to be on LinkedIn (they are known to exist), then consider these alternatives.
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My colleague Jeremy Roberts, editor of SourceCon.com, a sister site to Fordyce, compiled a list of sourcing articles explaining how to find great talent on places other than LinkedIn. Here’s what he came up with:
- Source Hidden Software Engineers on Quora – Peter Kazanjy walks readers through the process he uses to source candidates on Quora.
- A Facebook Graph Search Video Tutorial for Sourcers and Recruiters – Johnny Campbell of Social Talent takes a deep dive into Facebook Graph Search in this compelling video tutorial.
- How To Source On Meetup – Peter Kazanjy shows how to identify talent on meetup.
- How to Source Candidates on Twitter with Google & Bing – Glen Cathey shares his secrets to find candidates on Twitter using Google and Bing.
- Resources and Tips to Source Military and Veteran Candidates – Military veteran turned sourcer, Dean DaCosta, shares his top military and veteran recruiting secrets.
- How to Source Github for Technical Talent – Github is a gold mine for tech talent. In this post Shane Bowen shares Boolean strings to help sourcers of all levels identify talent on Github.
- Everything You Need to Know to Source Candidates on Google+ – Glen Cathey shares best practices for sourcing candidates on Google+.
- Sourcing Hacks to View 3rd Degree and Out of Network Profiles on LinkedIn – Shane Bowen shares tips and tricks to see 3rd degree connections on LinkedIn.
- How To Source On StackOverflow – Peter Kazanjy demonstrates how to find developers on Stackoverflow.com.
It never ceases to amaze me how technology driven and dependent most Recruiters have become. LinkedIn and any other online tool are great assets, but they can’t be your only source. Good old fashioned cold sourcing and recruiting over the phone still MUST be a part of your sourcing and recruiting skill set and practice.
Technology shouldn’t replace the phone. However, a person that can leverage technology well can develop a call plan in a fraction of the time that it takes a person that doesn’t understand these tactics.
John: Why are you giving secrets away? 😉
We give them away daily at SourceCon :).
You can chop down trees with an ax or you can use technology (e.g., a chainsaw). Which one would you use first and more often if you had access to both? Why?
These are all tools. Why not just pick up the phone? I just conducted a search and ultimately found the right candidate through a long time contact. After utilizing many of the tools mentioned, I called someone with whom I had built a professional relationship over the years, and was then referred to a prospect.
Readyforce (http://www.readyforce.com) is a great network to find top engineering college students.
Good luck phoning that hacker who has almost no online footprint, let alone a phone number listed anywhere. I suppose it depends on what you’re recruiting but for what I do technology is the way to go.
How about professional communities like the Global Presales Community for sales engineers? http://presales.community
I found whoknows.com very useful for sourcing passive talent. They provide 500 free credits that is more than enough for me.