Untitled

Full Stack Recruiter
New Secrets Revealed
By
Jan Tegze
First Published in 2018 by Jan Tegze. © Copyright 2018 Jan Tegze
Book design by Tomáš Zeman
ISBN 978-80-270-4819-9
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every effort to provide accurate internet addresses and authors of sourcing
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Contents
Acknowledgment
01 Intro
02 What Changed After GDPR
03 Sourcing
03.1 How to Source Candidates on Airbnb
03.2 How to Source Candidates on Flickr
03.3 How to Source Candidates on Medium
03.4 How to Source Candidates on WordPress
03.5 LinkedIn Search Tricks
03.6 More Sourcing Tricks
04 Recruitment
04.1 Recruitment Is Not a 9 to 5 Job
04.2 A Recruiter’s Worst Enemy
04.3 Growth Hacking
04.4 The Psychology of Texts in Recruitment
04.5 Influence People Through Different Content Formats
04.6 The Psychology of Color in Recruitment
04.7 The Power and Importance of Storytelling
04.8 Not giving a Feedback is Expensive
04.9 Ask Why, Not Only Where
04.10 Perfect Hires Don’t Exist
04.11 It’s Not About Years of Experience
04.12 How to Assess a Sourcer
04.13 Share Your Knowledge to Gain Knowledge
04.14 Stop Looking for Excuses
05 Epilogue
Endnotes
Acknowledgment
Writing this book would not have been possible without the support of my
friends: Maisha L. Cannon, Mark Tortorici, Justin Clem, Balazs Paroczay,
Tris Revill, Jiří Kuchta, and many others. Thank you for believing in me
and being my everyday inspiration for being better sourcer and better
human being.
I also want to thank those who inspired this book, even though they
probably will not read it. Also, special thanks to everyone in the sourcing
and recruitment community for sharing your knowledge with others and for
making our lives much less painful than they could be.
Thank you for sharing!
01 Intro
The recruitment industry is a fantastic field that is continuously evolving.

Even after all these years, I am still amazed at how many talented people
are in our field and how they are actively trying to make the lives of other
recruiters and sourcers easier.
I know that there are no shortcuts that will turn you into a great recruiter or
sourcer, so I am not going to promise or offer you some silver-bullet
solution that will turn you into a super recruiter. I hope you will find
inspiration in this book, and I hope that you will see that even though you
don't always see an easy solution for some of your sourcing/recruitment
problems, there is always a way!
It is my hope that you will appreciate how great being a recruiter/sourcer
can be, even though our profession is a constant battle with the time and
frequently goes beyond the expected nine-to-five hassle of corporate life.
The productivity and overall success of a company are dependent on us, the
recruiters and the sourcers. Night and day, we labor to take the talent burden
off the shoulders of our companies and find the right people who will help
the company grow.
That why we need to tirelessly seek out new knowledge that ensures the
provision of the right candidates and simultaneously saves time and costs in
the hiring process.
Enjoy this book!
Jan Tegze
02 What Changed After GDPR
I published my first Full Stack Recruiter: The Modern Recruiter's Guide

at the end of 2017, which means it was published before the GDPR came
into effect, and before controversial events, like the one with Cambridge
Analytica[1].
All of these events can have a minor or major impact on sourcing
techniques and methods. Additionally, due to other decisions that Google,
Twitter, and other companies have made, I have decided to share what has
changed and how these things have had an impact on sourcing.
GDPR and Cambridge Analytica

Both of these have had an impact on sourcing and affected a number of
things that I mentioned in my original book, such as:
Facebook
• The page www.facebook.com/directory/ was disabled.
• I used the company Tesla in examples. However, Elon Musk has since
decided to close the Tesla FB page after the world found out about the
Cambridge Analytica case. This has affected the examples that I used.
However, the method described in the book is still working, just not for
Tesla.
WHOIS Domain Trick

On May 25, 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took
effect. This means the WHOIS "disappeared." In the new public record
system, personal data are no longer visible either to individuals or
companies. The method I described for revealing the contact details of
companies is no longer working and getting information from domains is
not so easy anymore.
Google+
Because of the GDPR, the trick about how to check the email address is not
working anymore, and it was blocked by Google.
Google - Range operator
It appears that Google is slowly removing the range operator (..) from their
search engine. In some parts of the world, this operator is no longer
working, but when you are using a VPN, you can find locations that are still
working. You can try some other search engines or metasearch engines that
still support this operator. I expect that this range operator will completely
disappear from Google in the near future.
Because of that decision, some parts of the strings that I mentioned in the
book were affected. In particular, the strings where you are searching for
phone numbers. Luckily, there is still an option for how to target the
numbers (dates) in your string.
Instead of "2011..2015", you will need to use longer strings like this one: "
(2011 OR 2012 OR 2013 OR 2014 OR 2015)".
Example: site:meetup.com "member since" (94102..94106) (Developer
OR Programmer) Java
It will now need to look like this:
site:meetup.com "member since" (94102|94103|94104|94105|94106)
(Developer OR Programmer) Java
Even if the range operator completely disappears from Google, it’s still
good to know how this operator works because you can continue to use it in
some search engines or databases where is still working.
Stack Overflow
The section of the book on how to search by reputation on Stack Overflow
was also affected and is no longer working properly.
Google - NCR
During 2018, Google killed google.com/ncr (NCR - No Country Redirect),
and because of that, you can't access the local Google site for a location
without a VPN or without physically being there.
Shortener - Goo.gl
From time to time, Google made the decision to discontinue particular
services, and one service that was affected by that decision was the
shortening service Goo.gl. Starting from March 30, 2018, Google stopped
providing support for the goo.gl URL shortener. From April 13, 2018, only
existing users had the ability to create short links on the Goo.gl console.
Additionally, from March 30, 2019, Google discontinued Goo.gl
completely; however, previously created links will continue to redirect to
their intended destination. So, the trick with shorteners is still going to
work, but we will see fewer and fewer of these short Google links.
Twitter
Twitter changed the number of characters from 140 to 280 characters. That
in itself is a not a big deal, but in my book, I mention that there are 140
characters—not 280 characters.
Twitter also killed the page with a search option that could show you the
first tweet for a Twitter account. You still have the option to look for it
when you check the Twitter profile and see the date when the person first
joined. For example, you see "Joined January 2013", so you can then use
the Twitter advanced search to target that specific month and year.
Airbnb
Airbnb changed the location for the profiles of their users and also added
<meta name="robots" content="noindex"> into these pages. However, I
have found a small workaround, and it’s in one of the chapters that describe
how to target candidates on this site.
Boolean Query Limitations
LinkedIn added a limit on the number of Boolean search operators used in a

single query. They limit the amount of AND or OR Boolean operators but
they don’t limit the amount of NOT Boolean operators.
Their premium accounts have no limit on the number of Boolean operators

you can use in a single search query.
Note: Things are always changing and evolving, and if you would like to
get new content from me, you can follow me on LinkedIn
(www.linkedin.com/in/jantegze/), Twitter (www.twitter.com/jantegze) or
you can read more articles from me on my blog www.tegze.eu.
03 Sourcing
03.1 How to Source Candidates on Airbnb
Wikipedia describes Airbnb as a company that operates an online

marketplace and hospitality service for people to lease or rent short-term
lodging, including holiday cottages, apartments, home-stays, hostel beds, or
hotel rooms, to participate in or facilitate experiences related to tourism,
such as walking tours and making reservations at restaurants. In short, you
can let complete strangers into your home and get money from it or be that
stranger.
Is There a Way to Source a Candidate on Airbnb?

At the beginning of 2018, all users were under the /users folder, so the
string was quite easy—you simply had to focus on site:airbnb.com/users
and add a few more keywords into the search string.
During the year 2018, Airbnb moved the profiles to a new folder:
/users/show/.
Every profile is now under https://www.airbnb.com/users/show/00000000
with a unique number for every user.
And that’s not the only change Airbnb has made. They have also added
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow"> to every profile
page.
This noindex means that crawling robots from Google and other search
engines can’t index these profiles. Because these pages aren’t indexed by
Google, we can’t find them through Google.
However, there is still a way to target profiles.

There is still a way to target these profiles—or at least some of them. Part of
the host’s description is located on the room page, which means that you
can target the profiles that have this profile information filled out, and those
are on Google.
You will need to target site:airbnb.com/rooms/, and because you want to
target only pages that have some profile information, you will need to add
"Joined in" to that.
Example: site:airbnb.com/rooms/ "Joined in"
After that, you can add more keywords. However, if you add, for example,
"Designer," you will get results for things like designer furniture, so you
need to be more specific when you are targeting the keywords.
The same is true for locations. When you add London as a location, you
will find all the pages with this keyword.
Example: site:airbnb.com/rooms/ "Joined in" London
One option to solve this is to use intitle: operator.
Example: site:airbnb.com/rooms/ "Joined in" intitle:London
Alternatively, you can expand the search and target the United Kingdom.
Example: site:airbnb.com/rooms/ "Joined in" intitle:"United
Kingdom"
If you would like to target specific job titles, you can add the job title into
the string. For example, let’s say you need to see the profiles of
accountants.
Kingdom" "Accountant"
If you would like to find people who speak a specific language, you can
also add "Languages:" into the string.
Example: site:airbnb.com/rooms/ "Joined in" "Accountant"
"Languages:"
Do you know how many people on Airbnb know Hindi? 7300!
Example: site:airbnb.com/rooms/ "Joined in" "Languages: * Hindi"
Also, 71,400 people understand French.
Example: site:airbnb.com/rooms/ "Joined in" "Languages: * Français"
You can combine these strings together, but if you use this string without
intitle:, you will get all the profiles with the keyword London on their
profile.
Example: site:airbnb.com/rooms/ "Joined in" intitle:"London"
"Accountant" "Languages:"
You can also target people who are Superhosts. According to Airbnb, the
Superhost program "recognizes hosts who go above and beyond for every
guest."
Also, if you would like to find that person or rent a flat/room/house from
Superhost users only, just use the string below.
Kingdom" "is a Superhost"
There are many ways to source candidates on Airbnb, and these strings are
not the only way. Try to be creative and find your own ways!
Target Things-To-Do List

Under www.airbnb.com/things-to-do, you can find guidebooks for all the
best places in every city, all selected by Airbnb hosts. Because these
guidebooks also show a short bio of the person who is sharing this tip, you
can also target the guidebook.
Example: site:airbnb.com/things-to-do "San Francisco" "Developer"
Still Not Convinced that Airbnb Is a Source of Candidates?
That is all right. You can try being creative. Maybe create a similar string,
like this one:
Example: site:airbnb.com/rooms/ "Joined in" ("Looking for a job" OR
"looking for new opportunities" OR "Available for New
Opportunities" OR "Open to new opportunities")
How Do You Contact These People?

1. You know their name and have a profile picture, so you should be able to
find that person on LinkedIn and contact them directly there.
2. You can rent their flat and meet them in person—plus, you will see some
new places!
3. You can contact the person through the "Contact host" option on the
page. However, use this as a last resort. Try to find some other way to
contact them first.
Conclusion
I know that Airbnb is not an amazingly good source of candidates, but I
have tried to show you that it is possible. You can now also find a
Superhost; so next time you are going to book a flat for your vacation,
maybe you’ll choose one that is owned by that accountant who is perfect for
your new role. Because you never know.
03.2 How to Source Candidates on Flickr
Wikipedia describes Flickr.com (pronounced "flicker") as an image-hosting

service and video-hosting service. Ludicorp created Flickr in 2004. It has
changed ownership several times and has been owned by SmugMug since
April 2018.
In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal
photographs and an online community, the service is widely used by photo
researchers and bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and social
media.
It is also an interesting source of candidates—one that is not widely used by
sourcers. Also, because you are reading this chapter, you are among the few
people who will learn how to source on this site.
Sourcing on Flickr is not as hard as you might think, and, in this chapter, you
will learn a few basic ways to source using this website.
How to Source on Flickr

There are many ways to source on this site, and these two methods are the
primary strategies that will help you with your sourcing.
First Method - Flickr search

You can try using a keyword search on Flickr. For this example, we will try
to find "Designer".
When you type in "Designer," you will get all the profiles that mention
"Designer" somewhere in their profile. However, if you add more keywords,
like a specific location, into your string, you will narrow your results. In this
case, your string "Designer" and "London" will only show you a few people.
Boolean logic works on Flickr.com for simple strings, but if you want to try
longer strings with more keywords, or more advanced strings with a few
more operators, you will need to use some other option.
Second Method - X-Ray Search

For this X-Ray search, you will need operators like site:, inurl: and intext:.
You can use more operators; however, these three will be the ones that you
are going to be using for most of your searches.
Before you start creating your strings, there are a few folders that you are
going to be targeting with your search.
https://www.flickr.com/groups/ - Flickr groups - To see members in a group,
you need to have an account on Flickr and you need to be a member of the
group.
https://www.flickr.com/people/ - Profiles of registered users, and this is the
page you will be targeting the most.
Using a string for targeting people is a combination of site:flickr.com and
inurl:people with a few keywords.
For example: site:flickr.com inurl:people Designer
Alternatively, you can simplify this search with this string:
site:flickr.com/people Designer
If you want to find people who have "Designer" on their profile and are
living in London, just add the location into the string: site:flickr.com/people
Designer London
X-Ray search will show you 16,900 results. Your string "Designer" AND
"London" (first method) will only show you around ten people on
flickr.com, and that’s why X-Ray search is much more effective.
Targeting profiles with a website

Targeting a profile with a website URL on their Flickr profiles could be done
with this simple trick: just add "website" into your string.
Example: site:flickr.com/people Designer Website London
However, this string will get you all profiles with the keyword "website," so
you might want to create a more advanced string.
Example: site:flickr.com/people Designer Website London (intext:www
OR intext:http OR intext:https)
Alternatively, you can use more complex strings, like this one:
Example: site:flickr.com/people ("Graphic Design" OR "Designer")
(country*UK OR country*"United Kingdom" OR city*London)
website
You can also target the emails of these people by searching:
Example: site:flickr.com/people Designer London ("e-mail" OR email")
Alternatively, you can use more complex strings where you can use intext:
operator.
Example: site:flickr.com/people ("Graphic Design" OR "Designer")
(country*UK OR country*"United Kingdom" OR city*London)
(intext:www OR intext:http OR intext:https OR "website")
Targeting profiles based on when they joined

You can also target accounts that were just created by simply adding:
"Joined * 2018". The asterisks operator will replace any month before the
year; this allows you to target the whole year, not just a specific month. If
you like, you can choose a specific month by replacing * with the name of
the month.
Example: site:flickr.com/people "Joined * 2018" Designer London
Alternatively, you can use a more complex string: site:flickr.com/people
"Joined * 2018″ Designer (country*UK OR country*"United
Kingdom" OR city*London)
Image search
You can also create your string, add it into your image search and select
"Face" as one of the options. This will help you to filter in all the images that
have a face in them, and this could help you to find people (users) who could
be tagged in these photos or mentioned in the comments.
Example: site:flickr.com Designer London "User Experience"
intitle: operator
Don’t worry; I didn’t forget the intitle: operator. (The query intitle:term
restricts results to documents containing the term in the title.)
You can use it when you are targeting specific keywords, as in the following
case of a finance conference in London. Just add inurl:albums to your
string so you can target their photo albums.
Example: site:flickr.com inurl:albums intitle:conference intitle:finance
London
You can also target more events by adding more keywords to your string.
Example: site:flickr.com inurl:albums (intitle:conference OR
intitle:event) intitle:finance
This string will help you find albums on Flickr from conferences or events
that are connected with finance.
Even if you don’t see the list of names, the people in these images are
usually wearing badges, so you can often check out their names and job titles
on any visible badges.
Sourcing on Flickr
Flickr is a place where you can not only find amazing photos, but you can
also find other talented people.
03.3 How to Source Candidates on Medium
Medium is an online publishing platform developed by Evan Williams and

launched in August 2012. The platform is an example of social journalism,
hosting a hybrid collection of amateur and professional individuals and
publications, or private blogs or publishers, on Medium. It is commonly
regarded as a blog host.
Medium.com is one of my favorite sources for some of the best articles on
the internet. I’ve already shared in my book that I read articles on Medium
daily, and nothing has changed in the last year. It's still one of my best
sources of inspiration.
Sourcing - Basic String

When you create the string only with site: operator, you will target the whole
site. That means that you will see all the articles and all pages that have the
keywords you are trying to reach.
Example: site:medium.com ("User Experience Designer" OR
"Interaction designer")
You can use the basic string using site: operator and inurl: operator together
with keywords.
Example: site:medium.com inurl:highlights ("User Experience
Designer" OR "Interaction designer")
The inurl:highlights will target only people who highlight some part of the
text on Medium. However, it will not show you the profiles of those who
didn’t highlight anything, but there is still a way to target those people.
Because most people are following people within their same field, the best
way is to find people is to target their followers.
If you are a UX designer, there is a high chance that the other people
following you working within the same or a related field. It is likely that
they are also UX designers or they are at least interested in that field.
Before you start to target the followers, you should understand how the URL
on medium.com is created.
Every username has a list of followers under /followers. The whole URL
looks like this: https://medium.com/@username/followers. In my case, my
username is @jantegze, so the domain will look like this one:
https://medium.com/@jantegze/followers.
However, you are not going to target followers of just one person. That’s
why you will need to use inurl: operator once again.
The search string will look like this: site:medium.com inurl:followers
("User Experience Designer" OR "Interaction designer")
If you target keywords or job titles with site:medium.com inurl:followers,
then you might find information for the followers and not your target profile.
But you can try this string below to get Medium bio info and not mix it up
with the followers.
Example: site:medium.com "followers" "following" "(graphic OR ui)
(design OR designer)" (london OR uk OR "united kingdom") -
inurl:followers -inurl:following -inurl:recommended
Targeting by Joining Date

If you would like to target people based on when they created their account
on Medium, you can do that with the string "Medium member since *year."
Example: site:medium.com "Medium member since * 2017"
Example: site:medium.com "Medium member since * (2016 OR 2017)"
Advanced trick
There is also another trick that I discovered some time ago. It is not a perfect
solution and it doesn’t always work, but you can still try to use it for some
other sites.
View Code - Step by Step Instructions

1. Open the Google Chrome web browser
2. Navigate to the web page element you would like to examine.
3. Right-click the page element and look at the menu that appears. From that
menu, click View page source.
4. The source code for that page will now appear as a new tab in the browser.
Step 1:
Find the URL where the profile photo is stored. In my case, it’s
https://miro.medium.com/ or add only miro.medium.com
Step 2:
Add the URL into https://images.google.com/ and then, for the type of
picture, select "Face." This will show you all the photos stored there.
Step 3:
Add more keywords into search field.
Example: https://miro.medium.com/ "Developer"
Or
Example: miro.medium.com "Developer"
And then, for the type of picture, select "Face." You will see additional
photos connected with that keyword. This method does not work perfectly
every time, but it could also be used for other sites.
Targeting Based on Claps
You can also find people based on what they have recommended—in this
case, if they clapped on an article.
Example: site:medium.com inurl:has-recommended ("User Experience
Designer" OR "Interaction Designer")
If you would like to find out more about the person you are targeting, just
click on their claps to see what else they like:
https://medium.com/@jantegze/has-recommended
Using this method, you can discover who clapped on a certain article.
Perhaps you’re asking yourself, "Why do I need that?" The answer is simple.
When you find an article that is about some topic that is connected with your
role—for example, accounting—there is a high chance that the people who
clapped are also working in the same field, so this is a great way to discover
new people.
Example: site:medium.com inurl:has-recommended
Example: site:medium.com inurl:has-recommended "Name of the
article"
Targeting Based on Groups

If you would like to find the articles from a specific group, you can target
these groups by simply adding: "Also tagged NAME OF THE GROUP."
Example: site:medium.com "Also tagged Career Advice"
Example: site:medium.com "Also tagged Data Science"
Example: site:medium.com "Also tagged Recruiting"
You can also use the URL that you find on medium.com. For example,
https://medium.com/tag/recruiting will show you the top articles in that area.
If you would like to see the latest articles, just click on "Latest"
https://medium.com/tag/recruiting/latest.
Conclusion
Medium.com is a great source of new information and ideas from people
across the globe. It is not only a great source of information about your
potential candidates, but it’s a great site where you can be inspired by others.
You can find interesting candidates on Medium. If a user is active on that
site and actively adding claps to articles, it will show you what that person is
like and what his/her interests are. Also, thanks to these tricks, you will learn
about what they like and what they read before you approach them with your
message.
This strategy will help you to create more personal messages and raise your
chance of receiving answers. Other recruiters are not going to go the
extra mile, but if you do, you will find out that the extra mile is never
crowded.
And, of course, if you are on Medium, you can follow me:
https://medium.com/@jantegze
03.4 How to Source Candidates on WordPress
Did you know that 30% of the top 10 million websites are powered by
WordPress? This information comes from recent data collected by
W3Techs[2].
WordPress is a free and open-source content management system based on
PHP and MySQL. Because WordPress is free and easy to use, a lot of
people are using it.
Considering that the total number of active websites is estimated at over
172 million— according to a survey published by Netcraft[3]—that means
that around 75,000,000 websites are using WordPress right now. In
addition, around half of those sites (37,500,000) are hosted on the
WordPress.com shared hosting installation. This means that around 20% of
all self-hosted websites use WordPress, which is a huge percentage of the
market.
I am a big fan of WordPress, and most of the websites I have developed for
my projects or my clients have been built on WordPress. Moreover, because
this system is very popular, it also comes with some flaws. The main flaw is
that many people and companies are not regularly updating their sites.
If they are using an older version of the site or if they are not familiar with
administration, it leaves them vulnerable to mistakes and security breaches.
One of the primary mistakes is that they are not protecting their folders with
.htaccess[4] or any other methods.
Before you learn a few sourcing tricks connected with WordPress, you first
need to learn a little bit more about WordPress itself. In particular, you need
to understand the kinds of URLs and folders that are used on the WordPress
platform.
There are three main folders under every WordPress: /wp-admin/, /wp-
content/, /wp-includes/.
We need to target only one folder, which is /wp-content/ because we are
interested in one specific subfolder in this folder. The /wp-content/ folder
has three subfolders: plugins, themes, and uploads. Also, as you have
probably already guessed, we are going to be targeting the /uploads/
subfolder.
The reason is simple: this is where all the files are stored there.
Folder uploads
There are many sites you can target, but the easiest way is to do this is to
use inurl: operator in combination with the right keywords.
You already know that you need to target /wp-content/uploads/, so the
string will look like this:
Example: inurl:/wp-content/uploads/
This string will target all of the folder’s uploads that are not protected,
where they are also using WordPress.
However, we need to find files that are related to the person’s resume, and
the best way to do that is to add a keyword.
Example: inurl:/wp-content/uploads/ resume
However, this string will show us lots of results, but it will not find all of
the resumes that are out there in these folders. That’s why you need to cast a
wider net by adding more keywords.
Example: inurl:/wp-content/uploads/ (CV OR resume OR "curriculum
vitae")
Targeting file types

You can also use filetype: to target only PDF files, for example. Also, don’t
forget to remove some keywords from your searches with the minus sign.
vitae") filetype:pdf -sample -example
This string will target all PDF files, but it will remove those that have
"sample" or "example" in the name.
In the same way, you can target other file extensions and target a list of
attendees or also things that others consider as confidential.
Example: inurl:/wp-content/uploads/ filetype:xlsx "attendees"
Example: inurl:/wp-content/uploads/ filetype:doc "Confidential"
Targeting Email Addresses
You can also try to target files that have an email address in them, like
@gmail.com.
vitae") (* @gmail.com) -sample -example
Conclusion
When you learn more about WordPress and about the directory structure,
you can target folders that will show you how many people are visiting
current sites, like when you target folders for Webalizer. (Webalizer is web
log analysis software; it generates web pages of analysis from access and
usage logs.)
Example: site:.com /webalizer intitle:"Usage Statistics"
This will find you all the sites that are using this statistic software but are
not protecting that information.
As you can see, sites that are using WordPress could reveal interesting
information and new candidates. Even though some of those who are not
updating their WordPress systems might prevent you from accessing some
information, WordPress is still one of the best open-source content
management systems you can find.
Sometimes you will find a folder that shouldn't be shared with the world, so
it's up to you if you are going to contact the owners of the site and let them
now. I have already done that a few times.
03.5 LinkedIn Search Tricks
03.5.1 Finding candidates by the length of their probation

period
You can target almost any part of any site through X-Ray search. This is
something I didn’t include in my first book, but I hope it will provide a little
inspiration for you to come up with some new sourcing tricks for yourself
that you can share with the world.
As a recruiter, you know that not all employees who enter a new job are
happy during their probationary period. Their expectations may diverge from
the promises of their new boss, and in many cases, candidates are so
disappointed that they are open to changing their job one more time.
Finding those people is easy if you have a premium LinkedIn account.
However, if you don’t have one, the best way to find such potential
candidates is to use X-Ray search. You can do this by using the site:
operator in combination with a few other keywords.
Keep in mind that LinkedIn is primarily in the English language. However,
you need to consider that some profiles use a different language version, and
also remember that LinkedIn is showing some profiles in English even
though the person is using their native language.
Luckily for us, there is a way to target profiles that are in a different
language.
After one month

You will need to use site: operator, and you are going to target the part of
LinkedIn where the profiles are stored—but you probably already knew that
from my book.
So you will use site:linkedin.com/in and add "present (1 month)" as this
will target people who have stated in their current profile that they have been
working in that specific role for one month.
Example: site:linkedin.com/in "present (1 month)"
If you are targeting different language versions—like the Czech language,
for example—you will need to change the part that is in bold.
Example: site:linkedin.com/in "do současnosti (1 měsíc)"
Alternatively, in the German language, it will look like this:
Example: site:linkedin.com/in "Heute (1 Monat)"
You can also add more keywords into your string.
Example: site:linkedin.com/in "present (1 month)" Developer London
Java
Targeting other months is also easy—you just change the keywords. So,
instead of "present (1 month)", you will just use "present (2 months)".
Example: site:linkedin.com/in "present (2 months)"
For three or more months, you will just replace numbers.
Example: site:linkedin.com/in "present (3 months)"
Don’t forget that in some countries the probation period is different. Some
positions, like managerial roles, could have a longer probationary period
than the standard three months.
There is an old saying that people should change their job every five years,
so this simple string will help you to find people who have been working for
a company for five years.
Example: site:linkedin.com/in "present (5 years)"
This string will also target not only profiles with five years at one company,
but it also profiles that have any number of months after the "5 years", so
you will see profiles with dates like: Present (5 years 10 months).
Additionally, you can, of course, target people who have been working in
one role for any number of years. The only thing you need to do is to replace
the year.
03.5.2 Content Search on LinkedIn

Not many LinkedIn users are aware of this functionality, but this is a great
way to discover if anyone has mentioned your name, your project, has
shared your articles and any related comments they are adding on LinkedIn.
I have used this search option for some time, particularly when I want to find
out who is sharing my articles. My primary use of that tool is not to track
whether somebody is sharing the things I have created, but to track when
they are shared, who is sharing them, and what others are saying in response.
This tool also helps me to find out when someone is posting my articles
under their own name.
Content Search
When you publish an article, some people will share it. The people in their
network will usually add comments or questions underneath the article. On
LinkedIn, you will only be notified of comments that are posted directly
under your article or your post—not the comments on these shared versions.
This isn’t great because the comments under those posts and articles are
often a great source of feedback and inspiration.
I am aware that this search method is not perfect, but it’s still great for
finding information on LinkedIn, especially since you can’t use Google to
find the information that people are sharing on their LinkedIn timeline
because their wall is not accessible by Google.
It is also a great tool for tracking posts where someone has mentioned your
name. From time to time, I use the content search to see who has mentioned
me, my book or my projects.
How to Use Content Search

Using the content search on LinkedIn is easy. You just need to type the
keyword or phrase into the search field and choose the "Content" tab to filter
the results.
Additionally, you then have two options for how to further sort these posts:
by relevance or by the latest. This will show you all posts where the
keyword is mentioned. If I am going to search for my surname, I need to
consider more options to narrow down the results.
People can add me to their posts by adding @ in front of my name and then
typing my name, so my name in that post will be linked directly to my
LinkedIn profile. However, most people don't do that; they just type the
name as plain text.
To find cases where someone has not tagged you in the post, but has
mentioned your name in the text, you need to use a few more variants of
your name when you are searching for it.
So, if your name is John Doe, you should consider these searches:
- "Doe"
- "John Doe"
- "JohnDoe"
- @johndoe
People are not always going to use only your surname or first name. If they
are creating the post on their phones, they could add your first name and
surname together. Alternatively, they could use a tool that will tag you in the
same way as a Twitter account.
03.6 More Sourcing Tricks
03.6.1 Google Search and Google Play
Google Search
Google is still one of the best sourcing tools for sourcers. However, it is a
tool that is evolving and, in 2018, they made the decision to kill
google.com/ncr (NCR - No Country Redirect). This site gave you the ability
to use Google without any local redirection. However, Google has now
removed that option.
You can still use a VPN[5] service to access local versions of Google for the
location you need.
Alternatively, you can also use this small trick: https://www.google.com/?
gfe_rd=cr&gws_rd=cr
or the shorter version: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=cr
GFE- Google Front-End
RD - Redirect
CR - Country
EI - Engine ID
GWS - Google Web Server
It means the Google web server (GWS) is getting redirected (RD) by a
country other than the U.S. (CR). Also, if you are using one of the links, this
will take you directly to Google.com without any local redirection. This
method is working for now, but it could also be removed by Google, or it
might not work for you and your location. I wasn’t able to test it from all
countries, but it did work for those I tested.
Also, if you would like to use the local version of Google, my
recommendation is to use a VPN service. So, when you change your IP in
Germany, you will get google.de instead of your local Google site.
Google Play
Google Play (previously Android Market) is a digital distribution service
operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for the
Android operating system, allowing users to browse and download
applications developed with the Android software development kit (SDK)
and published through Google.
Also, because Google Play is the place where you can download apps for
your Android, it is also the best place to find Android developers. Not only
you will find information about them, but you can also find their email
addresses to make contact.
X-Ray Search
When you are planning to use X-Ray search through Google, you will need
to target the URL: play.google.com/store/apps/details with the site: operator.
Example: site:play.google.com/store/apps/details
The only thing is that you need to add is more keywords, but you can also
target email addresses.
Example: site:play.google.com/store/apps/details "@gmail.com" London
This string will show you every person on Google Play who matches your
keywords. However, you will still need to check the person’s LinkedIn to see
if have the experience that you need.
Find Android Developers on LinkedIn

The best way to find an Android developer on LinkedIn is by using X-Ray
search and targeting LinkedIn and the Google Play URL.
Example: site:linkedin.com/in https://play.google.com/store/apps/details
London -dir -jobs
In the URL, there is https://, but if you remove it from that string, it will
expand your search. The reason why you should remove that from every
string is simple. Some people are adding the links on their profiles (in this
case, on their app) without https—they are using only http.
Removing the https:// from the string will show you even more profiles.
Even though https:// is going to become the norm in the future, you need to
keep in mind that people are not great at keeping their profiles updated.
Example: site:linkedin.com/in play.google.com/store/apps/details London
-dir -jobs
Where can you find a developer’s email address?

Just check the profile page of the app and scroll down until you find
information about the developer. You can often find their email address and
their website on this page.
This is a quick way to find and reach Android developers. However, don’t
forget that you should ALWAYS take the time to learn about your candidates
before you reach out to them.
03.6.2 Metasearch Engines

If I asked you which search engine you use every day or which search
engine you use when you are sourcing, I am quite positive that your answer
would be Google. Am I right?
Google is a great search engine, but, as I mentioned in my book, in the
chapter titled "Google: Candidates and Different Locations," when you
search on Google, different results are shown based on your current location.
For example, if you want to see the same results as a person in London but
you are located in Berlin, you will need to physically be in London or use a
VPN service to change your IP address. This is the only way to see the same
results as a person searching Google from London.
Google and other search engines are delivering results based on what they
know about you rather than giving you equal access to the internet. You,
essentially, become trapped in a "filter bubble." Some people call this filter
bubble "personalization," but some call it censorship.
Filter Bubble
Eli Pariser brought the term "filter bubble" into public awareness with his
2011 TED talk[6]. He is also the author of The Filter Bubble, which is all
about how the spread of personalized search might narrow our worldview.
He described how companies are using personalization to shape our online
world, and how they are influencing and controlling what we see and pay
attention to.
Even when we are searching for something completely different, algorithms
continue to give us more and more of the things we have engaged with in the
past. They operate under the assumption that we have engaged with these
things in the past because we enjoyed them or agreed with them. This
assumption is the foundation of every filter bubble. Additionally, search
engines are showing us the things they think we would like to see instead of
all data that could be relevant for us so that we can make our own decisions.
When you are sourcing a candidate, the more searches on Google you are
doing, the more personalized your next set of results will be. Unfortunately,
the results you need or are looking for are often on buried on a Google page
that has been pushed down to page 10, meaning you’ll likely never see them.
And the only reason they are on that distant page is because Google decided
to show the personalized results first, pushing the truly relevant results
further down the list.
With every search you make, you are slowly building your own personal
sourcing filter bubble.
Burst the Filter Bubble

You have two options for bursting your filter bubble.
First option: You can use other search engines, like Bing, but if you would
like to access Google results, you could try a search engine like
Startpage.com. It’s an internet search engine that emphasizes protecting
searchers' privacy and avoiding the filter bubble of personalized search
results. You can also use DuckDuckGo (duckduckgo.com) but you will
mainly get Yahoo search results.
Note: Startpage.com delivers Google search results in privacy. It also offers
a free proxy for visiting web pages anonymously, too.
Second option: You could try another of the various metasearch engines
that can be found on the internet.
A metasearch engine (or aggregator) is a search tool that uses another search
engine’s data to produce its own results. This will help you to burst the filter
bubble and get results that were hidden from you because of the
personalization.
My two favorite metasearch engines are www.startpage.com and
www.etools.ch. Both of these are great for their privacy options, but I prefer
etools.ch because it shows results from 16 search engines and allows you to
target results from various countries with one simple click.
You can also check any of the other metasearch search engines that are
available.
Here are few examples:
http://www.dogpile.com/ , http://www.metacrawler.com/ , http://yippy.com/.
You can find more of these through Google, but keep in mind that some of
them are not going to work. This is often because their funding has run out,
but new ones always appear and take their place.
Conclusion
I am not saying that Google is bad, and I’m not saying that the
personalization is bad either. For me, Google is still the best free sourcing
tool at our disposal. However, I strongly believe that it is important to
understand and keep in mind that the new personalized web is changing
what we read, how we think, and even how we see the world.
When Google began customizing its search results for all users in December
2009, we all entered a new era of personalization. It brought some great
benefits but also some drawbacks. If you are ready to burst your filter
bubble, try startpage.com or duckduckgo.com.
I know that old habits die hard. From time to time, try to use one of these
metasearch engines to expand your search and discover new sources that are
hidden from you because of your personalized results. Only you can decide
whether to burst your filter bubble or stay inside of it.
03.6.3 Searching for Confidential Information

