Competing for Top Talent

Github and many other high profile companies have the benefit of a much larger talent funnel than more average companies. They can literally sit back and wait for the proverbial rock-star ninja to make a passionate appeal to come and work for them. They can filter anyone without a 4.0 from a top school (not that they would, but that's not the point) and still be working with a bigger pool than lesser companies do, pre-filtering. Never mind actually selling yourself so those you might want to hir

Are you paying as well as these top tech companies? Do candidates know it?Are you providing as many career opportunities and growth as Google/Facebook/etc? Do candidates know it?These big companies get away with it because their hiring funnel is jam packed with top talent.Rejecting a lot of top talent is no big deal for these companies. There is still tons of top talent who will jump through the hoops.But a big hint: they won't jump through the hoops to work at your co

TLDR (I think): Due to Github, recruiters can poach employees easily. As such, hiring anyone who has not peaked is useless, because he might be poached after training/getting better and we will have to compete with other (possibly more wealthy) employers to retain him.

"If it's so easy to identify prospective great developers, why not try to recruit them?"1. Who says that companies don't try. We can only observe that they are not too successful at it. But that might also just mean that there's many companies competing for few employees. And if you can get the same salary somewhere else, who would still go to Facebook?2. Great at work doesn't mean great character. I'm pretty sure that the original team building Android w

> so it's possible (probable even) that more established companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Intel, etc. are recruiting for the same people.You're hiring for the same skills as the big companies are in the same field in the same geographical region. I bet you're even using a similar interview process. I also bet you don't pay as much as they do. You either need to pay more or play programmer moneyball[0].[0]: <a href="https://danluu.com/programmer

I work in such a company; it is easy to hire, there are people that FAANG does not hire, other companies don't hire, but somewhere at the bottom someone does. The entire industry that I work in (non-IT, but very large companies) do this, it is the practice for the past ~ 15 years and there is a non-compete agreement on this.

Seriously? I thought companies fight for people with good skill set and i see recruiters bothering me on Linkedin all the time. Did you try applying for start ups?

How about changing your recruiting strategy from 'top' to 'potential' since it's so hard to reach top ones?Diff from big-fat-cat company, startup has a big advantage that it's going to grow and employees can really feel it.This is a good chance to cultivate ownership, loyalty, sense of belonging, etc.Good luck :)

"You" can always try harder and one day you might get hired. But as more work is becoming outsourced or automated this sort of advice only means the "you" who gets the job is forcing someone else not too. Startups aren't hiring because there is a massive collection of desperate people and they only select a tiny minority.

Nobody hires you if things are perfect. They hire you because there's a problem. It might be a startup or a company just starting a tech sector. Either way they are in their infancy.