Recruiting Strategies for Finding Suitable Engineer Candidates

Problem

"Recruiting engineers for a company can vary from organization to organization. This is because there are factors that come into play like company culture, finances, and location, just to name a few. Yet, from my experience, I have continued to use a couple of strategies that have proven to be the most successful across the board."

Actions taken

• Use your network: "Ask people in your network if they know of someone who would be interested in joining your company. Word of mouth travels fast and some of the best engineers come about from your own references."
• Go to meetups: "There are hundreds, if not thousands, of meetups all over the world related to the tech industry. I've gone to Python meetups, JavaScript meetups, and strictly coding meetups (ie. no talking). Find ones that are suitable to your mission and go mingle. Talk to people and get them interested in what you and your company are doing."
• Public speaking: "Give a talk and mention all the cool things that your company is doing. Speak at conferences and talk about how you are doing things and where you see the future of the company. I've recruited a few engineers this way. They were interested in what we were doing and wanted to join our team."
• Integrate technical aspects into your pitch: "I started adding to my pitch examples of technical problems the candidate could solve. Why? Because I want people who are attracted to hard technical issues. I want them to be curious in what we are working on as well as being able to imagine themselves having a place in our company where they can learn, grow, or guide other people through these challenging areas."
• If you're low on cash, upsell other arenas: "This is especially true for startups. If you don't have a competing salary than highlight all sorts of other perks. They could be capital driven- like equity or a bonus structure, but more so spotlight the influence they can have or the career trajectory available within the company. For example, maybe you're looking to recruit a senior developer. Focus on the potential there is to become a lead, manager, or director. This why people join startups in the first place."

Lessons learned

"Recruiting is a lot of work. Of course there is scouting on LinkedIn, but you should also organize events, write and speak about how you do things at your company, and go to meetups. It's a lot of face-to-face interactions so that people get to know you and your organization, and become interested enough to want to join your team."