WEBVTT 00:00.330 --> 00:02.400 -: Let me give you some of my secret recruiting tips. 00:02.400 --> 00:04.110 As a manager, one of the most challenging 00:04.110 --> 00:05.790 and time consuming parts of your job 00:05.790 --> 00:06.960 will be hiring new people 00:06.960 --> 00:09.210 and attracting new people to your team. 00:09.210 --> 00:11.730 Whether your team is growing or you need to replace people 00:11.730 --> 00:13.530 who have left for whatever reason, 00:13.530 --> 00:15.570 odds are you're always gonna be recruiting somebody. 00:15.570 --> 00:18.450 And it's very, very hard these days to attract good talent. 00:18.450 --> 00:20.640 There's just not enough to go around. 00:20.640 --> 00:22.740 So here's some tips that have worked for me. 00:22.740 --> 00:24.360 It's still hard, but at least these will give you 00:24.360 --> 00:25.193 an advantage. 00:25.193 --> 00:26.026 First of all, 00:26.026 --> 00:28.650 make sure your company's recruiters are your best friends. 00:28.650 --> 00:29.730 So be nice to them. 00:29.730 --> 00:30.840 You know, talk to them a lot. 00:30.840 --> 00:31.890 Spend a lot of time with them. 00:31.890 --> 00:34.590 Make sure they know that you care about what they're doing 00:34.590 --> 00:36.390 and you appreciate what they're doing. 00:36.390 --> 00:39.450 If they're in a situation where some other team passes on 00:39.450 --> 00:41.700 a candidate that they think is actually very strong, 00:41.700 --> 00:43.050 maybe they'll think of you 00:43.050 --> 00:45.720 and send that candidate your way to be evaluated instead. 00:45.720 --> 00:46.553 All right? 00:46.553 --> 00:47.386 It can pay off. 00:47.386 --> 00:49.830 And most recruiters are pretty cool people actually. 00:49.830 --> 00:52.620 So hanging out with them isn't a bad thing. 00:52.620 --> 00:55.110 Make sure you devote the necessary time to recruiting. 00:55.110 --> 00:57.030 This is a very important part of your job. 00:57.030 --> 00:59.490 Again, it's all about getting the right people on the bus 00:59.490 --> 01:00.900 and keeping them there, right? 01:00.900 --> 01:03.720 So make sure you're taking the time to make sure your team 01:03.720 --> 01:04.830 is full of A players 01:04.830 --> 01:06.690 and that you're taking the time to find them. 01:06.690 --> 01:08.820 If you bring on somebody who's dragging down 01:08.820 --> 01:11.250 the level of your team, your team is gonna resent that. 01:11.250 --> 01:12.570 You're not gonna have happy team, 01:12.570 --> 01:13.890 you're not gonna have a productive team. 01:13.890 --> 01:17.190 So you do need to put in the time to take care of this. 01:17.190 --> 01:19.140 And furthermore, I can guarantee you 01:19.140 --> 01:22.140 that your boss is gonna be looking very closely 01:22.140 --> 01:24.210 at your own headcount and how quickly you're filling it 01:24.210 --> 01:26.010 because they are evaluating you 01:26.010 --> 01:29.310 on your ability to attract talent to your team as well. 01:29.310 --> 01:32.490 So to attract that talent, you wanna hone your sales pitch. 01:32.490 --> 01:33.780 Why is your team awesome? 01:33.780 --> 01:36.630 Why should somebody join your team, right? 01:36.630 --> 01:38.730 So think about what that is, right? 01:38.730 --> 01:40.560 So how do you communicate very succinctly 01:40.560 --> 01:42.780 to somebody why they should join your group? 01:42.780 --> 01:44.880 Talented software engineers have a lot of choices 01:44.880 --> 01:46.020 in where they can work 01:46.020 --> 01:48.030 and maybe they just wanna stay where they are. 01:48.030 --> 01:50.520 You need to present a really compelling reason 01:50.520 --> 01:52.860 for them to take the risk of leaving something else 01:52.860 --> 01:54.750 and going to work for you instead. 01:54.750 --> 01:57.540 So come up with a way to make that sound exciting. 01:57.540 --> 01:59.820 Hopefully you can do that, you know, If not, then 01:59.820 --> 02:01.680 well you got a lot to think about. 02:01.680 --> 02:03.810 And the other thing too is that if your team really 02:03.810 --> 02:05.040 is that awesome, 02:05.040 --> 02:07.080 maybe you should work to make it that way, right? 02:07.080 --> 02:09.210 If it really is awesome, you won't have to recruit as much. 02:09.210 --> 02:12.000 So if people believe that their team is awesome 02:12.000 --> 02:14.730 and it really is awesome, they're not gonna leave, right? 02:14.730 --> 02:16.830 So the less attrition you have, 02:16.830 --> 02:18.150 the less recruiting you have to do. 02:18.150 --> 02:20.000 So it's kind of a double edged sword. 