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by synicalx 1508 days ago
The three results/problems you listed, I think, are all related;

- Cold outreach has low uptake anyway, especially if not targeted properly. People tend to largely just ignore or decline these kinds of messages.

- People not looking for work confirms you're probably targeting the wrong people, especially on LinkedIn.

- Job ads by design, will get a lot of responses. Filtering them out quickly and effectively is an art.

I've had all these same problems myself when hiring, crafting the ad and targeting the right people is BY FAR the hardest part to get right.

Find a good tech recruiter that's experienced in your area, maybe even a couple of them, and let them do the work. It's very hard to compete with the years or even decades of connections, skill, and networking that a good recruiter will have.

I've had the best experiences with people who aren't just ex-HR drones looking for more money - ideally you want someone mildly technical themselves who's able to tell if a candidate is a BS artist and screen them out early. One of the main benefits of using a recruiter is not having to do 90% of the screening yourself, so make sure they're good at it.

1 comments

I originally thought it might be too early to rely on recruiters, but I will look into it!
It's definitely worth a look I think. Just make sure you fully understand their fee structure before signing anything - they have the potential to be very expensive if you're not careful.

A lot of the really good ones can add value in other ways as well; in the past I've had recruiters get us presenting at events without having to pay sponsor fees, free conference tickets and training vouchers for successful candidates, pre-baked employment contracts and other HR-ey documents you can use etc etc.