How do we search for the best IT candidates outside LinkedIn?

The success of every project depends on the capability of the software development team you assemble, so it is crucial to hire skilled professionals. However, hiring the perfect candidate is a complex task. There are many activities to be completed. Vacancy posting, interviewing, vetting, recruitment, and onboarding may take up to 2–6 months per IT specialist – and it all becomes more complex if recruiting for multiple roles concurrently.

IT recruitment companies work hard to assemble the necessary information and find the best match for clients. This is even more challenging in the IT industry due to the high market demand for a limited number of software experts with field-specific knowledge. On top of that, to find the best candidates, HR often need to search across different regions worldwide whilst taking into account aspects such as time zones, salaries, language level, and culture.

Recruiters use a variety of methods to find applicants. LinkedIn continues to be the most popular source and every talent acquisition manager can describe it in detail. However, a number of IT professionals are happy with their jobs and rarely use LinkedIN. No search will reach?these resources over that medium.

When a potential candidate?is busy with current projects and is happy with their remuneration, it is a real challenge to convince him or her to even consider a vacancy and attend an interview. Therefore it is important to employ other platforms to facilitate reach and improve the search. It is also important to know how to reach out to and communicate with potential applicants properly.

In this article, we will share the resources our IT recruitment company uses to help our customers hire the best candidates. Let’s get started.

Sources we use to find the best IT candidates

●????? GitHub

●????? Slack

●????? Reddit

●????? Discord

●????? Conferences

1. GitHub

GitHub is an online code repository used by software engineers from all over the globe. The website allows developers, teams, and companies to publish their repositories and open-source software solutions. Open-source software can be then improved by other IT experts and rated from 1 to 5 stars. Furthermore, the platform allows the storage and management of code.

Established in April 2008, GitHub was a flat organisation where "everyone is a manager". Programmers had the possibility to work on software projects they were interested in whilst chief executives (either firms or individuals) set salaries. As of January 2023, GitHub has 100 million users, according to Wikipedia.

GitHub can be used to search for candidates by location/programming language. Also you can find contact details and emails to further contact applicants who may be operating within the same discipline.

Pros

●????? GitHub acts as a type of developer portfolio. HR experts can track applicant’s actions and give tasks/projects to verify qualification.

●????? GitHub provides advanced search options that significantly facilitates candidate search.

●????? Since participating on GitHub projects is not the main job for the majority of software engineers but requires their time and effort, it is a useful tool to identify really passionate and more experienced IT professionals.

●????? Recruiters can identify passive applicants who may not be actively seeking for a new job but are open to new opportunities. In addition, they can gain a competitive advantage over firms that don’t employ GitHub or may not use it effectively.

Cons

●????? Most programmers on GitHub already have a job already, so it may be more challenging to attract them. Recruitment is not the primary purpose of the platform.

To find the best candidates, we use Git Awards, a website which ranks GitHub profiles based on their activities and contributions. With this tool, our professionals browse the feedback and ratings candidates receive from other programmers on their projects.

Git Awards enables us to search for software developers by city/country, programming languages, etc., as well as see how candidates compare to other specialists in their country, city, or language.

2. Slack communities

Another popular platform is Slack, a cloud-based messaging application for enterprise collaboration. Slack provides various features like file/media sharing, video/audio calls, private/group chats, and chat rooms named channels. Slack allows users to search any content on the platform, such as people, conversations, and files.

As of March 2024, Slack ha 38.8 million daily active users (DAU), as reported by Demandsage. On top of that, the number of DAU is anticipated to reach 47.2 million by 2025. Slack is used by specialists from more than 150 countries.

Although the top-priority goal of Slack is to let employees within the enterprise easily communicate with each other, the service is an efficient tool to identify IT candidates.

We use Slack to post jobs in relevant, topic-/interest-based channels, contact IT applicants directly, and make connections. Our recruiters sometimes use Chat GPT to identify a list of relevant Slack communities according to certain requirements.

We also utilise Slack chats and messages to provide potential and newly registered candidates with advice on how to prepare or improve their CVs. This both helps us build trusted relationships and grow our network.

Pros

●????? By using Slack communities, it is possible to find software developers by interests, evaluate their experience, and arrange interviews.

●????? Slack is a convenient platform to engage IT candidates in private real-time conversations. Recruiters can also find recommendations provided by other professionals.

Cons

●????? As in the case of GitHub, Slack was not created for talent acquisition managers and candidates, so most IT experts on the network already have a job.

●????? Applicant search may consume a lot of time.

●????? Unlike on other platforms (i.e., LinkedIn, job boards), it is not advisable to constantly post vacancies and approach candidates personally on Slack without engaging in prior conversation in chats.

●????? Registration on a Slack community may take two weeks or even more.

In order to make use of Slack as an efficient resource for recruitment, you should first participate in relevant discussions, offer assistance in CV preparation, and answer various questions to increase loyalty.

Gaining trust is key. When joining Slack groups, you should use a work email. Provide a link to your LinkedIn profile, indicate a job position, and say why you want to be a part of the community.

3. Reddit communities

Founded in 2005, Reddit is a US platform for social news aggregation, content rating, and user conversations. Registered members submit different types of content to the website like text posts, links, images, and videos, which are voted up or down by other users. The most upvoted content appears towards the top of the subreddit and ultimately on Reddit's front page.

