First Published in 2018 by Jan Tegze.

© Copyright 2018 Jan Tegze

Cover design by Tomáš Zeman
PDF design by Jan Tegze

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, recording, photocopying
recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the
author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews
and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

The book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated
without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

2 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

DISCLAIMER
AND TERMS OF USE
This book is published for informational purposes only. The publisher and
or the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the
accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically
disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness
for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales
or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may
not be suitable for every situation. The information contained in this book
is not and is not intended to be advice of any kind. Publication of this book
does not create a consultant-client relationship.

When you access this book or ebook, you agree that the author and or
publisher of this book, shall not be liable to you for any loss or injury caused
by procuring, compiling or delivering the information gained from the
book. In no event will the author and or publisher of the book, be liable
to anyone for any action taken on the basis of such information or for any
incidental, consequential, special or similar damages.

The author and or publisher of this book expressly disclaims any and
all liability for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential or special
damages arising out of any and or buying and reading of this book and/
or any information contained on this book. The author and or publisher
of the book disclaims all responsibility for any loss, injury, claim, liability or
damage of any kind resulting from, arising out of, or any way related to any
information and content of this book. The information contained in this
eBook is strictly for educational purposes. Therefore, if you wish to apply
the ideas in this book or eBook, you are taking full responsibility for your
actions.

Every attempt has been made by the author to provide acknowledgment

of the sources used for the material in this book. While the author has
made every effort to provide accurate internet addresses and authors of
sourcing methods at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the
author assumes any responsibility for errors and omissions, or for changes
that occur after publication. Technology and services are continually
changing and therefore might contain errors and/or information that,
while accurate when it was written, may be no longer accurate by the time
you read it. Your use of or reliance on the information in this book is at your
own risk, and the author and or publisher are not liable or responsible for
any resulting damage or expense.

Every possible effort has been made to ensure that the information
contained in this book is accurate at the time of going to press, and the
publishers and the author cannot accept responsibility for any errors
or omissions.

Jan Tegze 3
CONTENTS

4 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

CONTENTS

00 Acknowledgment ........................................................................................................................... 7

01 Intro ............................................................................................................................................................. 9

02 What Changed After GDRP? ................................................................................................ 11

03 Sourcing ............................................................................................................................................... 14

03.1 How to Source Candidates on Airbnb ................................................................. 15

03.2 How to Source Candidates on Flickr ................................................................... 18
03.3 How to Source Candidates on Medium .......................................................... 22
03.4 How to Source Candidates on WordPress .................................................... 26
03.5 LinkedIn Search Tricks ................................................................................................... 30
03.6 More Sourcing Tricks ...................................................................................................... 35

04 Recruitment ..................................................................................................................................... 47

04.1 Recruitment Is Not a 9 to 5 Job ............................................................................. 48

04.2 A Recruiter’s Worst Enemy ........................................................................................ 52
04.3 Growth Hacking ................................................................................................................. 56
04.4 The Psychology of Texts in Recruitment ........................................................ 62
04.5 How to Influence People Through Different Content Formats ... 67
04.6 The Psychology of Color in Recruitment ......................................................... 71
04.7 Storytelling ............................................................................................................................. 76
04.8 Not giving a Feedback is Expensive ................................................................. 80
04.9 Ask Why, Not Only Where ......................................................................................... 85
04.10 Perfect Hires Don’t Exist ........................................................................................... 88
04.11 It’s Not About Years of Experience–It’s About Skills .............................. 92
04.12 How to Assess a Sourcer ............................................................................................ 95
04.13 Share Your Knowledge to Gain Knowledge ............................................... 99
04.14 Stop Looking for Excuses ....................................................................................... 103

05 Epilogue ............................................................................................................................................ 107

06 About The Author ....................................................................................................................... 110

Jan Tegze 5
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

6 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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!

Jan Tegze 7
INTRO

8 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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, and I appreciate that you have decided to learn from me.

Jan

Jan Tegze 9
WHAT CHANGED
AFTER GDPR

10 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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
Analytica1. 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

1. The page www.facebook.com/directory/ was disabled.

2. 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 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 Google Plus is shutting down after private user
information was exposed.

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

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica

Jan Tegze 11
 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 VPN2 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
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network

12 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

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.3

Their premium accounts4 have no limit on the number of Boolean

operators you can use in a single search query.

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.

Note:

Things are always changing and evolving, and if you would like to get
new content from me, you can follow me on Twitter (www.twitter.com/
jantegze) or on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/jantegze/).

Or you can read more articles from me on my blog: www.tegze.eu or my

Medium blog: www.medium.com/@jantegze.

3 https://booleanstrings.com/2018/10/03/restricted-boolean-on-linkedin/
4 https://www.linkedin.com/help/testing/answer/96346

Jan Tegze 13
03 SOURCING

14 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

03.1
SOURCING - 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.

Jan Tegze 15
 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.

Example: site:airbnb.com/rooms/ "Joined in" intitle:"United 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.

Example: site:airbnb.com/rooms/ "Joined in" intitle:"United 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!

16 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

Jan Tegze 17
 03.2
SOURCING - 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.

