You probably don’t think of Slack as a sourcing channel. But why not?
You use Slack for work projects. Project management. Alumni groups. Over 50 million people are there and actively using it every day. But you’re not recruiting there? If you haven’t considered slack for sourcing, rethink your strategy said our guest Emma Hunt from Logo.
Humans Must Still Be In Command
Working in advertising and design for many years, Emma was always really passionate about sourcing, not just sitting on LinkedIn all day. That helps, especially considering she’s currently hiring for one of the most challenging job titles to fill anywhere in the world right now: data scientists. But even as a recruiter for AI and data science roles, Emma isn’t scared of the machine for one simple reason: humans must still be in command. “AI is going to create different jobs because we’re a long way from AI being self sufficient. You will always need the people to make the decision.”
Niche Communities
Creativity is another element we can’t automate, of course, which is what originally led Emma to sourcing on Slack. “I’m very active on Twitter and the people I follow are sharing the good groups. I’m always doing research on who we can partner up with.” Working with specialists within the company, Emma also discovered new, niche communities which became additional sources of qualified candidates.
That research with a side of patience is what has led to Emma’s success. It is a give and take channel, like every other social medium.
“You need to contribute for people to buy into you and pay attention to your post. Why should people pay attention to you?”
Emma shared other valuable advice for sourcers interested in using Slack to find qualified candidates.
- Don’t use the @ channel button whenever you put a new posting in the group. That’s how you end up getting banished in the group. Everyone gets a notification and that should be reserved for the admin of the group.
- Only engage people when it’s relevant to your expertise, whether it be career advice or they have an issue with a manager internally and they don’t know how to handle it.
- Encourage your employees to serve as subject matter experts in niche communities. “They help our brand get out there and show people we are a good place to work.”
- As recruiters it’s ingrained in us to post jobs and post opportunities. Don’t do that on Slack. You might find a needle in a haystack but you’re not going to get the best people and you’re not helping your brand.
- Want to add a gif? Just type /gify and you type in whatever you want your gif to be. You could be like /gify happy and you can shuffle through options.
Watch the whole episode to learn more and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get weekly updates and blog posts delivered directly to your inbox.