Sssshhhh, I have a secret, but you can’t tell anyone, deal?
As Thomas Powers[7] said: "The first rule in keeping secrets is nothing on
paper: paper can be lost or stolen or simply inherited by the wrong people;
if you really want to keep something secret, don't write it down."
We can customize that quote a little bit by replacing "paper" with
"computer." Every company is working hard to protect their data, and they
are training their people on how to do this adequately. Companies are also
using many tools to prevent data leaks that could potentially hurt their
business or reveal their plans and strategies to their competitors or investors.
There are many ways for this information to be leaked on the internet.
Sometimes confidential information is leaked intentionally, sometimes it is
leaked because of human error, and sometimes it is leaked because of a
technical error. However, as you know, "Everything posted online is there
forever, even after it has been deleted." So, when you combine the
possibility of technical and human error, the result is that confidential
information could easily appear on Google.
And we sourcers love secrets!
Confidential Information
As a sourcers, we always depend on our carefully selected search keywords,
and targeting confidential information is going to be no exception. We will
need to target the keywords that are most relevant to our search.
There are many keywords that you can target like: confidential; internal use
only; not for distribution; not for public distribution; classified; document is
private, etc. Don’t forget that these words are only applicable to a search of
English documents. If you are living in France, Germany or another country,
you should use these words and phrases in the relevant language.
Creating the string when you are searching for confidential data is very easy;
just generate the best list of the keywords for that search.
Example: ("confidential" OR "internal use only" OR "not for
distribution" OR "not for public distribution" OR "classified")
You can add more operators like intitle: with the current year, which should
find all the pages with 2018 in the title of the page.
intitle:2018
If you would like to target more years, you can just add more intitle:
operators.
(intitle:2017 OR intitle:2018)
You can also combine inurl: operator with intitle: operator.
(intitle:2018 OR inurl:2018)
You can also try to target file types. That’s where the filetype: operator
comes in handy.
Example: filetype:pdf ("confidential" OR "internal use only" OR "not
for distribution" OR "not for public distribution" OR "classified")
When you are using a more general keyword like "confidential," you are
going to get lots of results with that keyword in it. Oftentimes, you are going
to get lots of results that are not relevant, and that’s why I choose not to use
it in my strings.
Example: filetype:pdf ("internal use only" OR "not for distribution"
OR "not for public distribution" OR "classified")
If you would like to use some advanced strings, just add more operators or
keywords.
Example: filetype:pdf ("internal use only" OR "not for distribution"
OR "not for public distribution" OR "classified") (sourcing AND
recruitment)
You can also use the site:operator to target specific sites.
Example: site:com ("internal use only" OR "not for distribution" OR
"not for public distribution" OR "classified")
This string is targeting .com domains. If you would like to target, for
example, domains only from Germany, you will just replace site:com with
site:de.
Advanced Strings
You can expand the string and target more documents and phrases in the text
with the intext: operator, as shown in the example string below. However,
my personal recommendation is to simplify and not target so many filetypes.
Example: ext:(doc | rtf | odt | pdf | xls | txt | ps | sxw | psw | ppt | pps |
xml)
(intext:"internal use only" OR intext:"not for distribution" OR
intext:"not for public distribution" OR intext:"classified")
You can also use that advanced string and target, for example, to find salary
information.
Example: ext:(doc | rtf | odt | pdf | xls | txt | ps | sxw | psw | ppt | pps |
xml) (intext:"confidential salary"| intext:"budget approved")
You can also target sites with the inurl: operator together with intext:
operator.
Example: ext:(doc | rtf | odt | pdf | xls | txt | ps | sxw | psw | ppt | pps | xml)
inurl:confidential (intext:"confidential salary"| intext:"budget
approved")
Conclusion
The best way to keep a secret is to pretend there isn't one. Don’t add
keywords like: confidential; internal use only; not for distribution; not for
public distribution, etc. If you need to use these words or phrases in your
own documents or presentations, there is a simple trick that you can use to
protect these documents. Replace the text "internal use only" and similar
warnings with an image of that text.
Search engine robots that are indexing your domain are not able to run an
OCR (optical character recognition) on images that are included in the file.
And because they can't read that text in the photo, people searching for
accidentally leaked confidential information are not going to find it online.
Your material will still have the "Internal use only" warning on it, but you
will make it a little bit harder for others to find those files through search
engines, if the search engines are going to index them.
03.6.4 The Most Powerful Strings are the Simplest Ones
You know that feeling when you discover something that you think is really
cool and you want to share it with the world, but you don’t want to share it
because you want to be the one who knows?
I know that feeling quite well, but the "sharing is caring" part of my
personality always wins. Sometimes it takes me a few months, but in the
end, I just share it.
What is the most powerful string I am using?

I like simple things. Creating an advanced string is something anyone can
do, but there is hidden beauty in the simple things.
My favorite one is this string: intitle:index.of
This string will reveal all the folders that are not protected and that were
indexed by Google. And, so far, it will show you around 22,400,000 results.
But the power of the string lies with the additional keywords you are going
to add.
Example: intitle:index.of resume
You can also use inurl: operator
Example: intitle:index.of inurl:resume
Or you can include more keywords.
Example: intitle:index.of (inurl:Resume OR inurl:CV OR
inurl:"curriculum vitae")
You can also target keywords in files and specific email addresses.
Example: intitle:index.of (Resume OR CV OR "curriculum vitae")
"@gmail.com"
You can also combine this string with the previous strings.
Example: intitle:index.of ("internal use only" OR "not for distribution"
"not for public distribution" OR "classified")
There are many other ways that you can use the index. Or, you can use it
with intext: operator to get more results, it's up to you.
Example: intext:index.of
This will give you more results because it's targeting anything where the
"index.of" is mentioned.
You can also target companies or domains and check what folders they have
open. Adding the site: operator will do the trick.
If you would like to target specific domains, just add site: and the domain
name.
Example: site:de intitle:index.of
This will target all German domains.
You can also use "[To Parent Directory]" phrase to target similar sites, just
like when you are using index.of.
Example: site:de "[To Parent Directory]"
And if you would like to target specific sites or companies, just add their
domain after site: operator.
Example: site:ibm.com intitle:index.of
Conclusion
This will reveal folders that are not protected by the company. Sometimes
you can find interesting information about companies, but keep in mind that
just because you’ve found it doesn’t mean you have permission to use it!
Some data are just badly protected, and you shouldn’t even download them
because you could be breaking the laws of your country, GDPR, etc. It’s up
to you how far you are willing to go, but you need to consider the
consequences connected with this decision.
03.6.5 One More Trick with Google Images

Many companies add information about their employees to their website.
Sometimes these images are so small that you can’t use the reverse image
search.
There is a small trick that I am successfully using.
Because GDPR I am not showing photos and names.
Use the right click on your mouse to inspect the element of that image.
Copy the part of the URL into Google Image search and select "Face." This
will very often show you the profile of all the people that are working for
that company, and their photos are usually posted on that website. Now you
can take the time to go through the whole website.
Note: You can also try to use the URL without https://.
End of Sourcing Part

I hope you have learned something new and the knowledge that you have
gained from Full Stack Recruiter: The Modern Recruiter's Guide and Full
Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed is helping you every day.
04 Recruitment
04.1 Recruitment Is Not a 9 to 5 Job
When I published my book (Full Stack Recruiter: The Modern Recruiter's

Guide), I got many messages from readers that all of my advice was great,
but they didn’t know where to find the time during the day. Where can you
find the time for learning new things and getting new training? My answer
is always the same: The work of a recruiter goes beyond the expected nine-
to-five hassle of corporate life.
Most recruiters put their sweat and toil into getting the right candidate, so
it’s no surprise that many recruiters begin each day with great intentions
only to find themselves in complete disarray by the end of the day.
Unexpected activities, requests and diversions spring up throughout the day
and nearly drive them insane. Unfortunately, many job seekers see
recruiters as annoying or unnecessary intermediaries for their next job.
The reality, however, is entirely different. Although the recruiting process
looks like merely matching people with available job openings, a lot of
strategic, personal and analytic skills go into managing thousands of
resumes and correctly fitting candidates with a prospective employer. To
understand a job seeker, recruiters need a good amount of emotional
intelligence too.
Being a recruiter is great, but if you want to succeed, you need to
understand that recruitment is not a 9 to 5 job.
Here are nine reasons why recruiters aren’t sleeping on the job:
1) They are struggling to keep up with the trends
Recruiters who do not at least try to follow the latest trends will fall behind.
We live in a fast-paced world that can’t seem to stop changing. Every new
year brings new opportunities but also new tools, methods, and processes.
From dusk to dawn, recruiters strive to understand their clients’ business
and candidate trends.
Apart from endless meetings and calls with candidates and clients, the
recruiting process requires a continuous drive to carry out and analyze
research. It involves pooling knowledge to understand growing industry
trends. All this research takes a lot of time and dedication if recruiters want
to remain updated on new technology trends, local and international
government regulations, and market trends.
2) Growing domain and sourcing experience

Acquiring domain experience means understanding, to the smallest detail,
the industry and the specific areas of business. On the other hand, getting
sourcing experience means knowing exactly where to find the best
candidates.
Recruiters strive to grow their domain and sourcing experience. The desire
to gain industry insight, broaden reach, and find a new source of candidates
is not just necessary but compulsory to survive in the battle for talents.
3) Always being empathic
An arrogant or cold fish recruiter will be out of a job in no time. Empathy is
a valuable aspect that many people in the corporate line fail to harness.
Candidates are people too, and they want to be treated accordingly.
However, the hard part for most recruiters is getting into the candidate’s
head.
These are people with different emotional and educational backgrounds,
different ambitions, fears, social responses, and behavior. Recruiters have
long realized that to make a successful hire, half the battle is won when you
understand the candidate’s mindset.
4) Beating the competition
Recruiters with a better reputation and personal brand can attract and secure
top talent. Top-tier recruiters can put a company leagues ahead of its
competitors. The war for talent is real. In fact, keeping up with the current
fast-paced labor market is hard. Therefore, recruiters work around the clock
to track their client’s competition.
Knowing how to beat the perks and benefits a competitor is offering to
talents might be what separates a successful recruiter from an incompetent
one. However, staying on top of all these elements requires a great deal of
time.
5) Managing an overwhelming database/network

Delivering that right candidate requires a continuous effort of meeting the
requirements of companies whose expectations sometimes vary from
understandable to staggeringly absurd.
Therefore, when companies outsource their staffing responsibilities to
freelance recruiters, a useful database or good network of contacts is
needed, especially if the company is expecting quick results.
Moreover, building a vast database of contacts takes time and goes beyond
simply running the best recruitment software. Recruiters are continually
extending their database by pursuing candidates through effective offline
strategies, excellent candidate experience, and building their network in the
online and offline worlds. They also need to be sure that their databases are
in compliance with GDPR and any relevant laws in their country.
6) The pressure to churn out results

Companies want the very "best" person for the job—no employer wants
anything less. However, in the real world, the best talents aren’t actively
seeking jobs. What we have are the "scarce best" in the market. However,
all the same, a recruiter’s top motivation is to snap up that "best" against all
the odds and never let go.
A primary target for every recruiter is to provide job seekers and companies
with just what they are looking for: that perfect culture fit, work ethics,
skillsets, employee experience, etc. That’s why most recruiters are always
on the lookout for the mythical candidates that we call "unicorns."
7) Working with clear focus
For any recruiter, nothing is as important as the end goal: bringing in that
sought-after talent as quickly as possible. A great amount of information
needs to be processed in the hiring process. Focus is needed when meeting
new people, forming lasting alliances and networking with other recruiters.
To hold their own against the competitive market, recruiters work with a
tremendous amount of focus whenever they meet people and attend trade
fairs, job fairs, expositions or industry exhibitions.
8) Never-ending communication
Candidates want reassurance about their applications. Who doesn’t? The
psyche of a job seeker is quite a delicate one, and recruiters understand this
very well. To be successful, a recruiter needs to be an outstanding speaker
and a greater listener.
Explicit communication involves the timely distribution of information,
which is key to everything in recruiting. Even when handling unpicked
candidates, communication should never stop between the candidate and
the recruiter. Ensuring tailored messages and delivering timely feedback are
always the bedrock of a target-driven seeker of talents.
9) Mixing speed and patience for a better outcome
Deadlines and angry candidates can destabilize any recruiter at any time.
An open position is a deficit for any company. Moreover, some job seekers
are desperate to land a job fast. This is where speed and patience come into
the recruiting process. Of course, they seem like unlikely traits, but speed
and patience are two qualities that work together to grease a creaky hiring
process.
Good recruiters know that having the utmost patience and flexibility is
necessary for survival. There will always be last-minute rescheduled
meetings, interviews, and new demands from candidates and clients.
Overcoming the shortage of time is very important. Job recruiting involves
being hard at work to provide fast and expected results as soon as possible.
Final Point
Even if recruitment is not rocket science, it requires dedication and lot of
time that goes beyond a standard 9 to 5 job, especially when candidates tell
you that they are open to discussing a new opportunity with you after their
9 to 5 job. That’s why some recruiters’ jobs start after 5 pm.
The productivity and overall success of a company are primarily dependent
on the recruiters. Night and day, they labor to take the talent burden off the
shoulders of companies and find the right people who will help their
company grow.
Any recruiter worth his or her salt must work tirelessly to provide end-to-
end recruitment success that ensures the provision of the right candidates
and simultaneously saves hiring costs and time.
If you want to succeed, you need to realize that it’s not a 9 to 5 job!
04.2 A Recruiter’s Worst Enemy
The worst enemy of any recruiter or sourcer is not the candidate, and it's not
a hiring manager or competitor. Not even time is our biggest enemy—even
though we say that quite often. The worst enemy of every recruiter is a
habit. Habits are far worse than any mistakes we make and far worse than
any other competitor we have.
Our work habits determine how productive we are, and they affect how
successful we are in finding and acquiring candidates. They also shape the
type of strategies we use every time we get to work. Unfortunately, the
habits we utilize often become old and useless in the ever-changing and
progressive world of recruitment. It’s usually at this point that recruiters
become their own worst enemy, staying stuck in a never-ending loop of
trying to catch up the latest trends.
As professionals, we sometimes find ourselves repeatedly doing things in a
way that reaps us no rewards or that frustrates us over and over again.
Because these things have worked before, we expect them to keep working
in the future.
Recruitment Habits
For better or worse, we are creatures of habit. We all have habits that help
us in our lives. However, research from Duke University[8] shows that 40%
of what you do each day isn’t a decision—it’s a habit. So, about 40% of
what we do every day feels like our own decision, but it’s actually a habit,
and we’re only making decisions about 60% of the time.
It’s easy to fall into a pattern of bad habits, but there are a few habits that
we should try to remove from our work day because they are having an
effect on how well we work.
1) Only using email to contact prospects
When you saw the article "Cold calls are dead," you were probably the
happiest person in the world, especially if you don’t like to make them. Call
cold calling is hard and, in many cases, uncomfortable. It is still very
effective and yields a higher response than email. When you stop calling, or
you are trying to find out why the cold calling is not working, you are only
supporting your habit not to call. After a while, it won’t be easy to come
back. Speaking with the person over the phone is more effective than any
LinkedIn InMail or email you will send.
2) Focusing on the same metrics

Consistency is the key if you run recruitment reports; however, focusing on
the same metrics over five years in a row and not adding any new ones or
trying to update them so they can reflect the current market will hurt your
recruitment activities.
If you are focusing only on WHERE your candidates are applying from and
not on WHY they are applying, you could easily miss crucial information
that could help you to be more efficient. I believe that asking WHY is more
crucial than asking WHERE, and that is why I have dedicated a chapter of
this book to this topic.
3) Working without passion
After five consecutive interviews with candidates, it is easy for a routine to
kick in. You find yourself repeatedly asking the same questions, but you
have stopped listening. The last interview of the day eventually becomes
less exciting than the first interviews you had.
Over time, the primary functions of your job—like phone screening,
scheduling, and conducting intake meetings—can become just a habit. You
go to work, do your job and go back home. Our habits go on autopilot, and
we are just repeating the same thing over and over again. Without being
present in the moment, we are not focusing on what we are doing.
One of the habits that is taking the passion out of work is checking the
company emails 24/7, even when you are on vacation.
4) Generalizing candidates
It is essential for any candidate to have a successful work history, but it may
not be the most important thing. Some recruiters are in the habit of basing
their judgment of a candidate on their previous work history. In turn, they
soon find out that even the most successful applicants on paper may not be
the correct fit for their unique positions. Instead, a recruiter should focus on
uncovering the skills and characteristics that will transfer well to their
client’s company.
Recruiters should make it a habit to focus on potential and not perfection.
Just because someone says they are an expert and work for a company that
has a good reputation doesn’t mean they are good at what they do., In some
cases, you won’t know until they are already hired and you are working
with them that they cannot deliver on what they promised.
5) Sourcing the same way