18 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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

Jan Tegze 19
 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.

site:flickr.com Designer London "User Experience"

20 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

Jan Tegze 21
 03.3
SOURCING - 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.

22 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

Jan Tegze 23
 Step 1: Find the URL where the profile photo is stored. In my case, it’s
https://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.

24 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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, if you are on Medium, you can follow me: medium.com/@jantegze

Jan Tegze 25
 03.4
SOURCING - WORDPRESS
Did you know that 30% of the top 10 million websites are powered
by WordPress? This information comes from recent data collected by
W3Techs5.

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 Netcraft6—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 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.

5 https://w3techs.com/
6 https://news.netcraft.com/archives/category/web-server-survey/

26 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

Example: inurl:/wp-content/uploads/ (CV OR resume OR "curriculum

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 the
email address: @gmail.com.

Example: inurl:/wp-content/uploads/ (CV OR resume OR "curriculum

vitae") (* @gmail.com) -sample -example

Jan Tegze 27
 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.

28 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

SOURCING
LinkedIn Search Tricks

Jan Tegze 29
 03.5
SOURCING - LINKEDIN
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:

30 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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

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.

Jan Tegze 31
 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.

32 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

Jan Tegze 33
SOURCING
More Sourcing Tricks

34 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

03.6
SOURCING - MORE 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 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.

Jan Tegze 35
 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.

36 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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 talk7. 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.
7 https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles

Jan Tegze 37
 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

38 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

Jan Tegze 39
 03.6.3 - Searching for Confidential Information

Sssshhhh, I have a secret, but you can’t tell anyone, deal?

As Thomas Powers8 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.

Example: ("confidential" OR "internal use only" OR "not for distribution"

OR "not for public distribution" OR "classified") intitle:2018

8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Powers

40 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

If you would like to target more years, you can just add more intitle:
operators.

Example: ("confidential" OR "internal use only" OR "not for distribution"

OR "not for public distribution" OR "classified") (intitle:2017 OR
intitle:2018)

You can also combine inurl: operator with intitle: operator.

Example: ("confidential" OR "internal use only" OR "not for distribution"

OR "not for public distribution" OR "classified") (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")

Jan Tegze 41
 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.

42 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

Jan Tegze 43
 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.

44 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

SOURCING
One More Sourcing Trick

Jan Tegze 45
 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.

Because GDPR I am not showing photos and names.

There is a small trick that I discovered and that I am successfully using. 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.

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.

46 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

04 RECRUITMENT

Jan Tegze 47
 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 9 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.

48 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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

Jan Tegze 49
 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.

50 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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!

Jan Tegze 51
 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 University9 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.

9 Habits—A Repeat Performance - David T. Neal, Wendy Wood, Jeffrey M. Quinn

52 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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

Jan Tegze 53
 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,

54 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

human-centered experience. Just because a hiring manager previously
rejected this candidate, recruiters assume it’s going to happen again.

Conclusion

Behavioral economist Howard Rachlin10 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.

10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Rachlin

Jan Tegze 55
 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

56 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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
hacking11.

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.

11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_hacking

Jan Tegze 57
 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.

58 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

Jan Tegze 59
 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”12 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
12 https://www.facebook.com/groups/GrowthHackingRecruiters/

60 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

 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.

Jan Tegze 61
 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” 13

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

13 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/00220410510632040

62 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.” 14

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 emotions15.
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.16 You can also learn about many other typographical features

14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legibility
15 https://ceblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Psychology_Behind_Type.jpg
16 http://alexpoole.info/blog/which-are-more-legible-serif-or-sans-serif-typefaces/

Jan Tegze 63
 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
Readers17) 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).18

Many experts, through much research, have compiled golden rules of

documentation writing. A list of these regulations is mentioned in The
Principles of Readability19 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

17 https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jbigham/pubs/pdfs/2017/colors.pdf
18 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readability
19 http://www.impact-information.com/impactinfo/readability02.pdf

64 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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’s20 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”21 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
words22 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.23

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.

20 https://www.nngroup.com/articles/author/jakob-nielsen/
21 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.108.4346&rep=rep1&type=pdf
22 https://www.nngroup.com/reports/how-people-read-web-eyetracking-evidence/
23 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_comprehension

Jan Tegze 65
 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!

66 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

04.5 HOW TO 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

Jan Tegze 67
 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.24

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.25

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
24 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4233000/
25 http://news.mit.edu/2014/in-the-blink-of-an-eye-0116

68 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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

Jan Tegze 69
 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.

70 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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, 198426 )

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 meaning27.

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

26 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.476.2928&rep=rep1&type=pdf
27 https://www.princeton.edu/~browning/snow.html

Jan Tegze 71
 black that was the predominant color choice.28

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 Psychology29, 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.
28 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273998743_Blue_phenomenon_Spontaneity_or_preference
29 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494415000328

72 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

Also, Dr. Chris Knight from Exeter University found employees were 15
percent more productive30 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 Loyola31).

