Hire like me, here’s my updated setup
Having been in recruitment for the last 6 years I’ve seen a lot. Including the uglier side of recruiting which is just about making a fast buck.
However, I’m trying to change things by being open on how I recruit and hire people. I hope this will have an impact on the people around me and change their mindset too.
I’ll be releasing my workflow in volumes, starting with my recruitment tools/set up. What I’ll be writing about is what works well for me and all you’ll need to learn about them is a browser — So let’s go.
Like any job the single most important ‘tool’ is hard work, which is still a vague concept to most people. If you don’t want to go the extra mile, and work a bit harder than the rest, these tools won’t help doing the the hard work for you.
Now we have got that out of the way, everything starts with your email client. The ability to write good reach outs to talent is the single most important thing you need to do. Since there is really only one email client, you have two options: Google Inbox or good old Gmail.
I recommend using both, for different purposes. Gmail is good because you can have 3rd party apps installed in your client, which means you can use tools like sidekick, boomerang, rapportive, greenhouse and many other recruiting related tools. Inbox is good because it has most tools already semi-incorporated into it & the mobile app is good. However, it does lack how customisable it is. As a rule of thumb I use Inbox for day to day email and gmail for when I am bashing out emails to potential hires.
Tools I recommend for Gmail
First off I really recommend Boomerang, you can schedule an email to be sent later, have easy email reminders and basically lets you take control over your outbound email. For instance you can specify to boomerang an email back to you if you haven’t received a reply. This way I keep a stream of follow up emails I need to send to people that have not responded yet. Very powerful to keep momentum.
Secondly I recommend an email tracker like Sales Tools from Hubspot (previously Sidekick). Only use this to know if people have opened your email. My rule: only opened once = binned after receiving, if someone opens it more there is engagement and you should follow up after a few days. Also, do not hyperlink any content in your emails as the link looks funky and a dev will probably know it is a tracked email — which is something you do not want.
Also I recommend using the chrome extension UglyEmail, for reasons described above:
So now that we have your email setup, lets get into some tools that I really like to keep productive.
Brain.fm
First things first, you need to stay focused. I think I found Brain.fm through Product Hunt and started using their service. The ‘focus’ AI generated music is great for sourcing & reaching out.
Momentum
Momentum is great, it gives you a nice image every day & you can keep reminders. It also greets you, what else do you need?
Right, we are completely set up now. Lets go into the details of sourcing / information retrieval. First of all I want to congratulate the guys and girls at connectifier for selling, really well done. As I was one of the first paying customers (you just pay for good software, period) I think its much deserved. But, now that Linkedin :( bought / killed Connectifier there is a gap this space. So I am happy to report that there are two major players in this space could become Linkedins next ‘acquisition’. Great… the first one:
Aevy / Anywhere
Aevy has been around for some time, and I have been using it on and off. However, it was never as good as Connectifier because it primarily focussed on the search capacity, which you really don’t need tools for if you understand where your target group is hanging out.
But, with their recent launch of Anywhere they totally made themselves one of the main contenders in this space.
Anywhere features a Chrome Extension like Connectifier, but has an in-app email capacity which is quite nifty: you can see if people have read your message, you can schedule follow-ups and make email templates (all in-extension):
Added to this you can track your team activity seamlessly:
Pretty nice comeback from the guys from Sweden, strong tool(s).
ContextScout
ContextScout is another one that popped up just before the LinkedIn killing spree. They are much more light-weight, but it tends to work well in combination with a tool like Anywhere or Connectifier. It currently only lives in LinkedIn and claims to make it more intelligent by enriching profiles:
What I really like about Context Scout is their pricing, which is considerably cheaper than any other products in this space. Knowing this tool has been built by a small team I think there is much more to come from them.
My other tools related blogpost is still quite relevant, which you can find here, also my 7 talent hacks post from some time back is still relevant.
That concludes volume 1, the next volume will be about how to hire people through Airbnb, Strava, Producthunt, Couchsurfing & any other site with a user database.
