Recruit Using Github, , Dribbble & More

Here at Entelo, we’ve observed a growing trend where candidates’ professional data is becoming increasingly distributed across a number of diferent , and it is our belief that this trend will continue to manifest itself in the coming years.

Designers are building their public portfolios on sites like Dribbble, Behance and CarbonMade. Mechanical Engineers are posting their CAD models to GrabCad and data scientists are engaging in Kaggle statistical competitions.

These social sites house valuable data for recruiters to research candidates better than ever before, and those that make these resources a valuable part of their recruiting arsenal will reap the rewards in a highly competitive recruiting environment. In this series of comprehensive guides, we’ll examine how you can leverage these new social sites to diversify your recruiting eforts and ultimately hire the best people for your organization.

How to Recruit Using Quora

Founded by former CTO, Adam D’Angelo, Quora has grown into one of the most extensive knowledge banks online. Whereas serves to be the database for fact-based knowledge, Quora is an excellent resource for respected opinions and personal experiences. At its core, Quora is a Q&A site where anyone can ask anything and any member of the community can answer. A few things stand out about Quora: 1. Answers get upvoted by the community, so the top answers are ones that the community deems most valuable 2. The community is very tech-centric but consists of many experts in a variety of fields ranging from technology to cooking to film. 3. Quora is already the 725th most visited site in the world, and trafc/ engagement has been growing steadily for years 4. Quora recently raised $50 million, meaning the site will be around for a while and should continue to grow into the future

Given this, how is Quora useful for recruiting? In a nutshell, Quora provides wonderful context both about a person’s interests as well as what they’re knowledgeable about, both of which are frequently difcult to ascertain from other data sources. Here’s a sample Quora profile:

While some Quora profiles may be somewhat sparse, oftentimes you’ll still be able to derive valuable information from someone’s profile.

Header: Here you’ll notice location, company and school information. While much of this data can be ascertained from data sources like Linkedin or Facebook, Linkedin frequently contains very generalized location (i.e. San Francisco Bay Area as opposed to San Francisco or San Jose) and Facebook data can be hard to view. Quora provides another resource for determining basic candidate information.

Left pane: Quora users will often include links to their other web presences, and you’ll be able to locate this underneath their profile picture. Quora now supports , Facebook, Linkedin, and Wordpress, and this connection can make it easy to get full context around any candidate. Quora even has a Linkedin integration where users can share their Quora [professional] activity directly to the professional network.

Additionally, below this you’ll see a user’s Quora stats neatly organized into a number of diferent categories including: • Topics: This section can provide some valuable context about the various topics that a person may be interested in. Here’s an example: These topics don’t necessarily have to be professional, giving you ample opportunity to understand someone from a cultural standpoint before connecting with them. Additionally, some people mainly follow professional topics, giving you great insight into their professional interests. Maybe a designer recently followed the Ruby on Rails or Python topics. Being able to find this type of information can give you the edge in understanding a candidate’s new professional interests. • Followers/Following: Since most Quora users login with Facebook, you shouldn’t put too much stock into their followers as most people’s followers are primarily their Facebook friends. However, sometimes you may be able to learn more about a candidate from observing who they follow as this can be another gauge for the types of information and people they are interested in. • Answers/Posts: Both answers and posts (written work in Quora that doesn’t answer any specific question) can provide amazing context into what a candidate is knowledgeable about. Generally speaking, users answer or post about topics they have a great understanding in. Observing what candidates feel comfortable writing about can provide a wonderful avenue for knowing what they know, especially if any of their answers are highly upvoted. • Questions: While many questions are asked anonymously, sometimes users will ask questions on Quora without hiding their identity. Understanding the type of information that candidates want to learn more about can also provide additional context to understand what the person is interested in learning more about.

Middle Pane: Lastly, in the middle of a user profile, you’ll see a stream of the users recent activity including their answers/posts, and questions they’ve asked, new topics/ people they’re following and questions they’ve upvoted. You as a recruiter can augment the other data sources you leverage (resumes, Linkedin profiles, Github, etc.) to get a good feel for who the person is before reaching out in a customized manner.

Additionally, there’s a few other actions one can take on Quora that can be incredibly valuable to a recruiter. • Messaging: You can message candidates directly through Quora. When on a profile, you can message a candidate through the left pane of their profile. These messages go directly into a candidate’s Quora inbox for them to see when they’re back on Quora. Here’s a couple suggestions for messaging on Quora: • DON’T spam candidates. As with other sites, spamming a candidate on Quora can at best be construed as annoying and at worst can ruin your employer brand. Quora moderators may also ban you from the site should you be too aggressive in your messaging of people. • Strike up conversation over interesting content on Quora. Maybe the person wrote a great answer. Show them you’ve actually read what they’ve posted and appreciate their work. This will go a long ways towards building a relationship. • Ask to Answer: Within any question, there’s the option to “Ask to Answer” where you can use a few of your Quora credits (obtained through taking positive actions on Quora, i.e. asking great questions, writing highly upvoted answers) to ask specific people to answer a question. Simply observing who Quora recommends to ask can provide a great list of people that may have the knowledge base you’re looking for.

In general, Quora has many users that are highly involved in the technology space, so finding excellent people has been getting easier and easier on Quora. Especially for business people (sales, marketing, etc.) where there isn’t a concrete professional network a la Github for developers, Quora can be extremely valuable in understanding who is truly knowledgeable about various topics, and it should become increasingly efective as a resource for understanding people.

Be sure to check out the next post in this series, which details how to use Dribbble, Behance, and CarbonMade in your recruiting endeavors!