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

30 http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-30837-001
31 https://www.tourolaw.edu/lawreview/uploads/pdfs/27_2/9.pdf

Jan Tegze 73
 several traits, as pointed out by Professor Jennifer Aaker32, 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 review33,”
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 Assignments34 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 Attractiveness35
and A Critical and Experimental Study of Colour Preferences36 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
32 http://www.jstor.org/stable/3151897
33 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2289687
34 http://www.joehallock.com/edu/COM498/preferences.html
35 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2235253
36 http://www.joehallock.com/edu/COM498/preferences.html

74 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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 Marketing37)

Other studies (MRI Shows Brains Respond Better To Name Brands38) 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.

37 https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/00251740610673332
38 https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061128083022.htm

Jan Tegze 75
 04.7
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 Stories39)

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

39 http://stanford.edu/~gbower/1969/Narrative_stories.pdf

76 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

Jan Tegze 77
 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.

78 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

Jan Tegze 79
 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
research40 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

40 http://www.thetalentboard.org/cande-awards/

80 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

company, chasing away potential talent and clients. In fact, following a
bad experience, 27% of candidates would “actively discourage others to
apply.”41

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.42

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

41 https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/2013/12/are-candidates-customers-or-something-more
42 https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/candidate-experience/2017/bad-candidate-experience-
cost-virgin-media-5m-annually-and-how-they-turned-that-around

Jan Tegze 81
 to candidate experience. Approximately 65% of candidates say they never
or rarely receive notice from employers. (Workplace Trends, Candidate
Experience Study43)

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.44

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 Appcast45)

• 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)46

• 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.

43 https://workplacetrends.com/candidate-experience-study/
44 Of course, if you have better one, feel free to contact me
45 https://appcast.io/2020-companies/
46 46 % said, “I will take my purchasing power somewhere else.”
Data from North American CandE Awards research

82 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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: LinkedIn47)
47 https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/

Jan Tegze 83
 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 Study48)

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!

48 https://workplacetrends.com/candidate-experience-study/

84 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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?

Jan Tegze 85
 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.

86 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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!

Jan Tegze 87
 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,

88 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

Jan Tegze 89
 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.

90 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

Jan Tegze 91
 04.11 IT’S NOT ABOUT YEARS OF
EXPERIENCE - IT’S ABOUT SKILLS
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

92 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

Jan Tegze 93
 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.

94 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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 reqs 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, or 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.

Jan Tegze 95
 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 Guide49 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
49 http://a.co/d/d3n7N3t

96 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.Online50 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.

50 https://www.sourcingtest.online/

Jan Tegze 97
 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 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!

98 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

Jan Tegze 99
 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 PDF or a book, 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.

100 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

SourceCon Europe 2018

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.

Jan Tegze 101

 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.”

102 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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

Jan Tegze 103

 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

104 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

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.

Jan Tegze 105

05 EPILOGUE

106 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

 05
EPILOGUE
I created this small addition to my first book, Full Stack Recruiter: The
Modern Recruiter's Guide, as a way to say thank you to those who bought it.
And because you are among those people, I would like to say thank you for
joining me on my journey.

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, 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 this book or
share with you all the things I shared in Full Stack Recruiter: The Modern
Recruiter’s Guide and Full Stack Recruiter: The Lost Chapters.

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.

Of course, if you would like to share your feedback with me or share some
interesting sourcing trick, feel free to reach out to me. You can find me on:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jantegze/ (make sure to add a
quick note to your invite because I probably won’t accept without it).

Or, if you’d like to know when my next book comes out, you can follow me
on:

Twitter - www.twitter.com/jantegze
My Blog - www.tegze.eu
Medium - www.medium.com/@jantegze

Thank you for being a part of my journey!

Jan

P.S:
If you are reading this PDF and you would like to have this book as a
hard copy, you can order it from Amazon store.

Jan Tegze 107

 Note:

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.

Your help in spreading the word about my books on Facebook, Twitter

or LinkedIn is greatly appreciated. Reviews from readers like you make a
huge difference in helping new readers find my book and it encourages
me to write and share more.

And if you just downloaded this PDF or got it from somebody else (or from
somewhere else) but didn’t buy my book, you can visit any Amazon store
and buy the book there.

I self-published both books, which was quite expensive fun, and the costs
of this are covered by the sales of my books. So if don't own my first book
and you have benefited from the content I have shared, you can buy me a
coffee :) here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jantegze.

108 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR

Jan Tegze 109

 ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Jan Tegze
Author, Blogger, Soucer, Trainer, Speaker

Jan Tegze, Author of Full Stack Recruiter and results oriented Talent
Acquisition Leader with extensive experience in full life cycle recruiting,
and broad knowledge in international recruiting, sourcing, recruitment
branding, marketing and proactive innovative sourcing techniques. Author
of the Sourcing.Games, SourcingTest.Online, Recruitment.Camp, and
blogger who believes that recruitment is a great field and he is constantly
trying to make it better.

Follow me
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jantegze/
Blog: www.tegze.eu
Twitter: www.twitter.com/jantegze
Medium: www.medium.com/@jantegze/

Author

http://amzn.com/1976130735 http://amzn.com/8027048184

110 Full Stack Recruiter: New Secrets Revealed

Jan Tegze 111
Full Stack Recruiter:
New Secrets
Revealed

© Jan Tegze, 2018