

Ask HN: What is a better recruiting strategy, casting a wide net or targeted? - psadri

This is a recruitment funnel:&#60;p&#62;Potential candidates
  -&#62; contact and hope for a response
    -&#62; phone interview
      -&#62; on-site interview 
        -&#62; offer 
          -&#62; hopefully acceptance!&#60;p&#62;Each step has a conversion rate.  There are basically two strategies:&#60;p&#62;Casting a wide net: Mining LinkedIn, github, your networks, using external recruiters and so on. The point is to increase the number of potential recruits at the top of the recruitment funnel.  The problem is the conversion rates are usually very low, either because of a lack of response, low candidate quality, poor fit, unavailability, etc...&#60;p&#62;Targeted: This approach is the opposite of casting a wide net.  You instead trying to find the most relevant candidates with a given set of experience/skills for a particular role. For example, if you are building a web based CAD tool, you find the 10 people in the world who have built webGL modeling tools and explain to them why you would be perfect together.  You will have to spend a lot more time finding the right people and spending way more time on each one to convince them to join you, but hopefully the success rate is much higher.&#60;p&#62;In your experience, as someone who is building a team or as someone who has been recruited, which approach is more effective?
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abuiles
As Peroni mentioned, Targeted is more effective yet difficult.

A good approach to this is something that I would call "passive targeted
recruiting", basically implement policies as "always be recruiting" and having
your doors open (office-hours work great for this), take 1 - 2 hours of your
week to talk with people interested in knowing more about your company, etc.
Also I would say enforce cultural fit over technical, I saw Polyvore's about
page and see that you do a really good job selling your culture :).

We release recently an interview with Daniel Doubrovkine about office-hours
<http://bit.ly/WFhVvo>, he also writes a lot in his blog about hiring
[http://code.dblock.org/help-me-fix-tech-recruiting-
become-a-...](http://code.dblock.org/help-me-fix-tech-recruiting-become-a-
recruiter)

Hope it helps! I would be interested in discussing further about the subject
if you want (email is in my profile).

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abuiles
Also there is this answer in quora which goes further in both approaches
<http://qr.ae/1zV1S> :)

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psadri
I encourage everyone to read the Quora answer. It is quite extensive and well
thought out.

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abuiles
Agree, actually Aline is a hackernewer too, I have seen her writing about
recruitment.

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codegeek
Depends on the type of role that is needed. Usually, there are generalists,
specialists and some in the middle. If you are looking for a very specific
niche/area/experience, then targeted recruiting is probably going to be more
effective. If you need a more generalist role, then it might be worth mining
the wider/generic sites.

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Peroni
Targeted can be highly effective but it arguably takes longer and is
significantly more difficult which is why the majority gravitate towards the
wide-net approach.

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scotthtaylor
The guys at Somewhere are doing some pretty interesting things:
<http://www.somewherehq.com>

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psadri
Recruiting is a market place. You need both candidates and positions. How do
they get potential prospects to their service?

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scotthtaylor
I think they have "Campus Days" in which they screen the prospects first.

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abuiles
Have you seen engager.io? ;)

