What do top tech companies look for when hiring technical recruiters?

What happens when you bring together Recruiting Leaders from Instacart, Cruise Automation, and One Medical and put them on a panel? Why, The First Big Recruiting Event of 2018, of course!

We bombarded our esteemed panelists with burning questions, like, “What do you look for when you’re hiring technical recruiters for your team?” and “What separates a good recruiter from a great recruiter?”

What resulted was an action-packed evening where our panelists were dropping wisdom, recounting stories, sharing advice, and diving deep into what it really takes to recruit for the leading technology companies.

Check out the highlight video below:

The Panelists

Michael Case, Vice President, Recruiting at Instacart

Brittany Oliver, Recruiting Manager at Cruise Automation

Viet Nguyen, Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition at One Medical

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For those of you who don’t like watching videos, here are some of our biggest takeaways from the evening:

Intellectual Curiosity and Grit are key traits

All the panelists agreed that curiosity and grit are two critical qualities that they look for in recruiters. For Viet, he values recruiters with a growth mindset. For him it’s important that people continue to learn and grow and strive to become the subject matter expert in everything that they do. Michael emphasized the need for grit. Recruiting is not an easy job, and it takes a certain person to have the drive to keep going when as a recruiter, “almost everything you touch fails.”

Communication is critical

Surprise, communication is important for recruiters! Well it’s not really a surprise, but it was great to hear how our panelists evaluate communication. Brittany values recruiters with strong emotional intelligence — those who can have meaningful conversations with the people they are trying to recruit and can “speak their language.” When interviewing recruiters, she watches to see if recruiters will mirror her body language, and she really likes it when people are able to teach her something in an interview. The panelists emphasized that communication is especially important when working with hiring managers. The best recruiters understand when to push back on their hiring managers and can do so effectively.

Dig into the data early

For Michael, one important quality of great recruiters is their comfort dealing with data at a deep level. He advises recruiters to dive into their recruiting data as soon as possible because that is what gives recruiters the ability to influence the decisions of their technical hiring managers. If your company isn’t currently collecting any data, you should start now. The panelists agreed that even collecting and sharing feedback from candidates about the interview process is important evidence and valuable data that you can use to drive decisions.

Prioritization and Focus are differentiators

Other differentiating factors are a recruiter’s ability to prioritize and focus. According to Brittany, great recruiters are those who know what to prioritize, “especially when it comes to knowing what’s better for the team.” This requires extra awareness of the team’s strengths and weaknesses, and a deep understanding of the business and the company’s hiring goals. Some of the best recruiters that Michael has worked with are those who have incredible focus and understanding of what they need to do, which allows them to be effective at guiding their hiring managers.

What a way to kick off the year! Thank you to everyone who attended the event, and a special thanks to our panelists, Michael Case, Brittany Oliver, and Viet Nguyen for sharing their experience and being such great speakers!

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At TechRec Academy, we have built an advanced technical recruiter training based on feedback from Talent Acquisition leaders from companies like Netflix, Workday, Facebook, Salesforce, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Microsoft, and more. This program is designed to help experienced recruiters gain the skills and knowledge needed to work effectively at the world’s best technology companies.

Applications are open for our next class! Find out more on our website or sign up for an informational call with Aaron Ho, the Director of TechRec Academy.