So far, we’ve been incredibly privileged in the shack and have expanded as former colleagues have gotten the courage to try something new. But network-based recruitment has its natural limitations, and at some point you have to expand your horizons.
However, hiring people for a business is a tricky exercise and we have limited experience with it. Where should the job be advertised? What does it cost? What should it say? And how do we handle it all?
We have decided to give it a try and are in full swing with the process. I must confess that I was worried about whether we would get any applications at all, but that has been put to shame. Granted, there are a number of people who don’t fit the profile, who call for both technical skills and consulting genes, but there are definitely good applicants in between. See the posting HERE – in one week, 253 people have clicked in, and we have received around 35 applications.
We have chosen to use LinkedIn to search, and their setup is actually quite good. You pay a flat rate for the ad, and then you “sponsor” a number of dollars per click, depending on where in the world you are located, as I understand it is a bid, so the companies that bid the most get their ad shown to the potential applicant.
The system can then be used to keep track of applicants, suitable/unsuitable, how far you are in the process of contacting, phone interviewing, arranging interviews etc. At the same time, the applications can be shared between relevant parties so that they have the opportunity to give their opinion on whether it is a candidate you should focus on or not.
I would miss an option to mass email a group of candidates – e.g. those not considered. In my world, it’s good style to always respond to an application, even if it’s a rejection. But a lot of time is quickly spent saying “thanks – but no thanks” to applicants who obviously haven’t read the posting (it actually says it’s in Copenhagen, so the job can’t be done from the other side of the globe), so it could be done better.
Noob that I am, I have written my email address in the posting. Of course, it’s an invitation for people to write their CVs directly to me. But it also means that you bypass LinkedIn’s smart Job application manager, and then you lose some of the fun of it all. So next time I’ll probably encourage people to use the easy-apply button instead of emailing directly 🙂
We had originally planned to post the job on one of the traditional sites, and we might do that at some point, if only for comparison’s sake. But so far, I’m pleasantly surprised by LinkedIn, both the price and the easy handling of applications. So if all goes well, we will have welcomed a new employee on the other side of the summer vacation. AND: The job posting is still active, so if you’re a Java developer looking for new challenges, we’d love to hear from you!
