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Ask HN: How do small companies do recruitment?

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

#61

Post by maccard »

jakub_g wrote: post #18
jakub_g wrote: post #11

Where are the places that developers show up? On HN and Twitter. Do something to spread awareness of your company. It will be a long journey, but if you don't have $$$ to throw at a problem, you need to find alternatives: - There's a monthly "Who is hiring" thread on HN every 1st day of a month. - Create a technical blog. When it gets popular and people see that it's high quality, brand awareness will increase. It ta…

Also: think about all the candidates you implicitly reject and others reject. They are an opportunity. Hire people that no one else wants (for wrong reasons). Go to universities and hire motivated juniors. Offer paid internships etc. Highly recommend to follow https://twitter.com/gergelyorosz

Hiring juniors and/or interns is something every company should do, however they're not "just" missed opportunities. If you want them to succeed you have to put in the work to help them do so, and that in itself needs to be budgetted for with every junior hire.

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

#62

Post by ecshafer »

jakub_g wrote: post #11

Where are the places that developers show up? On HN and Twitter. Do something to spread awareness of your company. It will be a long journey, but if you don't have $$$ to throw at a problem, you need to find alternatives: - There's a monthly "Who is hiring" thread on HN every 1st day of a month. - Create a technical blog. When it gets popular and people see that it's high quality, brand awareness will increase. It ta…

Do developers show up on twitter?

Of the 100 or so professional software engineers and it pros I have worked closely with over the last decade, I think I know... 1 that used twitter. Maybe they follow engineering on twitter, maybe not. Twitter gets you, twitter people, not necessarily software engineers.

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

#63

Post by CPLX »

I advertise on LinkedIn and use Workable as my applicant tracking system.

I've experimented with pretty much every paid job board and have settled in Linkedin, it seems to get a reasonably broad range of candidates for most positions posted.

Also I have moved to a policy of posting the exact starting salary.

Not a range, not commensurate with experience, etc. Just like here's what we're going to pay you, right from the beginning. Also here's the benefits, they're good and they're 100% paid by us. It just feels like a more ethical way to do things and stops all the stilly time wasting around compensation.

If I want to consider a range of applicants with a wide band in compensation (which, sometimes you do, maybe you're open to a wide range) then I just post more than one ad. There's nothing wrong with posting for Junior, Senior, Director, with the same core job function.

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

#64

Post by jakub_g »

ecshafer wrote: post #62
jakub_g wrote: post #11

Where are the places that developers show up? On HN and Twitter. Do something to spread awareness of your company. It will be a long journey, but if you don't have $$$ to throw at a problem, you need to find alternatives: - There's a monthly "Who is hiring" thread on HN every 1st day of a month. - Create a technical blog. When it gets popular and people see that it's high quality, brand awareness will increase. It ta…

Do developers show up on twitter? Of the 100 or so professional software engineers and it pros I have worked closely with over the last decade, I think I know... 1 that used twitter. Maybe they follow engineering on twitter, maybe not. Twitter gets you, twitter people, not necessarily software engineers.

There are many people who passively use Twitter and don't follow / comment much. But I agree it's true, Twitter is massive time sink and many people rightfully avoid it. It's just one of places to look, and it attracts specific subset of devs.

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

#65

Post by jakub_g »

maccard wrote: post #61
jakub_g wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: think about all the candidates you implicitly reject and others reject. They are an opportunity. Hire people that no one else wants (for wrong reasons). Go to universities and hire motivated juniors. Offer paid internships etc. Highly recommend to follow https://twitter.com/gergelyorosz

Hiring juniors and/or interns is something every company should do, however they're not "just" missed opportunities. If you want them to succeed you have to put in the work to help them do so, and that in itself needs to be budgetted for with every junior hire.

Definitely. Every option requires $$$/time/effort or combination of them. There are very few good & experienced & cheap & available devs just waiting for job offers.

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

#66

Post by flakron »

e-pelaza wrote: post #35
lb1lf wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, they all arrived here as flotsam some way or other - through love or war, basically. (The catch being that we currently do not have any remote employees and it is nigh on impossible to hire someone from outside the Schengen area unless they've already found another way to legally stay here. That usually means either being granted asylum or marrying someone, I'm afraid)

So, assuming I can get Schengen Visa from another country, is the process easier? I want to immigrate and Norway, Sweden, Finland are my top 3 destination. The thing is, getting visa there is harder. But if getting a Schengen visa would help (probably from France), I'm interested about the process to follow, can we have a chat?

At least for Sweden the process is pretty straightforward (at least at the moment). Once you have a job offer, the offering company usually hires some lawyer or company licensed (to fast track the visa within a week, a month at max).

Drop me some contact info, I can refer you. At least you can go through the process and check it out.

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

#67

Post by maccard »

> Although we advertise on our web site, unless people are looking quite specifically, they are unlikely to find the adverts

Does your company post these adverts on twitter/hn/reddit? Even if they _do_ see your posting, why would they work for you over any other dev job?

> 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.

Recuiters are not a silver bullet, you still need to filter what they source. A good recruiter will want to know why you're rejecting the candidates you're sending. They are expensive, however if they're not getting you candidates then find another recruiter.

> Also, I'm not sure that the best candidates just call a random recruiter to find them a job.

No, of course they don't, but they might call _a_ recruiter they have a relationship with. Recruiters also reach out to candidates too. A candidate who has 10 years experience writing django apps might be miffed at a recruiter offering "an exciting frontend opportunity", but a goood recruiter will either have people they've been speaking to, or will know the signs on linkedin/etc of people who may want to leave their current jobs and might be a good fit.

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

#68

Post by BurningFrog »

e-pelaza wrote: post #35
lb1lf wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, they all arrived here as flotsam some way or other - through love or war, basically. (The catch being that we currently do not have any remote employees and it is nigh on impossible to hire someone from outside the Schengen area unless they've already found another way to legally stay here. That usually means either being granted asylum or marrying someone, I'm afraid)

So, assuming I can get Schengen Visa from another country, is the process easier? I want to immigrate and Norway, Sweden, Finland are my top 3 destination. The thing is, getting visa there is harder. But if getting a Schengen visa would help (probably from France), I'm interested about the process to follow, can we have a chat?

They're talking about changing it, but AFAIK, you can still get a pretty automatic visa for Sweden if an employer wants to hire you.

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

#69

Post by samvher »

lb1lf wrote: post #19

I work for a small-ish engineering firm on a small rock off the Norwegian coast. The local labour market for engineers, technicians and developers is pretty much empty - as in, everybody with the skills required and the desire to live here already does. Recruiting more often than not means sniping, or, if we're lucky - that someone has recently found a partner with desirable skills and coaxed them into moving up here…

That honestly sounds fantastic. I just accepted another job so I’m not looking now but I could easily imagine that this would be exactly the kind of thing (and place!) where I’d want to head a few years from now, and I think I would have a relevant profile (as an aerospace engineer with software skills and some exposure to embedded work and robotics). Would you mind dropping me an email (address in profile) with some more detail about the company?
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