Ask HN: How do small companies do recruitment?

#1

Post by lbriner » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 10:23 AM UTC

I am based in the UK and find it hard to find good developers/designers/product people. Although we advertise on our web site, unless people are looking quite specifically, they are unlikely to find the adverts (unlike FANGs which would attract candidates directly).

Also, Recruiters tend to be a poor and expensive solution. It is hard to tell the good from those who just claim to be good and we get a lot of noise from them. Also, I'm not sure that the best candidates just call a random recruiter to find them a job.

What are others doing to both find jobs and to recruit?

Re: Ask HN: How do small companies do recruitment?

#2

Post by MattGaiser » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 10:43 AM UTC

Never done any recruiting, but here something I have noticed in recruitment efforts.

Figure out what you really need and how "good" is defined.

Good is contextual. My past company spent a lot of time on system design interviewing. Here is the problem. We didn't build anything close to a complex system. We created demos to show off to clients as MVPs. So we left positions open for months until we found the perfect person and they didn't want to join/did not stay as they wouldn't actually use those skills.

Said past company also wanted "product minded people", something in my own background. Devs had no influence on the product there. Yet they waited for people like myself to come along.

A job before that leetcoded. Nobody currently there could pass the leetcode. The dev doing the interview had never even seen a tree in production at any company. We certainly didn't care internally as the database was so small and it was a Scrum team focused on shipping tickets. But we kept reposting the job and then had to eventually just take a candidate (if you could solve a tree leetcode, you would not work at this place).

Re: Ask HN: How do small companies do recruitment?

#3

Post by enz » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 10:49 AM UTC

In previous companies, the most effective way seemed to be the network, i.e., asking current employees if they knew someone interested in working here or asking publicly on LinkedIn.

Re: Ask HN: How do small companies do recruitment?

#4

Post by gfykvfyxgc » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 10:52 AM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #2

Never done any recruiting, but here something I have noticed in recruitment efforts. Figure out what you really need and how "good" is defined. Good is contextual. My past company spent a lot of time on system design interviewing. Here is the problem. We didn't build anything close to a complex system. We created demos to show off to clients as MVPs. So we left positions open for months until we found the perfect per…

I love this story.

Re: Ask HN: How do small companies do recruitment?

#5

Post by f6v » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 10:58 AM UTC

I don’t think you can be successful unless you go out and start looking for people on LinkedIn. I mean messaging those you think might be a good fit. And you need a really personal message to convey why a candidate needs to join you. Small company probably means early stage/high risk. Think of the reasons people wouldn’t join such a company. Try to anticipate some of the concerns.

Re: Ask HN: How do small companies do recruitment?

#6

Post by quda » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 11:08 AM UTC

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: How do small companies do recruitment?

#7

Post by MattGaiser » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 11:16 AM UTC

gfykvfyxgc wrote: post #4

MattGaiser wrote: post #2

Never done any recruiting, but here something I have noticed in recruitment efforts. Figure out what you really need and how "good" is defined. Good is contextual. My past company spent a lot of time on system design interviewing. Here is the problem. We didn't build anything close to a complex system. We created demos to show off to clients as MVPs. So we left positions open for months until we found the perfect per…

I love this story.

I have plenty more like it. This isn't an exclusively software dev problem either. It is just that you can't get away with asking for everything when hiring devs.

Re: Ask HN: How do small companies do recruitment?

#8

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 11:19 AM UTC

f6v wrote: post #5

I don’t think you can be successful unless you go out and start looking for people on LinkedIn. I mean messaging those you think might be a good fit. And you need a really personal message to convey why a candidate needs to join you. Small company probably means early stage/high risk. Think of the reasons people wouldn’t join such a company. Try to anticipate some of the concerns.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How do small companies do recruitment?

#9

Post by sec400 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 11:28 AM UTC

Have found DMs on Twitter to be high ROI. Recruiters in the UK can be hit or miss as it's such a low barrier of entry job. Some out there that really are worth their weight in gold and others out there that give them all a bad name.

Re: Ask HN: How do small companies do recruitment?

#10

Post by tomp » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 11:32 AM UTC

> Recruiters tend to be a poor and expensive solution

Literally 90% job of a recruiter is browsing through LinkedIn and spamming potential candidates.

Easy to do that job yourself, if you invest the time. Also, you'll be able to do the job much better, and will come across as much more genuine to candidates.