Most recruiters are using the same Boolean search strings that they created
years ago, or they use the same string for every country where they are
trying to search for candidates. Sometimes we continue with these same
strings and methods just because it is the only "tried and trusted" way we
know and understand. In cases like this, we suddenly discover that these
work habits are stunting our sourcing activities, and thus our ability to learn
and evolve diminishes day by day.
You can break your sourcing habits with the help of gamification or try sites
like www.sourcing.games.
6) Subjective selection procedures
Never rely solely on "gut feeling" as a recruiter; utilize testing and
assessment information to increase your confidence and predictive accuracy
that a candidate can successfully perform the job. These methods can be
used to identify individuals that possess true leadership talent.
An individual with a high level of talent but a slightly non-traditional
background (e.g., comes from a different industry) could well make a much
higher contribution than an individual that has performed the same job in
the same industry but possesses modest leadership talent.
7) Delivering a poor candidate experience

A habit of offering a poor interview experience can contribute to a negative
recruitment brand. The question is: In a time of scarce talent, why would
you want to irritate quality candidates? Recruiters need to adopt a structured
behavioral interview that is professional and job relevant.
8) Jumping to conclusions
Personal attitudes could affect our decisions and recruiters should not let
their personal attitudes get in the way. It is important to treat every
candidate the same way, give the applicant the time they deserve, and try
not to allow personal bias to hurt the hiring process.
9) Deciding too quickly
The goal of every recruiter is to fill the role with the right candidate but also
fill the role as quickly as possible. If the recruiters’ KPIs (key performance
indicators) are the most important metric for the company or the manager,
recruiters will tend to rush the process. Instead of jumping at the first
qualified applicant that comes through the door, a recruiter should also
check other applications they received and not make a decision based on
how quickly the candidate could start.
10) Resist change

"We’ve always done it this way," is a dangerous mentality that appears after
a few years at work. Recruiters refuse to change anything or bring new
ideas to the table if his/her manager is not open-minded and not open to
new things. At that moment, the recruiter adopts the "we’ve always done it
this way" mentality and prefers process over giving a candidate a unique,
human-centered experience. Just because a hiring manager previously
rejected this candidate, recruiters assume it’s going to happen again.
Conclusion
Behavioral economist Howard Rachlin[9] proposes an interesting trick for
overcoming this problem. When you want to change a behavior, aim to
reduce the variability in your behavior, not the behavior itself.
For example, try to check your Twitter or Facebook feed only twice during
an hour and not twice per minute. This effort toward self-control can lead to
an unconscious decrease in bad habits over time.
Making any conscious change takes up physical and mental resources.
Trying to change everything all at once is only going to spread your
resources, and you will not reach your goal. Try to start with the small
things and focus on only one significant change at a time.
Searching for the best candidates for your clients is a challenging
responsibility. One or more of these old recruitment habits have been
unknowingly made by even the most experienced recruiters.
Although the list of unproductive and repetitive recruiting habits is long,
there is always a chance to break the mold. The risk of falling behind will
always exist but being aware of bad habits and being willing to correct them
should significantly improve your ability to recruit the right talent.
Remember that continuous improvement is the key to success. And that’s
why I hope the next chapters will be exactly the thing to help you to break
your habits.
04.3 Growth Hacking
At the beginning of 2018, I wrote this:

"Prediction is challenging, especially if it’s about the future. Many of
us are trying to predict what the future in recruitment is going to look
like, because knowing what the future will bring us also gives us the
advantage that we all are looking for. Many predictions from last
year were about A.I. (artificial intelligence) and chatbots. A.I. was
quite a topic during the last year, and I am sure that it will still be a
hot topic throughout this year. However, I don’t think A.I. will
dominate as many are predicting.
Bear with me here, before you write a comment that I am wrong,
crazy, or I have seen the future coming and don’t have a clue about
A.I. All of these things could be true; I am not going to argue with
you here, but these are my arguments for why A.I. will be a hotter
topic in 2019 than 2018."
Today, with many months of 2018 already behind us, I am still convinced
that my statement and prediction was right. I strongly believe that growth
hacking methods and tricks will be playing a bigger part in recruitment than
ever before. Here are the reasons why I believe that and why I made that
kind of statement.
A.I. is a new technology

A.I. is still a new and unexplored technology for many recruiters. I am sure
that almost every recruiter has heard about A.I., but many of them haven’t
had the opportunity to work with A.I. tools or have even tried them. For
some, A.I. technology is still a mystery. They don’t understand it yet, or
they think it’s just a tool that will source candidates for them based on the
job description that they will provide.
The pricing
The pricing for many tools is outside of the range of many small companies
and agencies. Smaller companies and talent and acquisition departments
can’t afford to purchase most A.I. products, and their leaders aren’t
prepared to invest financing in this new technology.
Because recruiters don’t have the real experience with the tools, it's hard for
them to convince the budget holder to invest the money into tools that
might not bring in the ROI they are expecting.
Current technology still sucks

Yes, this is my personal opinion, and I am aware that this is a strong
statement and many of you are going to point out that I am wrong.
However, most chatbots that I have seen are not working correctly. Even
though there are many interesting tools and apps on the market that could
boost the recruitment process, most of these tools are not bringing much
value. They could have a great A.I. engine, but most of them still need
improvement and enough data that can be used for learning in order to be
the powerful tools that the ads from these companies are promising.
Companies don’t know how to use A.I. to its full potential

Many of my friends who are working at companies where they implement
tools with A.I. share with me that they are only using a few of the
functionalities that these tools provide.
This is mainly because of two reasons: first, they implement a tool that is
not solving their real problem and, second, recruiters are creatures of habit.
They stick with things that they already know, and not everybody is open or
has the time for new tests and experimentation.
Since many recruiters have read articles about how A.I. is going to replace
them, they may not be so eager to start using these tools. If recruiters and
sourcers aren’t taking full advantage of these new A.I. products, then they
aren’t getting any functional results. If results continue to lag, budget
holders are not going to reinvest in this technology or perhaps any new
tools in the near future.
What will be the "main" topic in the near future? My money is on growth
hacking[10].
What is Growth Hacking?
Growth hacking is a word with strong roots in the world of start-ups. The
origin of the word can be traced to the year 2010 when Sean Ellis coined
the phrase ‘growth hacker’ to explain his frustration with getting
replacements for himself as he sought to retire from his job.
To put a definition to the phrase, growth hacking is a marketing technique
developed by start-ups that utilizes the combination of creativity, analytical
thinking, and social metrics to sell products and gain exposure.
In layman’s terms, we can say it is merely the act of experimenting with
different methods to make a company more successful and bigger, i.e., a
growth hacker undertakes the initiative of birthing and nurturing the
consistent growth of an organization.
Often times, growth hackers are thought of as marketers but, in many ways,
being a growth hacker is much more than just having a marketing degree; a
growth hacker can combine marketing creativity and innovation with the
ability to code marketing hacks.
For example, in a start-up, the process of charting the path for growth and
the establishment of the organization might be much more than just
establishing a strategic marketing plan or just building a marketing team.
Growth hacking encapsulates every available strategy to grow and expand
the organization’s operations base and capitalization.
Who are Growth Hackers?

The term growth hacker is used to describe a professional who uses
elements of marketing and market research, along with technology and
technical strategies, to provide marketing solutions to clients or employers.
Examples of Growth Hacks

Dropbox
Dropbox’s referral program is possibly one of the most famous cases of
referral marketing done right. They had a simple but great idea to allow its
users to earn free additional space by inviting friends and encouraging them
to sign up for the service. However, they didn’t invite only their friends;
they invited more people in their network through referral links just to get
more free space.
In growth hacking, the wording is important. Instead of using "Invite your
friends," they cleverly used "Get more space" for their referral program.
People could use a simple URL or one of the many other options, like
sending the invitation email to their friends or sharing the post on their
Facebook, to get free space with just one click.
This simple but very effective growth hack earned Dropbox 3900% user
growth in just fifteen months. Their referral program turned into one of
their most effective marketing tools and brought them millions of new
users.
Airbnb
There are many other examples, like Airbnb, that use Craigslist (a classified
advertisement website) to automatically re-post every listing a user would
make on its website to a Craigslist. This growth hack helped Airbnb to
grow faster because they used the popularity of Craigslist to get more
customers and spread the word about their new service.
Gmail
When Gmail started promising unlimited space, people didn’t believe it
first, but everyone was curious about this new service. When it began, you
could only get access to this service via an invitation. The invite-only
growth hack worked so well that Gmail invites were auctioned on eBay and
people were asking their friends about the invites. This also helped Gmail
reach a bigger audience and grow their service.
Benefits of Growth Hacking

There are three main benefits to growth hacking: provable ROI, low
resources and low cost.
Provable ROI
Data are everything for growth hackers. By using data to inform every
decision you make, and by tracking the performance of a hack accurately,
you can easily see which hacks are performing as you expected, and which
are not and need to be changed.
Based on the data, you can customize your strategy and get the most from
your growth hacks.
Low resources
You don’t need to build a team of ten people to implement growth hacks.
Most growth hacks could be implemented by one or two people.
Low cost
Most growth hacks do not require a big budget and could be implemented
without lots of money for tools and advertainment. However, before you
find the right hack that will work for you, some investment in testing hacks
out will be necessary.
Growth Hacking in Recruitment

Recruiters are already using many growth hacking tricks to get their
message to their audience, especially when growth hacking involves
thinking outside of the box, which is a necessary thing to do in the current
market.
Recruiters are consistently under pressure from managers to find the best
possible fit within the shortest possible time. This recruitment growth
hacking involves the use of technology, shortcuts and new ideas to save
time by eradicating/automating low-value activities. This frees you up to
focus on the high-value activities that help you find and hire the right
people for your business.
Experimenting with new methods is one of the fundamental principles of
the growth-hacking process. Although growth hackers share the same aim
with marketers, their approach is not as conservative. They use an empirical
process in getting to the projected outcome. One aid to the efficiency of
growth hackers is the freedom to invent and operate their own self-
propagating growth machine that can take the organization to greater
heights.
As I mentioned before, recruiters are already using various types of growth
hacks, but this year, I am expecting that many of them will start learning
more about growth hacking and how to use data to target more people at a
lower cost.
LinkedIn Growth Hacks

There are many growth hacks that you can use on LinkedIn. However,
LinkedIn is customizing their algorithms because these hacks are losing
their effect from so many people using them. Mention them here in this
book is probably pointless because they might stop working after a month
or two. There are many interesting Facebook Groups about these tricks, like
"Growth Hacking Recruiters"[11] or others, where you can find the latest
tricks and inspiration.
There are a few things that will work every time—and not only on
LinkedIn. These include formatting, selecting the right headline or start for
your posts, etc. I mentioned a few things in other chapters to show you how
our brains react to visual triggers, like fonts, colors, formatting and other
factors.
When it comes to writing the right headline for an article, using numbers
always works like a charm. This is because numbers are a proven trigger
that will get your readers to pay attention to your content. There were many
studies that proved that numbers reach directly into readers unconscious
and say, "this message is important you should pay attention."
That’s why tabloid newspapers and websites are adding numbers into
headlines of their article. Using numbers is getting more visibility for those
articles, and the same goes for any post or article that has a numbered list.
When you organize content into a numbered list, it guarantees to your
readers that the post they’re reading will have structure. Our brains prefer a
text that is structured more than a seemingly unstructured block of text.
Why Growth Hacking Will Dominate in the Near Future and

Beat A.I.
These are a few points that explain why growth hacking will be more
popular in recruitment than A.I.
* Everybody could learn some fundamental growth hacking tips within a
short period.
* It is cheaper, and growth hacking won’t cost companies more than
implementing an A.I. tool.
* Recruiters don’t need to ask for extra budget or approvals to learn about
it.
* Growth hacking is not only excellent for attracting new customers, it’s
also a great way to attract candidates.
* Growth hacking will improve the writing skills of recruiters, and this will
lead to more compelling job ads. This, in turn, will help generate more
potential candidates.
Growth hacking is a useful tool for organizational advancement as it
creates innovative ways of propagating and promoting both the products of
the company as well as the company’s image. It also provides actual
tractable data from which recruiters can draw statistical conclusions and
base their subsequent actions upon.
Slowly, all the compelling images, videos, etc. that recruiters and other
people are posting on LinkedIn won’t matter anymore. The clickbait titles
will lose their power, and the only thing that will matter will be the right
content and the right message.
Recruiters that can write meaningful content and have the growth hacking
skills will be the hidden gem for any organization because they can bring a
recruitment team more than just candidates. They also help to spread the
news about the company, company culture, and company products.
A.I. will undoubtedly bring great things to recruitment in the future. Those
who implemented the right tools will gain a significant advantage, so
learning growth hacking tricks will bring you more results then A.I., at least
during the next few years.
Note: Growth hacks have an expiration date, so visit the Facebook Growth
hacking groups and find out what is working!
04.4 The Psychology of Texts in Recruitment
In the era of videos, emojis, and gifs, the written word is still a powerful way
to share our thoughts, stories or how we learn. We have used stories for
generations to pass on knowledge to others. It is still the best way for us to
remember and learn new things.
That’s why images and videos can never truly replace text; in recruitment,
we use words to describe our companies in bright colors or try to present our
job offers more temptingly and get more attention for our posts on LinkedIn
or our articles. The words we choose to use have the power to influence our
candidates to apply. And even though text is still a static medium, it is still
everywhere, and it is a vital part of shaping a candidate’s experience.
Did you ever consider that the type of font you use, the size of the font and
even the formatting could help you to increase your number of
applications, likes, shares, etc.?
Understanding the psychology behind the text and how to use it will not only
keep your candidates and visitors on your site much longer, but it will also
raise that number, and it could affect the number of candidates you get from
your adverts.
Reading in the 21st Century

People today are overloaded with information. With this overload comes a
decrease in our attention spans (the amount of concentrated time a person
can spend on a task without becoming distracted). In the digital world, the
less text you write, the more of it people will read. Long articles, posts, and
paragraphs drive people away, and the same goes for your job
advertisements.
The eyes naturally scan content for things that stand out as important, so a
shorter text keeps them more engaged than one that spans two pages. Keep
your content short or find a way to split it into smaller parts. No matter what
you are writing, if you want it to be read, do your best to avoid having one
long block of text.
As was mentioned in the "Reading Behavior in the Digital Environment"[12]
study, we now spend more time reading electronic documents. So much so,
in fact, that specific screen-based reading behavior is emerging. Screen-
based reading behavior is characterized by more time spent on browsing and
scanning, keyword spotting, one-time reading, non-linear reading, and
reading more selectively, while less time is spent on in-depth reading and
concentrated reading.
That’s why it is essential to understand the psychology behind effectively
presenting text. In particular, how formatting, spacing, fonts, and other
aspects of the text are working. Many marketing books advise writers to use
short sentences, simple words and be concrete; don’t create long paragraphs
with complex sentences.
All this advice is still accurate, but it’s important to take all these things
together and create some context. Words in a sentence influence one another
and are influenced by their surrounding context.
Focusing on both context and content is the best solution; however, it’s also
important to focus on other things that are equally important, such as
legibility, readability, and comprehension.
Legibility
Legibility is the ease with which a reader can recognize individual characters
in the text. "The legibility of a typeface is related to the characteristics
inherent in its design which relate to the ability to distinguish one letter from
the other."[13]
Fonts
The right fonts make a big difference to legibility, and I have to admit that I
am personally a big fan of fonts. In fact, my first website project was a font
site with 15K+ fonts.
If you think selecting the right font to use in your material doesn’t matter,
you should take some time to learn more about fonts. It’s quite important to
choose the right one, or at least avoid using the wrong one. The font type
you choose for your text, presentation or logo will say something about you
and your business because every font evokes different emotions[14]. Keep in
mind that some typefaces, like display fonts, were designed to be used at a
large size, which makes them less readable on smaller screens or in smaller
sizes.
If you don’t know anything about fonts, there are sans-serif fonts and serif
fonts. Popular sans-serif fonts include Arial, Geneva, Helvetica, and Avant-
Garde. Serif fonts include fonts like Times Roman, Courier, Palatino, and
New Century Schoolbook.
But which is more legible: serif or sans-serif typefaces?
Alex Poole, as part of his 2003 master’s degree, reviewed over 50 empirical
studies in typography and found a definitive answer to the legibility
question.[15] You can also learn about many other typographical features like
serif/sans serif, point size, counters, and so on in his study. I won’t get into
these things here because it would take a whole book to cover it.
According to most of the studies I have read, sans-serif fonts have proven to
be more difficult to read.
Font size also affects readability, so it’s better to use a reasonably large
default font size. High school materials are usually printed in 10-point or 12-
point fonts. Where possible, allow your users to change the font to a size that
is comfortable for them, as a 12.5-point or 13-point font makes the text more
comfortable to read for some.
Another thing to consider is that background also plays an important role in
the legibility of your text. It is best practice to use a plain background
instead of a textured one, which can be distracting or even render your text
unreadable.
Another point to keep in mind is that more than 10% of the population has
dyslexia, a specific learning disability with a neurobiological origin. This
paper presents a user study (Good Background Colors for Readers[16]) that
measures the effect of using background colors on screen readability.
Legibility is a component of readability!
Readability
Readability is the ease with which a reader can understand written text. In
natural language, the readability of text depends on its content (the
complexity of its vocabulary and syntax) and its presentation (such as
typographic aspects like font size, line height and line length).[17]
Many experts, through much research, have compiled golden rules of
documentation writing. A list of these regulations is mentioned in The
Principles of Readability[18] published by William H. DuBay.
One of these rules states that people like to read plain-spoken words—and
the shorter, the better. Using technical terms, company jargon or fancy words
has been shown to reduce readability. These rules apply regardless of
medium.
Readable text also affects how users process the information from that text.
If your post, job advert or article is hard to read, people could miss relevant
information or be scared away from your content. The goal is to present the
text in a way that is easy to absorb by visitors/readers.
There are many tools that you can use to test the readability of your content,
for example, a tool like Readable.io.
Formatting
How many times has some great article title caught your attention only for
you to give up reading after a few lines?
We all want to keep our visitors on our site for as long as possible and
encourage them to take some action. It’s also important to present the
information in the right format. Text is useless unless it is readable, that’s
why you need to use proper formatting.
I read quite a lot of blogs and content. I am always disappointed when I see a
blog post from a specialist on branding only to find it is one huge block of
text with a minimal number of spaces, full of text in bold, italic and various
sizes, not to mention multiple types of fonts. The information in that article
is incredibly useful, but it’s impossible to read it. And the same could
happen to your candidate when reading your job postings.
Jakob Nielsen’s[19] web usability study from 1997 showed that 79 percent of
web users scan rather than read; only 16 percent read word-by-word. People
scan content for things that stand out to them. If they do not find
anything that interests them, they will go somewhere else. That’s why it’s
important to make sure your readers get a good overview of your content
within a few seconds by using the right keywords, spacing, and formatting.
Line Length
The study on "The influence of reading speed and line length on the
effectiveness of reading from the screen"[20] revealed two important things
that you need to consider when you are writing content. People who are read
slowly will prefer text that has about 55 characters per line; on the other
hand, people who read faster will prefer lines with 100 characters per line.
Most readers of your content are skimmers; they will read only a small part
of your content. During an average visit, they will read just 20-28% of the
words[21] in your post. Consider that statistic, and ask yourself: How many
words will my candidates read from my job posting?
Comprehension
Reading comprehension is the ability to read the text, process it, and
understand its meaning.[22]
All the content you are preparing should be targeted to the audience that you
are trying to approach. One method you can use for creating content is an
inverted-pyramid writing style.
The inverted pyramid is a metaphor used by journalists and other writers to
illustrate how information should be prioritized and structured in a text.
This will help you to reduce the user’s need to remember things from one
part of the text to another. Additionally, sometimes inserting images into the
text can explain things far better than reams of words.
Conclusion
Most people are constantly multi-tasking, so only a small percentage will
read the entirety of the content that you are presenting. It’s important to keep
this in mind as you write and try to keep your content short and
straightforward. Always put yourself in the position of your readers; if you
or your team has a problem reading the text you have created, make some
improvements before you post it!
There are many tricks for pointing the candidate toward the part of your
posting or content that you most want them to read. For example, the right
font, size, and formatting could positively influence your recruitment
activities and have a positive impact on your visitors and readers. The length
of your post, advert or article also plays a significant role in determining
whether people are going to finish reading your content or give up after a
few lines. Keep in mind that most people will check your posting, advert or
article on their mobile, so the length of the message you are sharing is
crucial. Nobody wants to scroll for five minutes just to get to the end of the
page.
Always focus on information that is of interest to users, not on the things
you want to promote. Even the best copywriting work is for nothing if
people don’t read it!
04.5 Influence People Through Different Content Formats
You have already learned how typography influences readers and how the
text, format, and font could help you to improve candidates’ responses or
encourage people to take some action. But did you know that the human
brain reacts according to the type of content format it has to process?
You want to give your potential candidates and clients relevant details about
your brand in a way that is appealing and attractive, and you also want to
create effective marketing campaigns.
To do this, it is worth knowing how the brain responds to the various types
of content available out there. It’s important to first identify what your goal
is and then figure out how to present your information to your audience.
Having said all this, let’s take a closer look at how different content can
impact the human brain and how can we use this to benefit our business.
Different Content Formats

Written content
Written content is undoubtedly one of the oldest types of material out there.
In spite of the fact that technology advances at an exceptional pace, we
cannot overlook the importance and impact of written content.
How can you deliver written content these days? It can take a variety of
forms, starting with blog posts and content on your website, to eBooks,
white papers, published articles, and case studies.
While it is said that most people don’t have time to read written content,
this is a false assumption, as we need this kind of content when we want to
be well-informed. Providing written content will help you establish a good
relationship, one based on trust and reliability, with your customers.
Not only will people end up identifying themselves with the content they
read—especially if you personalize it according to your customer niche—
but they will also see your brand as a trustworthy one because it provides
useful and interesting information, not just advertising.
Also, with the help of written content, you will be able to build an excellent
reputation. This is done by demonstrating your expertise in your field while
using this content to talk about the values your brand offers and share the
experiences that clients have had with your products or services.
Written content is also exceptional for SEO, as any text material could help
you to drive traffic to your site. All the articles I have written are still
regularly read and shared by people, and they are still generating new
visitors to my LinkedIn profile. And because you have read my book, you
know how to easily and efficiently turn these visitors into new contacts.
Graphic content
There is also graphic or visual content, which is one of the most important
types of content at the moment. Our brain is capable of remembering
images far better than text, which is why it is highly recommended for
graphic content to be used as a way to complement other content formats.
With the help of images, people manage to better understand and retain
pieces of information, even those that are more complex. Why is this
happening?
Well, the human brain activates 50% of its capacity when processing visual
content because our neural tissue is directly or indirectly related to vision,
which assists in visual learning.[23]
And a team of neuroscientists from MIT found that the human brain can
process entire images in as little as 13 milliseconds—the first evidence of
such rapid processing speed.[24]
When we add in the fact that images are stored better in our memory, it
means we are far more likely to be able to remember an image many years
from now. Graphic content can be an image, symbol, infographic,
slideshow, pictures in an eBook, and so on. If you want to transmit
information in a quick, fun, and easy-to-remember manner, then an
infographic will help you do so.
Slideshows are also helpful, although they may take more time to digest
because they are capable of transmitting more information than an
infographic. What you need to remember is that visual content is a must
when sharing complicated ideas, when you want people to remember your
message, and when you want to grab their attention quickly and easily.
Interactive content
We all know that static content is not sufficient these days. We need to
improve the engagement levels we get from our customer niche. This is
where interactive content comes into the scene. This kind of content is
somewhat complicated. It combines storytelling with visual content and
stirs the desire of the user to participate.
Because of this, interactive content is capable of stimulating several
sections of the human brain, which turns the experience into a pleasant and
memorable one. Quizzes and interactive infographics are just some
examples of the types you can use with success to increase engagement for
your brand. Considering that this type of content is highly shared by users
on social media, this is the best place to use interactive content.
If your brand or company does not have a social media profile just yet, it
would be recommended that you take the time to create one. Social media
provides the ideal environment for you to get closer to your customers.
Identifying their needs and interests will help you create better products and
services to serve them, while interactive content will attract their attention
to your brand and help them remember it.
Quizzes are also one of the ways in which companies like Cambridge
Analytica and others quickly get personal information from Facebook users
and their profiles. They used quizzes in particular because they are very
popular among people on social media. These could be quizzes like "Test
yourself to see which Harry Potter character you are," for example. When
you try to join the quiz, the app asked to access your personal information
on your profile. And when you hit "Yes," they accessed your personal data.
Video content
In today’s digital marketing scene, video content is a must. People love
video content, and that’s a fact. The reason we prefer this type of content so
much is because we can process videos much faster than we can handle
text. More precisely, videos can be processed faster than written content,
which means that we are capable of processing video content much more
quickly and efficiently.
However, this is not the only reason why you should harness the power of
video content. Videos allow you to establish an emotional connection with
the viewer, or your potential client because videos don’t just contain plain
information. They often include facial expressions, voice tones, body
language, and other details that trigger human emotions, not just awareness
of the received data. It is recommended to use video content to tell the story
of your brand and business, precisely because it helps with the formation of
that emotional connection we talked about earlier.
However, it can also be used with success in showing how things work and
for demonstrating certain aspects of your product or service. So, if you want
to show your customer niche how your products work and how they can be
used, for example, this is a powerful way to do it.
Don’t forget live video, which is a great way to drive people to your site,
make them part of your webinars through Q&A, etc. Both Facebook and
YouTube offer live video options that you can use.
Conclusion
There are many ways to influence people through the different content
arrangements. But don’t forget that to get the best results from your content,
you need to match the right format with the right place to share it. For
example, images are better received on visual sites like Instagram or
Pinterest, quizzes and interactive content are great for Facebook, and
information-filled blog posts will do better on Medium or your own blog.
Summary:
• Content is the best way to build relationships
• If you want to have highly shareable content, try a quiz or something
interactive
• If you want to target emotions, use video
• If you want to share your message quickly, use an image or infographic
Now that you know how each type of content format influences human
perception and brain processes, you will most certainly be able to come up
with more effective strategies for attracting the attention and interest of
your target audience and retaining more clients.
Every type of content is essential, but even more important is how it is used
to improve the relationship between your brand and its niche of customers.
04.6 The Psychology of Color in Recruitment
You have already learned how typography impacts readers and how they
could be influenced through different content formats. But did it ever occur
to you that there is a connection between colors and the reactions you can
obtain from your reader, candidates or customer niche?
If this isn’t an aspect you have considered so far, you have to start taking it
into account when it comes to your marketing and branding strategies. You
no should longer choose certain colors for a marketing campaign, for
example, simply because you think they look nice. You also have to keep in
mind the emotions they will trigger in the mind of your audience.
Thus, the following information will prove to be more than useful if you
want to create a stronger brand and marketing campaigns that will reach
their target as planned.
So, let us take a closer look at human behavior, perception, and the
interpretation of colors, as well as how to use these to help your business
thrive.
Colors
Conventional psychologists often dismiss the role of color in influencing
human personality, yet psychiatrists use color tests in conjunction with
other tests to determine personality. While physiological responses to colors
are part of the human experience, the evidence linking specific colors to
specific responses is inconclusive (Kaiser, 1984[25] )
The purpose of color psychology is to observe the reactions and behaviors
triggered by the visual impact of a certain color. Thus, researchers noticed
that human emotions and feelings could be influenced, more or less, by the
colors that surround them.
Of course, the results differ according to personal beliefs and traditions, so
the psychology of the local audience must be known to best interpret these
results. As an example, white is seen as a sign of innocence and purity in
Western countries while in the East, it is a color used for funerals and
mourning. In Inuit communities, white is so important that it has more
words to describe it, each with a different meaning[26].
In a cross-cultural study, Wiegersma and Van der Elst (1988) found that, in
general, blue was the most preferred color across cultures. This study also
revealed that in some countries outside the USA, it was not blue but red or
black that was the predominant color choice.[27]
Colors can have various meanings in different cultures, but some colors,
like black, always have a negative connotation associated with it. This
negative association can be traced as far back as 2300 BC. It would be
highly useful to take these details into account when creating a color theme
for your company’s marketing strategy or if you are choosing the color for
your next job advert.
Colors and Human Psychology

But do colors affect human psychology? If so, how are our mood and state
of mind, for instance, affected by colors? Let’s take the most common
colors to see what kind of emotions they can evoke, and which brands have
chosen to use them.
* Yellow - inspires warmth, optimism, brightness, happiness, and can be
found in the logos of Nikon, McDonald’s, IKEA, and Shell;
* Blue - makes people think about strength, reliability, trust, and
dependability, and it can be seen in the logos of Dell, HP, Oral-B, Vimeo,
Pfizer, Lowe’s, and NASA.
* Green - inspires peace, health, liveliness, and natural growth, and it is the
chosen color of Animal Planet, Tropicana, Spotify, and Range Rover;
* Orange - is a color that screams out confidence, freshness, friendliness,
and joy, and it is used by brands like Amazon, Fanta, Harley-Davidson, and
Mozilla Firefox;
* Red - represents boldness, excitement, and a youthful spirit, and can be
seen in logos like Coca-Cola, Virgin, Nintendo, Kmart, CNN, and Lego;
* Purple - is the color of creativity, wisdom, and imagination, being used
by brands like Yahoo!, Cadbury, Barbie, Taco Bell, and Hallmark;
* Grey - because it is a neutral color, it inspires calm, tolerance, and
equilibrium, and it is the color preferred in the logos of Apple, Honda,
Wikipedia, Puma, and Nike.
There are many studies about colors and their effect on the human mind, but
there is one interesting piece of information that caught my attention. The
University of Melbourne did a study that revealed that seeing the color
green boosts your concentration.
Glancing at a grassy green roof for only 40 seconds markedly boosts the
concentration of test subjects. The study, published in the Journal of
Environmental Psychology[28], showed that looking at an image of nature
for less than a minute was all it took to help people perform better on their
task. Dr. Lee and her team also conducted a study of how a greener
workplace improves mood and performance.
Also, Dr. Chris Knight from Exeter University found employees were 15
percent more productive[29] when even just a couple of house plants were
brought into the office.
Effect of Colors
While the colors we choose won’t trigger miracles, as the reactions they
trigger also rely on the personal experiences of each person, they can help a
company increase its sales. So, it won’t be in vain to pay a bit of attention to
this aspect and choose the right color for the marketing of a product and
brand.
According to the Kissmetric, 85% of shoppers place color as a primary
reason for why they buy a particular product. Yes, when facing a new
product or a variety of products in an aisle, people guide themselves with
the help of colors to make the choice that appears to be most suitable for
them. Of course, each client will pick the color that appeals most in their
case, but the point is that the chosen color will do its job right. Additionally,
93% of shoppers place visual appeal above sound, smell, and texture when
buying a product.
Colors and Company Brand

It is also estimated that brand recognition increases by 80% with color
(University of Loyola[30]).
You have to keep in mind that people have a preference for brands that they
can recognize with ease, which makes the chosen color even more
important. When you create a new job ad or banner, you need to use a color
that will help your brand stand out from the crowd while delivering the
message you want to convey and attracting customers to your product.
Thus, you will have to see which colors your competitors are using and opt
for an entirely different one, but you should consistently and repeatedly use
your company color, so people will easily connect it with your brand. You
want people to know, at a glance, which brand is yours and which is your
competitor’s.
Afterall, it would be a shame if people applied for a job advertised by your
competitor thinking that they were applying to your ad or the other way
around. Yes, choosing the right color can be a challenge, but it needs to be
done so that people will buy your product or apply for your job.
When choosing brand colors, it’s important to consider the brand
personality based on what color suits the characteristics of your product or
company.
That’s why is important to know that the personality of a brand consists of
several traits, as pointed out by Professor Jennifer Aaker[31], a psychologist
who teaches at Stanford University. These traits include sincerity,
excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness. Of course, a brand
can reflect a combination of these traits, but, as a general rule, they are
usually governed by one main trait.
When creating the personality of your brand, it is always best to convey
what you think it transmits, rather than just going with the flow and doing
what others do. Just like the traits, which can be multiple, colors can also
have a variety of meanings. For example, green is considered suitable for
products that are natural, promote good health or are related to the outdoors,
but it can also represent money and financial services, for example.
The main point is that you shouldn’t be limited to going in one single
direction when it comes to choosing the right color for your brand and
products. As long as you have a color that is different from the ones used by
your competitors, manages to stir the reactions you want it to stir, at least to
a large percentage of your customers, and fits your brand’s profile and
personality, then the color you chose is right, even if it doesn’t fit with the
stereotypes.
But Do Colors Really Have That Type of Effect?
There have been many discussions about how colors can have an effect on
us. For example, there is research like "Color psychology: a critical
review[32]," which tells us that factors like our personal preference, cultural
differences, context, experiences, and other things are influencing the effect
individual colors have on us. That’s why when you are planning to use
some specific colors for your activities, you need to consider a few other
things like the location and gender that you are trying to approach, etc.
Different groups see colors in different ways.
In the study Colour Assignments[33] by Joe Hallock, he described that color
preferences differ by the age of the participant and their gender. Other
research in studies, like Role of Color in the Perception of Attractiveness[34]
and A Critical and Experimental Study of Colour Preferences[35] reveal that
when it comes to shades and hues, men seem to prefer bold colors and
woman prefers softer colors.
It’s also important to consider the cultural perception because colors don’t
have the same meaning everywhere. Yellow, for example, is used to express
happiness and warmth in most parts of North America and many countries
in the world. However, in Latin America, yellow is seen as a sign of death,
sorrow, and mourning.
Color Impact
Even though the impact of colors is sometimes affected by our personal
preference, they still have an impact on us. Researchers found that up to
90% of snap judgments made about products can be based on color alone,
depending on the product. (Source: Impact of Color in Marketing[36])
Other studies (MRI Shows Brains Respond Better to Name Brands[37] )
have revealed that our brains prefer recognizable brands, which makes color
incredibly important when creating a brand identity.
Conclusion
Even if color psychology still needs more research and studies, we cannot
disregard the importance of colors in our lives. We see colors, and we love
them, each one of them giving us a particular feeling and state of mind. If
you use this knowledge in your marketing strategies and the presentation of
your brand and products, you will significantly increase your rate of
success.
If you thought that choosing colors for your business was just a random
decision, you now have something more to think about.
Use the way people perceive and react to colors to benefit your company—
you won’t regret it. The numbers are already showing us that we are more
likely to buy products that appear most appealing to us. Thus, if you know
the customer niche your brand addresses, you can then find the color that is
most attractive in their eyes. The right color will also help you to raise the
number of applicants for your jobs or number of readers of your posts and
articles.
Don’t forget that not everybody sees colors in the same way. That’s why
different colors can have a different impact on people. But there is one thing
that has a strong impact on everybody, and that is storytelling.
04.7 The Power and Importance of Storytelling
Since the beginning of time, we’ve told stories to share our ideas, events,
and knowledge. Storytelling is one of the oldest ways to bring people
together. Back in the days when there was no TV, internet or other perks
specific to our modern society, people used to gather to tell stories of what
they saw, heard or experienced. Every culture has used stories as a means
to connect, to inform and entertain.
Things haven’t changed much; we still enjoy listening to a good story, and
this fact helps when looking to retain talents and hire the people you want
in your company. For any company brand, storytelling is the most authentic
and relevant way to communicate who you are and what you offer.
Storytelling skills also give recruiters the ability to effectively capture
the attention of candidates and sell the opportunity they are offering to
them. The best storytellers have an unfair competitive advantage because
they are going to recruit much better than others.
Storytelling
Who doesn’t enjoy a good story? We all enjoy most of the stories we hear.
That’s why you should focus on improving your storytelling skills.
Stories help people remember things more naturally. So, if you want to
make an impact and make sure that a person retains as much as possible of
the information you are providing, then a story is the best way to do it.
Statistics show that a story helps people to remember more.
In 1969, Stanford professors carried out a series of tests. Students were
asked to memorize and recall ten sets of unrelated words. One group
retrieved the words in any order they wanted, while the second group
constructed a story that contained all the words. When both groups were
asked to recall the words, the students that created stories were able to
remember six to seven times more words than the first group. (Source:
Narrative Stories[38])
Besides this, people tend to make a connection between the person and
what they hear in the story, which can turn the content into a more personal
experience. It is easy to understand that graphs and numbers won’t trigger
the same results.
A good story, on the other hand, will provoke their thinking process, will
stir their interest, and, above all, it will make them care about what they are
hearing. Thus, storytelling can be an easy and powerful way to create new
connections with people and attract them toward your company.
How Can You Create a Good Story?