02:21.300 --> 02:23.550 Some ideas for getting creative with sourcing candidates. 02:23.550 --> 02:25.620 So the hardest part is just finding people 02:25.620 --> 02:26.790 to interview these days. 02:26.790 --> 02:28.740 There's just so few of them to go around, like I said. 02:28.740 --> 02:31.800 So you gotta get creative and the more creative you are 02:31.800 --> 02:34.110 the more chance you have of beating out your peers 02:34.110 --> 02:35.220 and landing good candidates. 02:35.220 --> 02:38.010 So look at unconventional sources 02:38.010 --> 02:40.500 for finding good engineers that might wanna come your way. 02:40.500 --> 02:41.910 And if you hit them with your sales pitch 02:41.910 --> 02:44.940 they might at least come talk to you and do an interview. 02:44.940 --> 02:47.700 Interns in college hires are kind of the go-to these days. 02:47.700 --> 02:49.980 It's so hard to find experienced people that a lot of people 02:49.980 --> 02:52.110 are turning to intern programs. 02:52.110 --> 02:54.210 So if you don't have an intern program 02:54.210 --> 02:56.460 maybe you should get one because a lot of interns 02:56.460 --> 02:59.850 do convert to full-time employees once they graduate. 02:59.850 --> 03:01.650 And since you've already had a chance to evaluate 03:01.650 --> 03:03.420 their performance and see how good they are 03:03.420 --> 03:05.040 and what their potential is, 03:05.040 --> 03:06.990 that's a pretty low risk hiring decision there 03:06.990 --> 03:08.010 if you had a good intern. 03:08.010 --> 03:10.680 So you might think interns are a big time suck 03:10.680 --> 03:12.572 and they do require a lot of management 03:12.572 --> 03:14.220 but it can be worth it in the end. 03:14.220 --> 03:16.110 The time it takes to manage an intern 03:16.110 --> 03:18.870 is probably less than the time it takes you to try to hire 03:18.870 --> 03:20.670 an experienced person. 03:20.670 --> 03:23.700 Also provide incentives for employee referrals. 03:23.700 --> 03:26.250 Most jobs these days are just based on who you know, right? 03:26.250 --> 03:28.680 So make sure your employees have some reason 03:28.680 --> 03:30.300 to tell their friends 03:30.300 --> 03:32.640 why they should come work for you as well. 03:32.640 --> 03:35.130 And you can do whatever is within 03:35.130 --> 03:36.960 the bounds of legality there to promote that. 03:36.960 --> 03:38.820 Obviously, if you're gonna be offering any sort of 03:38.820 --> 03:40.680 like monetary incentive or anything like that 03:40.680 --> 03:43.410 you need to clear that with your management, maybe with HR. 03:43.410 --> 03:45.390 But any incentive you can provide 03:45.390 --> 03:48.270 for employees to refer people to work with you 03:48.270 --> 03:51.030 that is usually one of the top sources 03:51.030 --> 03:54.570 of new candidates that I found on my own teams. 03:54.570 --> 03:57.480 Some other unconventional ideas, searching GitHub. 03:57.480 --> 03:59.760 If there are specific types of code 03:59.760 --> 04:02.610 or open source projects that are relevant to what you do 04:02.610 --> 04:03.990 see who's contributing to them. 04:03.990 --> 04:05.640 Maybe they're looking for a full-time job. 04:05.640 --> 04:07.260 You know, it's a good way to find people. 04:07.260 --> 04:08.670 Academic papers, same thing. 04:08.670 --> 04:10.170 If you're doing some sort of specific 04:10.170 --> 04:12.510 area of research in your team, 04:12.510 --> 04:14.340 find who's writing the best papers in that field. 04:14.340 --> 04:16.320 Maybe they're looking to get out of academia 04:16.320 --> 04:17.853 and get an industry job. 04:18.720 --> 04:20.670 Social media, social media groups. 04:20.670 --> 04:22.830 Where do your potential employees hang out online? 04:22.830 --> 04:23.910 Think about them. 04:23.910 --> 04:27.930 Where would you go to find them online and go there. 04:27.930 --> 04:29.790 You know, you can't be too salesy, obviously 04:29.790 --> 04:32.910 but let your presence know that you're a hiring manager 04:32.910 --> 04:35.580 or whatever company it is, and this is what you're doing. 04:35.580 --> 04:38.430 And if somebody's interested in joining your team, 04:38.430 --> 04:40.290 they'll know how to find you at least. 04:40.290 --> 04:41.400 You can also host 04:41.400 --> 04:43.770 or sponsor local technical events or hackathons. 04:43.770 --> 04:44.910 This is a good idea, right? 04:44.910 --> 04:48.900 So if you promote some sort of event that's related 04:48.900 --> 04:51.150 to what you do, people might come outta the wood work 04:51.150 --> 04:52.440 just to do it for fun. 04:52.440 --> 04:55.380 And people who do what you're hiring people to do for fun, 04:55.380 --> 04:56.550 wow, that's a great hire. 04:56.550 --> 04:57.600 That's the kind of person you want working 04:57.600 --> 04:58.433 for your team, right? 