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April 9, 2010
9 Comments

3 Things I’ve Learned To Recruit Great Hackers

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1) “try before you buy” –> enlist contractors that aren’t tied to agencies so you can retain the option to hire full time.

2) “lots of coffees” –> do the leg work of meeting interesting people even if they aren’t looking. Nothing beats getting the word out and generating excitement. Great people know each other, and they talk.

3) “hyper focus on one school” –> don’t just show up at the annual career fair at 5 schools. Go DEEP on one. Give informal presentations and brown bags, show up to the affiliate dinners, drop in to student open houses. Hold “meet ups” after recruiting fairs and invite the best students. It’s better to make a name for your company at one school than to be passively involved at 5 schools.

I apologize for the quick post…was testing out WordPress on my iPad and didn’t expect this to get so much uptake via Hacker News.   For a longer post related to hiring, see Hire the Do-It-All Office Admin.

Reflections, Startups
  • Voila

    > don’t just who up at the annual career fair at 5 schools

    Spellcheck is necessary but not sufficient.

  • User

    Obviously “a top-40 consumer internet site. ” means number 40. So why not cut through the bullshit and write the 40th biggest consumer site?

  • http://currentlyobsessed.com/ joe heitzeberg

    Just borrowing from Casey Kasem. Maybe its old school…

  • John Doe

    “Give informal presentations and brown bags, show up to the affiliate dinners, drop in to student open houses. Hold “meet ups” after recruiting fairs and invite the best students.”
    And conduct interviews instead of directing students to apply online. Too much behavior like that killed student attendance at the career fairs here.

  • http://currentlyobsessed.com/ joe heitzeberg

    Good point. We take little white boards to career fairs and ask coding questions on the spot. Also, we always follow the career fair up with a same-day informal private event, which serves as a 2-way “fit” conversation. Thus, we're completing a pretty solid screen at the career fair itself.

  • Pingback: links for 2010-04-09 « that dismal science

  • hoffmanc707

    never apologize for short posts

  • hoffmanc707

    don't ever apologize for a short post

  • http://currentlyobsessed.com/ joe heitzeberg

    Touché!

  • http://www.thinkspace.com Peter Chee

    Joe, you always have solid hiring advice. Thanks for sharing your experiences.