Good stories can’t be found just anywhere. You need to keep particular
aspects in mind if you want to ensure that your audience will be captivated.
After all, you want to transmit information but not in a dull and
uninteresting manner. Believe it or not, even if you mix statistics with a
story, most people will manage to remember those numbers.
Another thing you need to remember about storytelling is the importance of
having a clear structure for the story in your mind. Forget about ambiguous
and foggy beginnings as they will turn off the interest of whoever may be
listening to your story. Instead, try to find that one thing that will make the
story exciting and reach for it right from the start. If you do so, you will
certainly notice that the attention of the person in front of you will shift
immediately.
Every time I speak about storytelling, I like to use the example of SpaceX
and Tesla. They are both successful companies, and one of the reasons for
that is the compelling story behind them. We have all heard how Tesla and
SpaceX sent a Tesla Roadster car and mannequin called Starman into space,
and we’ve all heard stories about Elon and his plans. A good story will
connect and emotionally engage people with any brand. Moreover, it also
has the power to continue to be responsive to their changing awareness,
interests, and needs over time.
Let do a small test here: Which company would you prefer to join?
A) "We are an international company focusing on Space with offices across
the globe, and our goal is to send people to other planets."
B) "Our company was founded under the belief that a future where
humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one
where we are not. Today we are actively developing the technologies to
make this possible with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars."
Something tells me you just chose the company from the example B, right?
I need to be honest with you; both companies in this example are SpaceX.
However, the first example is one that I wrote in a similar way to how many
companies are writing their ads; text that is lacking in storytelling and has
minimal potential to excite their potential candidates.
The right story has the power to turn a passive candidate into an active
candidate, yet so few companies are using storytelling techniques in their
recruitment.
Storytelling and Recruitment

While it is hard to tell a long story in a short amount of time during an
interview, you can still use more concise examples as stories, which is an
excellent way to make candidates interested. It’s the same as when you are
sharing stories with your friends. For instance, if you are telling a story
about a one-time company event that was incredibly surprising, don’t stick
to this aspect alone.
Of course, you don’t have to talk about all the significant events you
experienced, but make sure to mention something interesting that will also
describe the team or company and create excitement. What may seem to be
an ordinary story about a company event could turn into something great if
it is connected to a more significant and essential aspect. Don’t forget to use
elements that will help the listener relate to your story.
Use a proper setting, characters, and even language so that it sounds
familiar to the people who listen to it. This way, they will make a
connection with the story more efficiently, and that helps a lot when it
comes to remembering it. Try to avoid any internal jargon in your story.
You should not wait to have interviews with candidates to use the
storytelling technique. The first place where you can use your storytelling
techniques is your advertisements when you are recruiting a new position.
Many companies release static, dull, and unattractive ads for the jobs they
offer. You know those "We are an international company looking for…"
types of ads. While these ads will attract the attention of people who are
actively looking for a job in that specific company, they may not draw the
attention of the talents you are looking to find.
It is somewhat challenging to find the right people for the job, so make sure
that the ad promoting the position within your company tells a great story.
You want people to be intrigued and motivated to apply. Moreover, people
want to work for a company with a compelling story, so it naturally
attracts more potential candidates and puts you ahead of the competition.
Getting back to the candidates; when interacting with them, you should
always share stories, regardless of whether you are communicating over the
phone, via e-mail or in face-to-face meetups. If you just looked over their
resume and asked them a bunch of questions like a robot filling in a
checklist, then don’t be surprised if the people you selected lost their desire
to work for your company along the way.
This happens because you did nothing to make them care about the
company and the job. You did not manage to establish a connection with
them, but this can be changed with the power of storytelling. You can share
stories that involve your employees and your company or even personal
stories that reflect meaningful things connected to your actions and
experiences.
Just put yourself in their shoes. Wouldn’t you like to hear a good story
about the company or team during a job interview rather than just being
asked the same old monotonous questions, like "Where do you see yourself
in the next five years?" or "Can you draw a tree?"
Use storytelling techniques to connect with people and make them want to
join your company; you should aim to excite them, not scare them with the
tedious recruitment process.
Conclusion
Storytelling is the basis for almost every aspect of our society. Even small
details about how your company got its name or your company’s mission
will create a story that could catch the attention of a great candidate. Not
only will you get their attention, but you will also establish a connection
with your candidate, and this could be the reason why he/she accepts your
offer over your competitor’s offer.
The reason why I tell stories is because I hope they will inspire others, and
this will lead to more action and new ideas. Stories carry the ideas that will
change the world, and they are the lifeblood of the human race.
04.8 Not giving a Feedback is Expensive
You can create a perfect story about your company, about all the cool things
you are doing, and how you are turning the world into a better place with
your inventions or products. However, all of the benefits of that could be
lost in a matter of minutes if you do not give feedback to your candidates.
The recruiting process is essential for every business because it helps
companies find the right talents that are going to help them grow and be
more successful. Moreover, as all business owners know, finding these
talents is not an easy task.
In fact, it is incredibly difficult, and it takes a lot of time and resources to do
well. If you are not a large and well-known company, it is quite difficult to
attract and retain talent because you need to prove that you can offer an
excellent working culture and opportunities for the future, in addition to
providing a decent paycheck. So, the recruiting process can be quite
expensive, even for companies with good reputations and well-established
credibility.
How you treat your candidates is crucial, not just for them, but also for the
success of your business.
Candidate Experience Impacts Your Business

As you already know, when searching for new talent, some will fit the job
description better than others. However, what will happen to those who are
not a right for the job or don’t have the relevant experience? Well, believe it
or not, these candidates, in particular, can impact the development of your
business.
How can an unhappy candidate have so much power over your company,
even if they don’t end up getting work? It is all connected to the way this
person sees your company based on the experiences he or she had during
the recruiting process. During the interview process, you present your
company and your brand to candidates.
If a candidate has been disappointed by the manner in which he or she was
approached or treated, they will be less likely to purchase products or
services provided by your company. The North American CandE Awards
research[39] conclusively found that 46% of candidates who believe they
have had a "negative" overall experience say they will take their
alliance, product purchases and relationship somewhere else.
An unhappy candidate could also make negative remarks about your
company, chasing away potential talent and clients. In fact, following a bad
experience, 27% of candidates would "actively discourage others to
apply."[40]
This is not a mere assumption; there are companies out there that felt their
sales figures reflected the unhappiness of some recruits. A good example
would be Virgin Media, where they calculate how much the bad candidate
experience costs them.
They came to this calculation: if there were 123,000 rejected candidates
each year, and 6% canceled their monthly Virgin Media subscription, they
would experience about 7,500 cancellations per year. Multiply that by the
£50 ($60) monthly subscription fee and, within just 12 months, Virgin
Media could be losing £4.4 million per year, the equivalent of $5.4 million
as a direct result of rejected candidates.[41]
Thus, if you didn’t consider candidate experience relevant to your business,
you need to think twice and do your best to provide an excellent experience
to all of your candidates.
Candidate Experience
You need to understand that not only do your employees act as
ambassadors for your company, but your candidates do as well! The
experience they had during your recruiting process will make them talk and
share on social media, so it would be highly recommended that you work to
make this experience a positive one.
Candidates will talk about their experience with their friends and family,
and, believe it or not, they are more likely to share negative experiences
than positive ones. If a candidate had a bad experience, there is a high
chance that he or she will not apply for another job in your company in the
future and won’t recommend it to others either.
Considering the effect that can be created by sharing an opinion or
experience on social media, you can tell that things could get very ugly for
your company if one of your candidates had a bad experience.
What Leads to a Bad Candidate Experience?

Communication is a factor that has high important amongst candidates, and
many complain about the quality of communication during the recruiting
process. You need to make sure that this doesn’t happen by striving to
communicate with your candidates as best you can.
Even if a candidate is ultimately not recruited, most certainly he or she will
appreciate your communication efforts. Also, providing follow-up at the
end of the recruitment process counts a great deal when it comes to
candidate experience. Approximately 65% of candidates say they never
or rarely receive notice from employers. (Workplace Trends, Candidate
Experience Study[42])
How Expensive Is It Not to Follow Up?
I couldn’t find any mathematical equation that would help me to calculate
how much not giving feedback and bad experience costs companies, so I
created my own.[43]
Math equation:
(NCWF * CPA) + (NCWF * TA * PP * ARPC) = Your Potential Loss Per
Year
All the costs and numbers are an example based on surveys and public
data.
Case study: You have 10,000 candidates per year. You review 7,000 and
you ultimately hire 70 candidates. You never checked in with or gave
feedback to 3,000 of these candidates.
Legend:
* NCWF = Number of Candidates Without Feedback (3,000 candidates).
* CPA = Cost Per Application ($ 15 USD per application - avg. number
from Appcast[44])
* TA = Target Audience - How many of the candidates who applied that
could also be potential customers that buy your product or service? If you
are Coca-Cola, your TA will be almost 100% because most of your
candidates are prospective customers of your soft drinks. However, if you
are selling industrial machinery, your target audience of potential customers
amongst the candidates that applied to your roles will be much lower. In a
highly specialized niche, the percentage of people who might buy your
product or service and are also your candidates will be 0,01% or lower.
* PP = Purchasing Power —the percentage of people who will choose your
competitor instead of you)[45]
* ARPC = Average Revenue Per Customer - Average revenue per customer
is information that you can get from your sales team. For this example, I am
going to use: $2,000 USD per customer.
Example:
(NCWF * CPA) - How much money you have invested to get those 3000
candidates.
(NCWF * TA * PP * ARPC) - Effect on your brand because of the bad
experience.
(NCWF * CPA) + (NCWF * TA * PP * ARPC) = Your potential loss per
year.
(3000 * 15) + (3000 * 0,10 * 0,46 * 2000) = $321,000 USD per year.
Note: The "0,10" is only included as an example of the number of
candidates that are also potential customers (check the TA above).
As you can see from the equation, not giving feedback and not informing
candidates of the outcome of an interview could cost your company
$321,000 USD per year.
If you have 10,000 candidates and you process 7,000 of them just to hire 70
people, amongst the unprocessed 3,000 candidates that you didn’t contact,
you could have another 30 potential hires.
However, if you plan to hire these 30 new people, in many cases, your
recruiters will open new requisitions and wait for new candidates. They will
also approach new candidates on LinkedIn, etc. and not utilize the
candidates from the previous roles.
Based on their experience, candidates from their ATS (applicant tracking
system) won’t be interested or available when they reach them. Think about
it. If you have a terrible experience with a company and, after three months,
one of their recruiters contacts you, how excited about the job opportunity
will you be?
Moreover, acquiring 3,000 new candidates will cost you even more money:
(CPA * Number of candidates).
In this case, that’s going to be $45,000 USD.
I am aware that this math equation has many variables, but, as I said before,
I didn’t find any existing equations that I could use, so that is why I created
one.
Statistics About Candidates
Keep in mind that not giving feedback to candidates will not only hurt your
brand and cost you money, but it will also lower your talent pool. 27% of
the candidates whose experience was negative would "definitely not" apply
to the firm again (although 6% still would); 27% would "actively
discourage others to apply." (Source: LinkedIn[46])
Thanks to this 27% of candidates, your talent pool will be significantly
smaller next time, and your CPA will increase because it will be harder for
you to attract more people into the process, especially when you are hiring
for similar roles.
Another study shows that 80% of job seekers say they would be
discouraged to consider other relevant job openings at a company that failed
to notify them of their application status. They would be 3.5 times more
likely to reapply to a company if they were informed about being
unsuccessful previously. (Source: Candidate Experience Study[47])
Conclusion
With all this in mind, make a habit of following up with your candidates
after the recruiting process ends. Every applicant tracking system has
rejection templates that can be sent to all unsuccessful applicants—it will
take you only a few minutes to set this up and send out the e-mails. Don’t
worry; most people will understand that they weren’t accepted for a
particular position if they diplomatically receive the news together with an
explanation of why they weren’t accepted.
Honesty is highly valuable in such cases. Honest feedback gives the
person valuable insight into what they need to work on, as well as his or her
personal development. And it’s a valuable practice for recruiters too
because, who knows, maybe he or she will develop into the perfect
candidate you’re looking for in a year or two from now.
Sending follow-ups is not complicated or time-consuming. You can set up
special templates for this kind of e-mail, just make sure that each candidate
receives an e-mail that is personalized for them and not a general message.
You need to create the e-mail in such a way that will make the person feel
the message was written just for him or her.
As you can see, providing positive experiences even to the candidates that
won’t get hired is not difficult at all, especially if you are careful not to
make the mistakes made by most company managers.
Next time you think you don’t have time to give feedback to all of your
candidates, try to consider the amount of resources you will need to invest
for your next search and how much it will cost you not to give feedback to
them.
Treat every candidate as you would your employee or your best customer,
because even if they don’t get hired, every one of them could refer a strong
candidate in the future! Remember, it costs $0.00 to respect your
candidates and give them feedback.
While the impact on the employer’s brand can be difficult to measure, one
thing is for certain: if you give candidates a bad experience, word will
spread very quickly.
How you treat your candidates matters!
04.9 Ask Why, Not Only Where
Every talent acquisition team tracks various types of information about their
applicants, which website the candidate came from, how long the
registration process took, how long the candidate has been in the process for
this particular role, time to fill, cost per hire, etc.
All these statistics and data are helping recruiters to identify weak points in
their process and recruitment strategy. They are also able to quickly
understand which sources are working the best and if they are spending
their budget efficiently and effectively in the right places.
But, is WHERE candidates are applying from still essential information
that recruiters need to track? Admittedly, it’s always important to track the
source, but it should not be more important than tracking the reason WHY
people apply.
WHERE
When people are actively seeking a job, the various ways they search for
opportunities could lead them to your job advertisement. When you post
your job ads on your career page, LinkedIn, different social sites (Twitter,
Facebook, etc.), your jobs also are often shared by your employees and
others (company fans or random people) who then share it with their friends
through their social sites.
Candidates can come to your ads from a multitude of places, and sometimes
they come from sources that you cannot influence, like from the Facebook
profile of a random person. If somebody you do not know shares your job
posting on their Facebook profile and you get three candidates from it,
that’s something you can’t influence. The source in your system will be
noted as Facebook, not John Doe’s Facebook profile.
Ultimately, if you got the right candidates and the right hires from it, it
doesn’t matter if a candidate found out about the job from your site or from
some random person. It is much more important that the candidate is
interested in your job offer and they take the time to apply. Seeing the job
advert is not the only reason candidates apply. That’s why it’s important to
start tracking WHY these candidates applied for the job you posted.
WHY
Are they attracted by the company brand? Would they like to be working
with talented people from your company or with some specific person? Are
they interested in the technology that you are using? Do they wish to work
for the money you are paying? Is the job and activity domain of your
company suitable for their dream career?
If you ask candidates why they applied for the job, you may hear a lot of
interesting and even awkward answers. Some will state that they just tried
their luck and never expected to be scheduled for an interview, while others
will say and do almost anything to get hired.
Identifying the core values that drive people to apply for a particular open
job will help you in many ways. It will help you to craft better ads that
reinforce the reasons why people are attracted to your company. It will also
help you to understand the difference between those who just want a job
and those who want this particular job. You can see who chose you for a
specific reason, and it will also help you to create new strategies to attract
higher quality people for the role.
Be careful that you don’t disregard the so-called "passive" candidates.
These are the ones who may have applied for your job because they
considered it interesting enough, or just to see if they stood a chance at
getting an interview but are relatively content with their current positions.
These candidates should probably not be ignored because they might be just
the talent you are looking to get for your company. Your biggest challenge,
as employers and company owners, is to ignite their interest in your
company and to convince them that it would be a wise and beneficial
decision to leave their current job and take the chance to join your company.
However, we once again go back to the importance of finding out why they
decided to apply. Why do they want to work for your company? Why do
they consider this job suitable for their career plan? These are just two of
the questions you should ask when interviewing a candidate if you want to
get to the heart of their application.
The source of your candidate is not relevant because talent can be found in
various environments and may come from where you least expect it. Don’t
waste time focusing only on this aspect.
While it is true that most people are looking for a job so they can get paid—
because without money there isn’t much you can do in this life—try to
figure out if they are motivated by anything other than financial benefits.
Candidates who come to work every single day just to cash your paycheck
at the end of the month will not increase your company’s performance.
Conclusion
Besides money, a candidate should also be motivated by his or her
professional advancement and by the opportunities to grow and become
better, so that he or she will bring their best to each day at work. This is
how a company can achieve results and grow successfully.
Of course, a company’s culture can influence this aspect a great deal, but
the reason a person decided to apply and try his or her chances at landing a
particular job can also provide many details concerning their future
performance and journey in your company.
Advertise an open position on as many websites as you’d like. Then, use as
many methods as you can think of to make sure you have a wide variety of
talent to select from for your company. However, once you start
interviewing, ask questions that will provide some insight into why people
applied for the job and why they would like to work for your organization.
This will give you a better idea of WHY they are applying and can help you
incentivize them to join the team.
The source of candidates is slowly becoming less relevant, but what
made a person apply is as relevant as ever!
04.10 Perfect Hires Don’t Exist
Most companies are in search of the ‘perfect hire’ for their open roles. It’s
understandable because every company requires the ‘best fit’ employees to
thrive. Top achievers are the backbone of any business. Therefore, after
successfully hiring these stellar candidates, companies can then pat
themselves on the back, knowing they have the best hands on deck.
However, the reality is far from that: the perfect hire doesn’t exist!
It’s almost a myth. In reality, a company can only hire the ‘best’ that is
available on the market from a pool of currently interested candidates, not
necessarily the best available in the industry. Even if that perfect person
exists, he or she is, of course, already happily employed. Only a tiny
percentage of companies have enough money and interesting projects that
would allow them to convince the best people in their field to work for
them.
Year after year, organizations toss enormous amounts of cash at finding the
perfect candidate. Unfortunately, because they are holding out for this
mythical ‘perfect’ hire that never comes, many positions remain unfilled for
a long period, which affects the business and business plans. The ‘best hire’
myth becomes a problem for them and ultimately costs the company
money.
The Myth Behind the Best Hire

