Rockstar Recruiter Series: Quirky

I’m impressed when a candidate: Does their research and asks thoughtful questions. A candidate who is interested in an opportunity will want to do all the research necessary to find the right company for them – it’s like Googling a subject you want to learn more about. Before you know it, you look up, with glassed eyes, and realize you went through a rabbit hole of information hours ago. The point is, doing research heavily influences a candidate’s line of questioning in an interview process. This goes a long way in expressing a deep understanding of the company or the role as well as revealing a personality that is curious, inquisitive and passionate. I’m impressed when a recruiter: Makes an interview feel like a conversation. Interviewing is stressful! Time is not on anyone’s side and you need time when you’re getting to know someone. It takes finesse to make someone come out of an interview feeling like it was not an interview. We’re hiring people, not robots. Yes, it can be productive and fun. I have been in the recruiting industry for: Nine and a half years. I spent one year with a staffing firm, seven years at a security software startup called Rapid7 that grew from 40 to 400 and then a year and a half at my current social product development company, Quirky. I know I’ve done a great job hiring when: The team and the candidate are pumped to work with each other. One of the best feelings in the world is when you connect a candidate to their dream job and when the team feels the same about hiring their dream candidate. I get a thrill when I’m introduced to an employee’s partner/friend as ‘the person that hired me!’ Even though I’m not the one with all of that power, it’s a nice feeling that makes my job meaningful. The biggest challenge recruiting candidates today is: Getting back to all candidates. Having been through the interview ringer myself, not receiving a response is worse than getting a rejection. The unknown vs. known is a mental mind bender. Should I continue holding on to hope that I’ll be contacted or should I be moving on? At Quirky, we get thousands of applications per week and there are many reasons candidates might not get a response – sometimes the job is put on hold or it’s an inactive post that’s up year-round. But, we want everyone to have the best experience – even if that means getting a rejection. I stay cutting edge by: Test driving new tools and processes. There are so many wonderful tools out there for the taking! We successfully experimented with and implemented video interviews thanks to Take the Interview. We are also working with Lunchcruit – it’s like Match.com but for recruiting, where candidates can reach out to you for lunch. These tools add a dash of human touch to the recruiting process. In 2015, I’ll invest more efforts in:  Experimentation. We are humanizing the interview process at Quirky. There is a hiring team here who did a case study on replacing interviews with ‘shadowing.’ We define shadowing as coming in and sitting in with the team for the day. This has made a huge difference in giving candidates a chance to have a better idea of what’s under the hood. Executives see employer branding and recruiting as: One and the same. Successful employer branding is done with dual efforts between the recruitment and marketing teams. We work closely together on communicating the Quirky brand through all social media channels. I use Glassdoor because: It is a platform from the people for the people. Unlike any other platform, Glassdoor paints a realistic picture you don’t get anywhere else: the good, the bad and the ugly.  You realize it’s okay if there is negative feedback because it’s what real. Companies are going to paint cupcakes and rainbows on their websites, but with Glassdoor, perception is reality when it comes to employees and their experiences. My success is most closely tied to: My team and my company. I am successful with the buy-in and support from all of my team members. We help each other with an “all hands on deck” mentality. Like a sports team, it’s not about the best player, it’s about the team and how we work together. I could improve my reputation as a recruiter if I did this: Consistent, thoughtful communication. Especially with technical talent, there are ways to be more thoughtful and creative when it comes to approaching talent.  Linkedin isn’t the only channel to pique interest.  Platforms like github, about.me, facebook, twitter and meetup.com are other options in diversifying personalized messages and capturing the attention of A talent.