We use Reddit to find candidates, from software engineers to sales representatives. HR managers may look for relevant groups where it is possible to publish vacancies.

Some subreddits have a certain structure to which the vacancy post has to comply, for instance: location, industry, job title, job responsibilities, base/commission/OTE, and a link. Reddit provides extended search across “Posts”, “Communities”, “Comments”, and “People”.

As of February, 2024, Reddit had 73.1 million DAU, as reported by Backlinko. With the 17th domain rank worldwide, Reddit serves a wide audience, involving IT professionals.

Pros

●????? Reddit is an effective resource for communication and education. People discuss various subjects, get answers to their questions, and connect with each other via post commenting, communities, and private messages.

●????? It is very fast and simple to join groups, create posts, and leave comments. Additionally, the platform automatically sends email notifications about incoming messages.

Cons

●????? The website is not as popular in Europe as it is in the US, which sometimes complicates applicant search. When seeking for European applicants, we often receive a lot of replies from US specialists. However, their salary expectations tend to be higher than in Europe. If your company aims to hire in American, Reddit is especially suited for your needs.

●????? Scraping does not make sense, since members generally use nicknames, rather than their actual names and last names.

We utilise Reddit to not only find candidates but also to build trusted relationships and grow our network. For instance, our professionals provide detailed answers to user questions and publish posts with valuable information.

On top of that, we find subreddits where applicants ask experts to help prepare or enhance their CVs and offer the required assistance.

4. Discord communities

Released in 2015, Discord is an instant messaging and VoIP social application that enables users to communicate via audio/video calls and text messages in private/group chats or so-called servers. Accessed via an invite link, a server is a collection of chat rooms and voice channels where users can stream their screens to each other.

According to The Tech Report, currently there are nearly 19 million active servers on the platform. It is worth noting that Gen Z and millennials are the largest segment of Discord users around the world, making up more than 42% of network members.

Although Discord was not created as a recruitment tool, it can become a great source for IT recruitment companies. Our talent acquisition managers join career chats and send direct messages to find and contact potential applicants.

Pros

●????? It is often easier to find candidates when our recruiters participate in chats devoted to a certain topic, for instance, career opportunities or job search.

●????? As our practice shows, communication in Discord is nice, pleasant, and not so official.

Cons

●????? IT recruiters generally have to ask for CVs personally, which takes time. On LinkedIn, for example, software developers often publish CVs or describe job experience in detail.

If necessary, human resource managers provide advice on how to prepare and improve resumes, as well as answer their questions. This helps us attract IT professionals, engage excellent candidates, and increase trust.

5. Conferences

Although this channel is often considered as traditional or old-fashioned, it still provides great results. To hire the required professionals, IT sources can attend meetups and conferences. In order to find relevant events, recruitment companies can visit websites like dev.events, TechBeacon, UsabilityHub, and UIUX Trend.

Pros

●????? It is possible to see software experts in life, share contacts, and invite them to interviews personally. A talent acquisition manager can ask some screening questions and quickly form an impression, short cutting an element of the candidate shortlisting process.

●????? Dev conferences are a great way to meet software engineers with experience in the newest technologies.

●????? Conferences are highly beneficial for networking, they allow you to establish personal connections with prospective applicants, build trust, and increase loyalty.

Cons

●????? You generally have to pay to attend a conference. So, this method can be costly, especially taking into account that you will not be able to interview IT professionals personally.

●????? An IT recruitment firm may not have the opportunity to visit events abroad. Typically, this does not make any sense due to the high costs and resources.

Our HR experts attend conferences whenever it is possible. Attending them a few times a year helps us meet skilled programmers, QA engineers, UI/UX designers, business analysts, etc., add them to our base, and maintain relations with existing candidates. Being present in person also allows us to create a first impression and build connections, sustaining our communication further after the event.

When we are not able to attend a certain event, we obtain and review the lists of its participants to find potential applicants. Our recruitment team also subscribes to conference social pages to view comments and other activities to discover valuable contacts, learn what issues concern the audience, and more.

Final words

Recruiters use a lot of search methods apart from LinkedIn to find the best matches for our clients. By seeking across Slack, Discord, and Reddit, we get access to a considerably wider range of IT professionals, even those who have the most field-specific expertise. Attendance at conferences is an additional way to reach out to prospective candidates, grow a network, and build trust.

Our recruiters work hard when looking for relevant specialists, verifying qualifications, establishing connections, and providing assistance (for example, in resume preparation or/and improvement).

Of course, the recruitment process is not limited to the search for potential employees only. There are many more stages but a properly organized multi-channel search allows you to identify truly talented specialists much faster, saving time and costs.

In our firm, we organise our hiring process in close collaboration between the recruitment and technical teams. This enables us to evaluate the skills of applicants and retain only the best specialists in our base. We also communicate with our clients, sharing the results, browsing channels we use, resumes, and our feedback regarding every candidate.

If you are looking to find the right candidates but are not sure where to start, or if you want to delegate this task to a trusted IT recruitment company, feel free to contact us and describe your staffing needs. We will get back to you promptly to help you achieve your goals and provide the required assistance, finding the professionals who meet the profile of your ideal applicants.