Hiring the right candidates for any organization is a challenge. When it
comes to hiring, the first thing to let go of is the notion that a candidate can
be perfect. The perfect hire is a dream of anyone who hires, but, as we all
know, he/she doesn’t exist. No one is perfect. Not employees and not
managers.
Finding that one hire that meets every single criterion in the job description
is difficult, especially when hiring managers are looking for somebody with
ten years of experience in a technology that has only been on the market for
five years, not to mention a candidate who will become an impeccable fit
with the company culture.
It’s great to think that the best hire is available and search for him or her in
their industry; however, if that person is available—which is a big if—the
candidate will typically be content with their present job and unlikely to
make a change.
The Problem of Too Many Selection Criteria

Many companies have complex interviews, consisting of many rounds, and
a long list of criteria for selection. Candidates will need to meet the
multitude of requirements that the company has to be considered for the
role. When the company is trying to fill the role to replace a person who has
left, the candidate will often be unfairly compared with the person who
already worked in that role and who was considered the ‘best hire.’
It is high time that companies shifted from the mindset of ‘best hire’ and
focused more on the right hire, at the right time, with the right skills for the
job.
Getting the Right Hire out of the Bunch

Given that the idea of a ‘best’ hire is a myth, how do you make decisions
that will help you to select the right candidates? How do you hire staff who
are strong, engaged performers at work?
To achieve this, understanding the following concepts is essential:
1. Ask the right questions
The job interview is still the best tool employers utilize in hiring. Most job
interviews are a huge obstacle for any candidate. Questions like, "Where do
you see yourself in five years?" or "If you had to choose one animal, what
animal would you be?" should have died out in 1990. Many recruiters are
still asking these questions.
Asking the right questions in the job interview is absolutely critical. The
questions you ask should help you understand the candidate’s drive and
ambition, not what animal he/she prefers.
2. The right work ethic is better than technical skills

Technical skills should be acquired through ongoing learning and training.
However, the right work ethic is a quality that can’t easily be taught.
Someone with the right work ethic and who is also passionate about the
company will be far more successful than someone who shows up to work
just to get a paycheck.
The right attitude is a better gauge than the right skillset.
3. Company culture is still important

Every company wants to hire team players who are a positive addition to
the company culture; they are not looking for somebody who is going to
disrupt it or who are not the right fit. While culture can still be taught
through proper onboarding, nothing guarantees a great fit. A great fit with
the company culture is difficult to predict before hiring. Even if you have
been cautious about finding someone with the right mindset and values, a
great fit is not guaranteed. You can only do your best in the recruitment
process to mitigate the risk of a bad fit and monitor how the new hire does
when they come onboard.
Everyone is different, and no one will be able to integrate perfectly into a
company from day one. While you might value about 90% of the same
things, there is always that 10% that could ruin all the fun.
This is why it is essential during the onboarding process to remind the new
hire of what is expected of them. Communicating the company values and
culture is not about pointing fingers at people who do not agree with them.
It is about showing employees what they can expect and what is expected of
them. This allows them to grow in an environment they understand.
4. Understand that employees might make mistakes

We are all only human; we will make mistakes and, hopefully, we learn
from those mistakes. Part of being a leader is allowing your hires to make
mistakes and to learn from them. Through this, you will help them unlock
their potential and continue to grow both professionally and personally.
You can’t expect your employees to grow within their positions and within
the company if they are already perfect. Progress should be the goal of
every organization, not perfection.
5. Support and training

Hiring the right employees is possible when you understand what your
candidates will need to be successful before you hire them and then support
your hire from their very first day on the job.
No individual joins an organization knowing every aspect of that job.
However, with proper onboarding and training time, new hires can be
polished to become peak performers in their role or department.
Encourage your hires when appropriate along the way and give honest,
constructive feedback. Acknowledge the employee for what they have done
right and point out what they need to improve. Expose them to people who
can mentor and train them.
Work with them on a plan to improve their skills and give them the freedom
to grow and progress in their position and the company.
6. Picking progress over perfection

Most employers want ‘perfect’ employees to work for them. They want
candidates that will match 100% of their requirements for their open roles.
The fact is: perfection is very subjective.
Moreover, when organizations start seeing themselves as perfect, they
become stagnant in their growth because they leave no room for
improvement. Besides, working around perfectionists can be stressful,
irritating, and often drives those around the perfectionist to back away and
even quit their job.
Progress is about improvement, innovation and change. Change is
inevitable, no matter what industry you work in. To promote change,
you must have growth. To make progress, you must give your hires the
freedom to do what they are passionate about, even if you don’t agree with
it. After all, you might be wrong about whether or not it will work. Without
risk and innovation, there will never be change or progress.
Motivate employees to progress in their current skills. Employees must
be allowed to think on their own and be pushed beyond their comfort level
to experience new things, to become passionate about new things, and to
bring new ideas to the table. Even if you are content with most of the
people you have hired so far, remember that continuous improvement is key
to success.
Conclusion
Finding the best hire for roles in a company is usually defined by a trade-off
between cost, time and quality of hire. However, when recruiters follow
smart hiring practices and hiring managers do not strictly require candidates
that are a 100% match to the job description, it allows recruiters to find
good fits in their candidate pool, meaning time won’t be wasted for both
parties.
When recruiters and hiring managers start to understand that the ‘best’ hire
doesn’t exist, they won’t accidentally pass up a talented candidate who is
right for an available position and could turn into a ‘superstar’ candidate
within a few months.
04.11 It’s Not About Years of Experience
If we take a look at job advertisements from various industries, we will see

that, in most of these ads, employers require experience. We see things like
"at least five-plus years’ experience," "ten-plus years’ experience in a
similar role," and so on. In some cases, it makes sense to inform a candidate
about how much experience is needed for the position. One year of
experience is not considered sufficient in most cases, while no experience
whatsoever makes finding a job a real challenge for young people.
There are highly talented people out there who, due to their particular set of
skills, may be just perfect for the job you have within your company, but
they are lacking the years of experience you require in that advert.
Many companies claim that they hire people with potential, but, in reality,
hiring managers and companies are preselecting candidates based on their
years of experience. Talent has nothing to do with experience. Let’s take
some time to look at why it is better to focus on hiring people based on their
skills and talents rather than on their experience.
The fact that someone does not have previous experience in a particular
position does not mean that he or she won’t be successful in that role. In
fact, the contrary is proven every single day. Most people love challenges
and are more than willing to work hard and strive to prove that they are
trustworthy if you, as an employer, give credit to their skills and strengths.
Just think about a scenario in which an employee is promoted to manager.
That employee may have several years of experience in his or her former
position but no experience at all in the position of a manager. Yet, he or she
may be able to do a great job and become a real asset to the company
because they are driven by the desire to prove themselves worthy and
motivated by the chance to develop from a professional point of view.
Other examples include the creation of a new position due to the
advancement of technology or when a company decides to hire college
graduates that have no previous experience. If the persons hired for open
positions are chosen based on their set of skills and talents, even if they
never occupied a similar position in their past or never had a job, the
chances of them succeeding and performing exceptionally are very high.
Believe it or not, many successful companies have CEOs who have never
dealt with such positions before in their lives and thus cannot rely on past
experience to help them out. Famous examples of people with no
experience who ended up being successful CEOs, driven by their desire to
succeed and talents, are Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs. Each
of them had brilliant minds and took their companies to the realms of
ultimate success, although they had no experience of how to make this work
when they started.
However, when you put your entire attention, efforts, dedication, and
motivation toward achieving amazing results, success is inevitable. The
answer lies in the power to adapt, learn, and persist regardless of what lies
ahead. There are many people out there who have amazing skills and talents
—people who can make great contributions to the success of your company.
However, if you look for a certain amount of experience, you may pass over
these people, denying your business the chance to benefit from truly
talented people among its employees. There are many advantages to hiring
people with lesser credentials who rely more on their skills instead. One
advantage could be the fact that such people, due to their lack of
experience, could bring a new, fresh perspective on matters.
Not having their minds clouded by previous experiences, such employees
may see things differently and can provide a unique, innovative vision that
will help you find the best solution for a particular challenge.
Also, in comparison with experienced employees, those with a lower level
of experience are often more willing to take risks because their fear of
failing is not well developed yet. And we all know that taking risks
sometimes is essential to obtain exceptional results. They will also start
questioning the existing methods and practices, wondering if there could be
a better way to do things. Thus, as a result of these inquiries, they will come
up with innovations, brand-new ideas and approaches, which will help your
business develop at a rapid rate.
You should also keep in mind that, because they constantly have to prove
themselves to compensate for their lack of experience, they most certainly
will demonstrate skills in areas that are highly important, such as
relationship building, finding new ways to work more efficiently, and
developing proactive approaches when it comes to their job.
When a person who lacks experience is offered the chance to be hired, they
will be grateful and are thus more likely to stay with your company for a
longer period. He or she is less likely to leave for another position after you
have invested time and effort to provide the knowledge required for the job.
They will become loyal employees who will work hard, display a high
degree of enthusiasm and willingness, which will ensure their presence will
have a positive impact on your company.
Also, people with less formal experience may hold great talents, so there is
a good chance that you are hiring a potential superstar. In very many cases,
people with weak credentials end up surprising everybody else, turning out
to be great assets due to their incredible talents. Those who are disregarded
due to a lack of formal work experience are usually the ones who deliver
the most significant surprises when it comes to performance.
Conclusion
Sometimes hiring managers should trust their experience when they see
talent in an interview and give that person a chance to prove their quality.
A.I. (artificial intelligence) can find relevant candidates within seconds,
candidates that will match your requirements, but if you are limiting
yourself with "five-plus years of experience" and similar criteria in your
ads, A.I. will be presenting only candidates based on these criteria and you
will be missing out.
You will not only miss the many excellent candidates that have ‘only’ four
years of experience, you will also miss that special talent that could bring
the right ideas to your company, help you make your fortune, or help you to
be stronger and more successful than before.
Everyone has the potential to learn, improve, and build their skills; the
only thing they need is the opportunity to try.
04.12 How to Assess a Sourcer
Recruiters and sourcers are crucial for finding and attracting talented
employees. A skilled recruiter/sourcer could fill an open role twice as
fast as the average source, and his/her work has an impact on an
organization’s overall workforce.
A skilled sourcer also brings the right knowledge into the company and the
team, acts as an example for the team, and pushes other team members to
be better at their work. They are responsible for staying abreast of industry
trends, reaching out to potential employees, and maintaining good working
relationships with hiring managers.
However, hiring a sourcer can be quite tricky. When you are hiring a
sourcer, you expect them to be good at their job. During the interview,
you can ask questions about their sourcing knowledge, like how they create
the Boolean string for a particular site, or you can ask things like "How
many requisitions do you fill?", "What was your time to fill?", "Are you
using some other source than LinkedIn?" and so on.
However, we all know that, sometimes, the answers provided in an
interview do not reflect reality. If someone tells us one thing, and the reality
is something completely different, we’re not going to know whether that
sourcer is the person we need and can to deliver what we are expecting. For
example, the question "Are you using a different source than LinkedIn?" is
always answered with "Of course," but the reality is usually different.
A few months ago, my friend was trying to hire a few sourcing freelancers.
All of those who applied claimed that they had the right experience, their
profile stated that they were a sourcer or recruiter, and during the interview,
they had all the right answers. However, when they finally started searching
for candidates for his open roles (after a lot of preparation and initial
training), they simply didn't deliver.
While they were able to provide a long list of people, none of the candidates
matched the requirements. After a few weeks, they were still not able to add
any people that they provided to the pipeline for his roles. He invested time
and money into the process, and they simply didn’t deliver. He hired people
who were not good at sourcing, people who can’t deliver candidates for the
finance roles he was trying to fill. This "trial" cost him time, money and lots
of effort from his side, and he didn’t get any results from it.
How can you find out if a sourcer is as good at his/her job as

they claim?
Reputation
You can tell that a sourcer is doing a good job if you’ve heard positive
things about him/her on the market. Maybe you were approached by them
in person or maybe they are successfully stealing your people from your
company. Either way, a good reputation or results let you know that he/she
is doing a good job. Also, we all know the people who are doing an
exceptional job in our fields. While reputation alone is not a guarantee that
the person is a great sourcer, it is a great place to start. However, I wouldn’t
solely rely only on reputation because your expectation based on their good
PR could be much higher than their real skills.
Pre-screening tests
Pre-screening of these applicants via assessments can filter out unqualified
candidates early on, reducing the time required of interview teams and
lower the costs of your whole interview process. During my career, I have
met with two types of pre-screening tests for sourcers.
The first pre-screening tests were based on real requisition; potential
candidates were asked to present three profiles of the candidates that are
matching that position. I always consider that type of test to be a scam. If
you have ten candidates and they all provide three profiles, you get thirty
potential candidates and hire only one sourcer.
So, not only does the company trick other potential candidates, but they
also get resumes for free from them. I hope that thanks to GDPR this pre-
screening test is history because it was a horrible way to test sourcers.
The second type of pre-screening test is based on gamification.
Gamification is an innovative approach to engaging the right talent. I am a
big fan of gamification, and that is why one of my chapters in Full Stack
Recruiter: The Modern Recruiter's Guide[48] was about how gamification
works and how you can use it.
If it is correctly implemented, gamification has huge potential because it
works by encouraging talent to engage in game-like behaviors and
situations in non-game applications and scenarios. These game elements
will keep candidates more engaged and make the whole recruitment process
more fun, interesting and creative.
As a big fan and advocate for gamification, I believe that using
gamification in recruitment could help improve results when hiring for
a role. This type of pre-screening test ensures that you're hiring
successfully by preselecting candidates based on their actual skills and
knowledge, not just on the answers they give you in the interview or on the
three profiles they deliver (the first type of pre-screening test).
For example, companies and recruitment agencies are using Sourcing
Games (www.sourcing.games) for testing their potential candidates for
sourcers, and they asked them to share with them the answer from level 4 of
the first sourcing game or any similar question. And yes, they are breaking
the terms on my site, because that they can’t use the site for this. That’s why
I created a testing solution and learning platform, that is the right platform
for how to evaluate candidates and see the learning progression.
SourcingTest.Online - Test your team

This tool helps companies decide whether their candidates have the right
knowledge and if they can meet the requirements for their roles. They can
also track their progress and see what levels they can pass, which is an
indication that they know what they are doing.
I created SourcingTest.Online (www.sourcingtest.online) as a platform not
only for sourcing hackathons but also for testing candidates and as a
learning platform for internal teams. This application adds fun to your
recruitment process; your candidates will try to overcome the challenges
that you prepare for them and, for you, it is an easy way to test their
sourcing techniques.
The overall selection process will be less stressful for them, and it also
encourages a competitive attitude between applicants. You will save time on
interviews with your candidates and see how quickly they are able to solve
each task, how many attempts they had and much more.
SourcingTest.Online is also designed in that way that will show you when
people are trying to cheat to solve your tasks.
Not only can you create your own challenge, but you can also choose to
keep it private, share only with those you know, or to publish it to the whole
community. This solution is also perfect for your internal and external
hackathons. You can easily test your current team through hackathons and
see how quickly they are able to solve your tasks. Alternatively, you can
prepare external hackathons and attract new candidates.
Adding gamification to training is another aspect that should not be
overlooked. Not only does it help people to learn better, it also helps them
to learn and retain more because they are encouraged to expand their
knowledge. Whether you are training your team in-house or sending them
to external training, it is important to test what knowledge they have learned
—and the results that recruitment agencies and companies have been
getting by using SourcingTest.Online speak for themselves!
Conclusion
Gamification elements are also quite handy when you are working as a
sourcing trainer. Especially if you are looking for a way to add gamification
elements to your training or to test the knowledge of those who attend your
courses. Tests with gamification elements are the best way to test attendees
a week after the training or even after some time. It’s also a great way how
to find out what people really learned and what they have already
forgotten. Not only you can test the knowledge of your course attendees,
but you can see when they fail and how long it takes them to overcome the
tasks you have set.
Gamification has significant potential, and it could be easily used for
testing the knowledge of the sourcers and recruiters but, in my opinion, its
real power lies in implementing it into training. Gamification elements
should not be overlooked!
04.13 Share Your Knowledge to Gain Knowledge
SourceCon Budapest 2018 was a first SourceCon conference in Europe and

one amazing event. This conference was built by inspiring people who love
to share, and because I also love to share, choosing the topic for my speech
was a no-brainer.
My presentation was titled: "Share Your Knowledge to Gain Knowledge." I
strongly believe that sharing is still the best way of learning and
remembering things and that sharing is a critically fundamental human
trait. We have been sharing for longer than we can remember, and this is also
the way we have obtained most of our knowledge and skills in our life.
Moreover, I would like to encourage you to share more with others! I know
that sharing is not for everybody, but if I even inspire one person to share
this, it could cause a ripple effect and inspire more people than I could ever
reach by myself.
Top 5 Reasons Why People Share

Maybe the reason you share is because you feel a certain pleasure, happiness
or satisfaction when you share your knowledge with others. This is one of
the reasons why you and most people share.
We are, by nature, social creatures, which means that we appreciate the
companionship of others of our kind. This means we are capable of gestures
that will bring others close to us or manifest feelings like compassion and
altruism when we feel the need to share something out of the desire to help
others.
There are five major reasons why people share their knowledge:
1. We share to look good (Impression Management)
2. We share to feel good (Emotion Regulation)
3. We share to teach and help (Information Acquisition)
4. We share to connect (Social Bonding)
5. We share to convince (Persuading Others)
When I shared my first article, my goal was to look good. It was a foolish
goal, but we all have our own reason why we start sharing. I think most of us
start with the same goal, the first reason from the list, to look good. "Hey
world, I am here and look at this amazing knowledge that I just shared with
you!"
Can we say that sharing is embedded in our DNA? Well, not exactly, as there
are some people who don’t like to share or don’t do it very often. And that is
OK. Some of us have to discover the joy of sharing one step at a time. It
feels natural to share with the people we know, like family and friends; the
real challenge is to share what you have with strangers, especially when you
could get feedback on your work that might not be positive.
I remember how I was, years ago, when somebody approached me and asked
me if I could share something. My answer was always, "Hell no, that’s my
secret knowledge," yet after just a few years, I am probably oversharing a
little bit. It was an interesting journey from "I am not sharing" to "Here is
my book with some of my knowledge—enjoy!" Because you are reading this
as a book or an eBook, you already know that I like sharing so much that I
turned it into a second book.
I have learned a lot during these years, and during my presentation, I also
shared what I learned because of sharing, and these are my TOP 5 insights.
The TOP 5 things I learned thanks to sharing
1. People share things that have the right type of emotion and things that
give practical value.
2. People share the things others are sharing and things that have a story.
3. People share things that are funny. Laughter is recognized by people of all
cultures.
4. Give before you get. You need to share with others to receive more from
them.
5. Stay genuine. And if people don’t like the real you, who cares?
I had one goal in mind with my presentation; I wanted to inspire at least one
person in the room to share more. Right now, you are probably thinking:
Why only one person? Why not more? I didn’t give myself a small goal
because I think that one person could change the world, could be the spark
that will make a ripple effect. And who knows? One day somebody may tell
me, "You were the reason why I started sharing."
Why You Should Start Sharing
1. Sharing and explaining helps you to understand and remember things
better.
2. Being challenged by others helps you look at things from new
perspectives and allows you to learn even more.
3. The more you practice explaining and sharing information, the more your
communication skills improve.
4. Sharing your learnings encourages others to share theirs with you. This
will help you to discover new information, build relationships, and learn new
skills.
I wrote a few articles for SourceCon about how typography influences
readers, how people can be influenced through different content formats, and
how the psychology of color plays a role in recruitment and more. All these
things together—typography, color, language, visualization, formatting,
storytelling, presentation—are connected.
I was able to write these articles and share this knowledge with others
because others shared their knowledge with me through surveys, theses,
posts, articles, etc., and thanks to those people, I was also able to learn more
about new things. The knowledge I gained from them has had a positive
impact on me and my work, and I hope the insights and knowledge that I
have shared with others have also positively impacted them.
For my presentation, I asked the SourceCon team for some data on a few of
my articles and whether I could share that data; I was really surprised with
the effect that all these articles have had!
Maybe there is somebody out there using the information I have shared for
something new that they will share with the world and that will also help me.
This is one example of what sharing can do. This particular trait we have can
take us a long way as we can change how things work. We can also share to
make the communities in which we live a better and safer place, so the
applicability of sharing is more than generous.
Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, people mostly share because it makes them feel good.
This is probably one of the most popular reasons for sharing. The truth is, no
matter what we share, the gesture makes us feel positive emotions every
time. You can start sharing because of that, or you may have some other
reasons of your own.
The majority of us enjoy sharing because we want others to feel the
excitement and joy we felt when we discovered a particular thing. And this
helps us create better and stronger social relationships.
And the best part about sharing is that it makes us and the people around us
feel better and we learn more, so it will always be a win-win situation.
As the Dalai Lama once said: "Share your knowledge. It’s a way to
achieve immortality."
04.14 Stop Looking for Excuses
When I published my first book, I got many messages that said something
similar: "All that is great but…" and the but was always connected with "but
I don't have enough time", "but we are doing that differently", "but my boss
is not looking for innovation" and so on.
We all are looking for excuses, some of us just from time to time, and some
of us more often than others. Recruitment is full of excuses, even if we are
not ready to admit it publicly. And many recruiters in the industry today get
a bad rap. Most of the time, these issues, which give them a bad name, are
self-inflicted. Instead of finding improvements to overcome these problems,
they bring up excuses as an easier escape route.
I know what you’re thinking: So what? Everybody makes excuses. That
doesn't make the next guy better than me. I am doing the best I can with the
little I have.
Recruiters deal with a lot of data. Every day, they interact with candidates
and try to keep all their balls in the air. Average recruiters do their best in
the real sense. Unfortunately, the recruitment process—even in today’s
digital age—is still weighed down by a myriad of man-made shortcomings.
When recruiters resort to excuses as escape routes, they undermine the need
for improvement, thereby letting clients and candidates down and starting
on a slippery slope towards mediocrity. This is by no means an indictment
on the state of recruitment, but there is always room for innovation and
change.
Here are some recruitment tips to overcome the stagnancy of excuses:
Application Process
One of the common excuses is: "We need to know more about candidates;
that’s why we need to have five pages of registration." But do we really
need to know what grades they got in high school or need a cover letter in
which they describe what they did twenty years ago?
A lack of satisfaction, arising from a cumbersome applications process, has
made many talented candidates give up midway when applying. Hence, the
need for gamification: introduce elements that will make the application
process more enjoyable and less of a strain.
Communication
Recruiting is so much more than just matching candidates with job
descriptions. This is just part of the job. There is no justifiable reason to
hide behind emails and not reach out to candidates and communicate with
them. The best recruiters take time to find out what makes their candidates
tick; they earn what they are actually looking for. With candidates churning
in and out of the system, understanding candidates’ core values is of the
utmost necessity.
Communication is also important when a candidate is rejected. You don’t
have to become a ghost recruiter when you are trying to avoid or not answer
candidates after you reject them. Even after rejection, the candidate is an
important source of other potential candidates (referrals).
Don’t make excuses for why you can’t get it done. Focus on all the
reasons why you must make it happen!
Give Feedback and Ask for Some

Why don't recruiters always give feedback? Their excuse is always the
same: "Ah, I have thousands of candidates. I don't have that much time on
the clock," or, "I don’t have time to give feedback to every candidate that
applied."
If your ATS is not an Excel spreadsheet, then this is the lamest excuse there
is. If this is your favorite excuse, you just don’t care about your company,
or you don’t see that you are affecting your future pipeline. Every candidate
today is potentially a future customer or future decision maker who will
have the power to cooperate with your company.
Recruiters that are not giving feedback to every candidate very quickly start
to wonder why their candidate experience keeps dropping. The answer is
quite simple: if you've interviewed someone and you think they are not a fit,
do them the courtesy of telling them that, even if you need to use an email
template.
Even negative news (rejection) is better than no news at all!
If you want to improve the candidate experience, the best way is to ask for
feedback from your candidates. They should also be given the opportunity
to express and share their experiences with you. What you hear may not be
entirely favorable—and perhaps that’s why it's often avoided in the first
place, but that's exactly the point. You need feedback to patch your errors
and make improvements.
You Don’t Have the Time to Build a Personal and Company Brand
Online
Yes, you say social recruiting is too time-consuming. Furthermore, you
know that posting regular, high-quality content on your social channels is
not child's play. It will require the right ideas, time and persistence.
However, recruiters whose social recruiting is poor will count their losses
every day.
Being active on social sites might not be recognized as work by your boss,
and you may not be excited about it because you are not going to see any
quick results. However, building an authentic brand and sharing information
about the company culture where you are working will pay dividends in the
long run.
Finding some time every day for social sites could bring you inspiration
from the leaders in your field and also could create the snowball effect that
will bring you a bigger audience, more followers/connections, and more
candidates that will know your company and you. If candidates in your
market know you and your company, this will significantly raise the
chances of you getting an answer on your LinkedIn inmail or email.
Conclusion
Every time I hear, "There is a problem," my answer is always the same:
"There are no problems, only opportunities."
Making excuses may cause a great candidate to slip through your fingers
and negatively affect your brand and candidate experience; however,
making no improvements will let the wrong candidate through—which is
even worse.
In recruitment, excuses are the killers of trust and opportunity. Whether
you give them or are receiving them, they make it clear that a promise, an
agreed obligation—your recruitment credibility—has not been delivered
upon.
Rise above excuses today. If a shark stops swimming, it will die. Constant
improvement while minimizing excuses is the only way to become the
best recruiter or sourcer you can be.
05 Epilogue
Recruitment is an incredible field that is constantly evolving. With that said,

it still has some issues that we all are trying to resolve, and sometimes we
recruiters don't have a good reputation among candidates, but it's still one of
the best fields you can work in!
Even after so many years of working in recruitment, I am still amazed by
people, the great things they are trying to invent, the methods they have
discovered, and every time I think there is nothing that could be improved,
somebody proves me wrong. Thank you for that!
We are all constantly trying to find new shortcuts or methods that will
quickly and easily solve the sourcing/recruitment problems that we are
facing every day. Even though our work is still a constant battle with the
time, our candidates, customers and hiring managers, it is still an incredible
field that brings new surprises every day.
I hope you found something new in this book, something that opened your
mind just a little bit or made you decide to try something different or take a
different approach. There are no magical shortcuts in sourcing or
recruitment. Just like there is no "perfect" candidate for a job, or there is
no sourcing tool or method that will magically solve all the problems you
have.
The only "magical" solution I know of is consistency, an open mind,
creativity, and a lot of hard work. All these things were necessary on my
journey to becoming a published author, and without them, I wouldn’t have
been able to finish both books.
Keep in mind that there could be a million and one methods, but the
sourcing principles are just a few. The person who understands these
principles well can successfully choose and create their own methods.
The person who tries new methods but ignores the principles will
surely get themselves into trouble.
If you loved my book Full Stack Recruiter: The Modern Recruiter's Guide
or this Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed and have a minute to
spare, I would really appreciate a short review on the Amazon or the site
where you bought the book. Reviews from readers like you make a huge
difference in helping new readers find my books.
Thank you for being a part of my journey!
Jan Tegze
Endnotes
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica
[2] https://w3techs.com
[3] https://news.netcraft.com/archives/category/web-server-survey/
[4] http://www.htaccess-guide.com
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network
[6] https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Powers
[8] Habits—A Repeat Performance - David T. Neal, Wendy Wood, Jeffrey
M. Quinn
[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Rachlin
[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_hacking
[11] https://www.facebook.com/groups/GrowthHackingRecruiters/
[12] http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/00220410510632040
[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legibility
[14] https://ceblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/06/Psychology_Behind_Type.jpg
[15] http://alexpoole.info/blog/which-are-more-legible-serif-or-sans-serif-
typefaces/
[16] https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jbigham/pubs/pdfs/2017/colors.pdf
[17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readability
[18] http://www.impact-information.com/impactinfo/readability02.pdf
[19] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/author/jakob-nielsen/
[20] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?
doi=10.1.1.108.4346&rep=rep1&type=pdf
[21] https://www.nngroup.com/reports/how-people-read-web-eyetracking-
evidence/
[22] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_comprehension
[23] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4233000/
[24] http://news.mit.edu/2014/in-the-blink-of-an-eye-0116
[25] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?
doi=10.1.1.476.2928&rep=rep1&type=pdf
[26] https://www.princeton.edu/~browning/snow.html
[27]
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273998743_Blue_phenomenon_S
pontaneity_or_preference
[28] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494415000328
[29] http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-30837-001
[30] https://www.tourolaw.edu/lawreview/uploads/pdfs/27_2/9.pdf
[31] http://www.jstor.org/stable/3151897
[32] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2289687
[33] http://www.joehallock.com/edu/COM498/preferences.html
[34] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2235253
[35] http://www.joehallock.com/edu/COM498/preferences.html
[36] https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/00251740610673332
[37] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061128083022.htm
[38] http://stanford.edu/~gbower/1969/Narrative_stories.pdf
[39] http://www.thetalentboard.org/cande-awards/
[40] https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/2013/12/are-
candidates-customers-or-something-more
[41] https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/candidate-
experience/2017/bad-candidate-experience-cost-virgin-media-5m-annually-
and-how-they-turned-that-around
[42] https://workplacetrends.com/candidate-experience-study/
[43] Of course, if you have better one, feel free to contact me.
[44] https://appcast.io/2020-companies/
[45] 46 % said, "I will take my purchasing power somewhere else." Data
from North American CandE Awards research
[46] https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/2013/12/are-
candidates-customers-or-something-more
[47] https://workplacetrends.com/candidate-experience-study/
[48] http://a.co/d/d3n7N3t

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Full Stack Recruiter

New Secrets Revealed

The recruitment industry is a fantastic field that is continuously evolving.

I published my first Full Stack Recruiter: The Modern Recruiter's Guide

GDPR and Cambridge Analytica

WHOIS Domain Trick

Boolean Query Limitations

LinkedIn added a limit on the number of Boolean search operators used in a

Their premium accounts have no limit on the number of Boolean operators

03.1 How to Source Candidates on Airbnb

Wikipedia describes Airbnb as a company that operates an online

Is There a Way to Source a Candidate on Airbnb?

However, there is still a way to target profiles.

Target Things-To-Do List

How Do You Contact These People?

Wikipedia describes Flickr.com (pronounced "flicker") as an image-hosting

How to Source on Flickr

First Method - Flickr search

Second Method - X-Ray Search

Targeting profiles with a website

Targeting profiles based on when they joined

Medium is an online publishing platform developed by Evan Williams and

Sourcing - Basic String

Targeting by Joining Date

View Code - Step by Step Instructions

Targeting Based on Groups

Targeting file types

03.5.1 Finding candidates by the length of their probation

After one month

03.5.2 Content Search on LinkedIn

How to Use Content Search

03.6.1 Google Search and Google Play

Find Android Developers on LinkedIn

Where can you find a developer’s email address?

03.6.2 Metasearch Engines

Burst the Filter Bubble

03.6.3 Searching for Confidential Information

What is the most powerful string I am using?

03.6.5 One More Trick with Google Images

End of Sourcing Part

04.1 Recruitment Is Not a 9 to 5 Job

When I published my book (Full Stack Recruiter: The Modern Recruiter's

2) Growing domain and sourcing experience

5) Managing an overwhelming database/network

6) The pressure to churn out results

2) Focusing on the same metrics

5) Sourcing the same way

7) Delivering a poor candidate experience

10) Resist change

At the beginning of 2018, I wrote this:

A.I. is a new technology

Current technology still sucks

Companies don’t know how to use A.I. to its full potential

Who are Growth Hackers?

Examples of Growth Hacks

Benefits of Growth Hacking

Growth Hacking in Recruitment

LinkedIn Growth Hacks

Why Growth Hacking Will Dominate in the Near Future and

Reading in the 21st Century