04:58.433 --> 05:01.230 So hosting these events, again, it takes some effort 05:01.230 --> 05:03.570 but it can be a good source of leads. 05:03.570 --> 05:05.163 Internal hires as well. 05:06.180 --> 05:07.860 Some people view that as cheating, 05:07.860 --> 05:10.560 but if you are offering a better employment experience 05:10.560 --> 05:11.910 than other teams in your company 05:11.910 --> 05:15.630 then I think it's totally fair game to allow people 05:15.630 --> 05:17.640 to transfer into your team if they want to. 05:17.640 --> 05:20.550 So again, if you're being a good manager 05:20.550 --> 05:22.410 and you have a team where people are happy and productive, 05:22.410 --> 05:24.900 word will spread and people will come your way. 05:24.900 --> 05:26.640 If you have an effective team, 05:26.640 --> 05:28.470 you'll rarely have to hire externally 05:28.470 --> 05:29.910 because you'll have a steady supply 05:29.910 --> 05:32.340 of internal transfers beating on your door. 05:32.340 --> 05:33.540 That's where you want to be. 05:33.540 --> 05:35.700 So that comes down to being a good manager 05:35.700 --> 05:36.800 at the end of the day. 05:37.770 --> 05:40.140 Similar to the event idea is hosting internal 05:40.140 --> 05:41.910 or external tech talks. 05:41.910 --> 05:44.430 So one idea is to have sort of a weekly 05:44.430 --> 05:46.620 or monthly learning series where you talk about 05:46.620 --> 05:48.960 some new paper or some new technological development 05:48.960 --> 05:51.240 or some new technology that might be relevant 05:51.240 --> 05:52.290 to what you're doing. 05:52.290 --> 05:54.030 Open that up to the whole company, right? 05:54.030 --> 05:57.270 So this is really a trick for attracting internal transfers 05:57.270 --> 05:59.460 at the end of the day for internal talks. 05:59.460 --> 06:01.421 You can also host external talks as well. 06:01.421 --> 06:03.450 You know, you can do this externally and open it up 06:03.450 --> 06:06.480 to the entire community and get more leads that way as well. 06:06.480 --> 06:08.910 So just make sure that whatever your talk is 06:08.910 --> 06:11.280 you're opening and closing it off with a pitch to apply 06:11.280 --> 06:14.190 to your team and make yourself available to talk 06:14.190 --> 06:16.890 to people who might be interested after the show. 06:16.890 --> 06:18.000 You can also go on tour. 06:18.000 --> 06:19.320 I had to do this a lot. 06:19.320 --> 06:21.720 Well, really takes a lot out of you, but sometimes 06:21.720 --> 06:23.340 you just have to go to local hiring events 06:23.340 --> 06:26.100 and your recruiting staff will usually orchestrate 06:26.100 --> 06:27.030 this for you. 06:27.030 --> 06:29.130 But if you're asked to take a trip to Milwaukee 06:29.130 --> 06:31.320 to attend some hiring event there, 06:31.320 --> 06:32.970 you gotta go where you gotta go, you know? 06:32.970 --> 06:34.980 Not all the engineers are gonna be living near you 06:34.980 --> 06:37.470 and you might have to go and find them yourself. 06:37.470 --> 06:40.140 So again, a lot of effort, a lot of expense 06:40.140 --> 06:42.600 but I've had a lot of good hires that way, 06:42.600 --> 06:44.070 where you go to especially cities 06:44.070 --> 06:45.510 that people don't think about. 06:45.510 --> 06:47.970 I've hired a lot of great people from Minnesota, actually 06:47.970 --> 06:51.930 from Minneapolis, and a lot of people kind of forget that 06:51.930 --> 06:53.400 there's good engineers there, but there are. 06:53.400 --> 06:55.200 So take a trip from Minneapolis, 06:55.200 --> 06:57.300 you might find some good engineers. 06:57.300 --> 06:59.700 Also, remember, remote work is a thing now. 06:59.700 --> 07:00.780 So you know 07:00.780 --> 07:03.510 for obvious reasons that we don't want to remember 07:03.510 --> 07:06.180 remote working has become more popular than it used to be. 07:06.180 --> 07:08.370 So that opens up the whole world to you potentially. 07:08.370 --> 07:09.540 If your employer is on board 07:09.540 --> 07:11.760 with people working remotely permanently, 07:11.760 --> 07:13.860 then you are no longer geographically restricted 07:13.860 --> 07:17.070 or limited by people's ability to move where your job is. 07:17.070 --> 07:18.300 That opens up a huge pool 07:18.300 --> 07:20.130 of talent that wasn't there before. 07:20.130 --> 07:22.143 So use that to your advantage.