Lessons learned from tech recruitment

• Don’t take it personally. When you give negative feedback to a candidate, you can receive different types of reactions. Once, a candidate was angry and told me that it was “bullshit” the feedback I had from the hiring manager.
• Always learn. A new project or a new client can bring new things to understand and ways to present to the candidates. Understand them first and then talk to the candidates about them.
• Admit when you don’t know something. A good specialist will feel you when you go to bluff. You don’t want this for a good relationship with him/her.
• Be authentic or be human. Treat candidates as partners and they will feel this.
• Build a partnership with the hiring managers. The strongest companies in the market grew by building strong collaboration between HR and tech teams.
• Respect individual differences. Understand that in the IT industry there are a lot of specialists who want to change their job only for money… and be comfortable with this. You are not there to make him/her an education.
• Most of the candidates are passive ones. Most of them receive a lot of requests, so it is so easy to"get lost in the crowd".
• Move fast and answer quickly. The market is moving, so you have to be in front of the others.
• Build a personal brand. It sounds very corporatist, but people interact with people, not with the company. A candidate is discussing with you, not with your company.
• Find some “heroes”. What I mean is to constantly follow some big names in this domain who can inspire you.

In the end, I think it is essential to love the people you work with, no matter their roles. And to love and respect the job you do.

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