Transparent Recruiting

Just came across StandoutJobs.com - a  startup in Montreal that promises to change the way we recruit and hire. I found them because they posted a link to my original recruiting video and I saw it in the referring links in my blog statistics.

Well, it just so happened that after a couple of minutes of casual browsing of their site, I got very interested. The company wants to enable a different kind of recruiting - the kind that takes place through building of relationships and having conversations with potential employees.

From the Standout Jobs blog:

"Hiring the best people needs to be an ongoing, constant effort, where companies show candidates why they’re a great place to work. Every company has a story, but too few companies tell theirs well, or at all. Social media technologies allow companies to tell their stories with new tools and in new ways"

I could not agree more, especially in regards to the ongoing and constant effort. Working with web companies in the LA area, I am constantly under the impression that everyone is in dire need of talent. And yet, the search methods are restricted to the same old method of posting a job and waiting for replies of mostly useless resumes. Common people, if you really want talent, try something new. Anything! At least I'm beginning to see some ambitious recruiters using LinkedIn. Finally.

There's lot of room for growth. I've believed in cultivating your personal brand for a while and will take the same approach to building my company. Companies need to take great care to:

1. Build up their brands in regards to potential recruits and present themselves to the world as exciting places to work
2. Encourage and develop conversations with the community and all potential candidates
3. Make interfacing with potential candidates a top priority.

Google is obviously one company that has succeeded in at least a part of this challenge, namely in their ability to build a recruiting brand. The fact that we all know about the food at Google, the 20% work-on-your-own-projects time, the laundry, etc. is not an accident and is a success for Google. Even so, there's room for improvement even for Google, in regards to building relationships and opening up conversations with potential recruits.

There's been a lot of talk about transparency. Well, this new movement towards creating a conversation with potential recruits is all of the same transparency principles we've been hearing about applied to recruiting and is clearly the future of recruiting successfully.

The following is a video in which the founders of Standout Jobs demonstrate the concept for their site while recruiting a Ruby Guru: