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Cover image for How to become more visible for Recruiters
Stas Klymenko
Stas Klymenko

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How to become more visible for Recruiters

My tweet received pretty much questions from different developers. It takes a lot of time to give the answers for everyone. That's why I decided to make a post here with some of the general tips.

Let's dive right into the tips step by step.

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LinkedIn

If you are searching for a job, be sure your LinkedIn profile is updated and the most important sections are filled.

Recruiters use Boolean search to find developers in LinkedIn. That's why it's very important to fill all the gaps with proper information. Here are several tips:

  • Use your description section below the name to show you are searching for a job. The most common phrases are "open for new opportunities" or "looking for a job".
  • Go to Settings and Privacy -> Job seeking preferences -> Let Recruiters know you're open to opportunities. This option is OFF by default. Turn it ON and you will also upgrade your visibility for recruiters.
  • Fill your About section. Add some information about you and what is more important - add your stack and technologies you are using or used before.
  • Update your Skills section and add technologies you are using.
  • Add all the main Courses and Online Courses you have passed (Only main and valuable). This will add some points to your experience and knowledge of the field.
  • Add Certificates if you have any related to IT branch. It may not be important on the tech interview, but will be useful to pass the HR/Recruiter interview.
  • Fill Languages section. Sometimes it's very important for the employer and this one little section can totally change the Recruiter's vision.

All of this tips will highly increase your visibility when recruiters will use Boolean search in LinkedIn to find a developer.

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Twitter

A lot of people trying to find their first job on twitter. Yes, it's possible, but usually not works for junior developers.
But there are several things you can do to increase your hiring chances if the Recruiter will find you:

  • Change your bio description and add information about searching for a job (like in LinkedIn).
  • Try to be active. If the recruiter will find your profile, it's important to show that you are still in game. So please, don't forget about your twitter profile and at least made some tweets periodically.

GitHub

Nowadays recruiters have additional tools to make search easier. There are several tools for searching through GitHub profiles. Don't hesitate to add the same 'open for new opportunities' info to your bio, your current level and stack.

Also, try to be active in your own repository. It's not very important for hiring but a good sign in general.

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A few additional advice

  • Open your profiles and DM's on every social media you are using. It's very common situation when you just can't send a message in twitter to a person that may be interested in job.
  • Add contact info to your social media profiles.
  • Add photo to your profile.
  • Never start looking for a job without prepared Resume and Portfolio.

And one really helpful advice - find a friend-recruiter. Usually recruiters have several thousands connects in LinkedIn and they can boost your profile among other recruiters and employers. Your hiring chances will increase significantly.

I hope this information will be useful for you. These are just general and the basic tips. However, a lot of people forget about them.

If you want to know something deeper - write me.
If you want some Resume advice - write me.
If you want any help with hiring advice - write me.
Will do my best.

Top comments (20)

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard • Edited

Some additional tips:

Recruiters

Yes they contact you for something that have nothing to do with what you want to do. Call them anyway. Let them present their offer and finally say that unfortunately it's not a good match. Then ask open questions like whether they have other offers, what kind of salary you can ask for, ...

LinkedIn

  • Put your email in your description so that people can skip those LinkedIn messages that are bad for everyone except LinkedIn
  • If you have **junior** web developer in your job title, replace it right now with web developer. It's not your job to say that you are not good enough.
  • Also generally don't put the job title that you have but the one that you want to be contacted for.
  • If you have less than 200 contacts, having a LinkedIn profile is mostly useless. Add randomly senior developers and team lead and cto of companies working in your geographical area and your niche.

I know, it would be really weird to do this in the real life, but LinkedIn is not real life, just a marketing tool.

GitHub

Contribute to GitHub yes, but target them.

  • Contribute to the projects of companies you want to work for.
  • Do a GitHub search of developers doing the exact kind of thing you also want to do in your geographical area. For example if you want to do haskell in London, search for github.com/search?l=Haskell&o=desc...
  • Contribute to those projects. Connecting with the kind of people you want to become is your best chance to find a job
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hellnar profile image
Stas Klymenko

Great advice!

Also, if there are less than 200 connects, you can add not only devs, but recruiters too.
Then you can create a post that you are looking for a job and a lot of recruiters from your connects will see it. Maybe one of them will have an opening related to the person's experience.

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facundocorradini profile image
Facundo Corradini

Great advice, Stas!

I only disagree on writing "looking for a job" or such. It makes the applicant look desperate, which is a great way to get very poor offers, and quite redundant as the check on "looking for opportunities" option is more than enough for them to notice.

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tmpou1 profile image
Thomas P • Edited

I agree. In addition it also masks their added value. When scanning a page with only candidates cards (Photo + Name + title), if you can't clearly see what the candidate's expertise is (but only "open to new opportunities), you are encouraged to move on to the next one.

(I also believe that the keywords in the title are better indexed. To be confirmed).

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hellnar profile image
Stas Klymenko

As I know, Boolean search is just scanning all the page for keywords.

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tmpou1 profile image
Thomas P

Good to know, thanks :)

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hellnar profile image
Stas Klymenko

Thank you!

To be honest, I didn't heard such opinion from other recruiters. It's interesting.

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facundocorradini profile image
Facundo Corradini • Edited

I'm no recruiter, but I've seen many advising against it

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hellnar profile image
Stas Klymenko

If you will ask 100 recruiters their opinion, you will have 100 different answers.

Actually, I can agree with that, but usually I don't pay attention to this factor. If someone is looking for a job and he is good for the opening, I will consider this person.

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marwan01 profile image
Marouen Helali

Good article. Do you think algorithm platforms like hackerrank, project euler, and leetcode are important as well for recruiters? Thanks for sharing.

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hellnar profile image
Stas Klymenko

Thank you!
Yes, they are also important. But:

They may be not very important for HR (many of them didn't know what is that) but will be a plus on tech interview.
As I know, in big companies amount of passed tasks on Hackerrank and LeetCode are a very big plus (I mean, not 2-3 passed tasks, but 100-200 etc).

So yeah, you can also add this information. Especially, in social media.

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marwan01 profile image
Marouen Helali

Good to note. Thank you for explaining! Good luck :)

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

Hackerrank etc... are terrible, they measure nothing that really matters.

Companies use them anyway :(

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hellnar profile image
Stas Klymenko

This platforms are not for measuring anything.
Nobody will never make a decision based only on this platforms. They are serving as a plus to your CV.
And they show that you are working on your skills and can not only write typical code, but also solve challenging tasks.

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danspratling profile image
Dan Spratling

I actually deleted my LinkedIn account because it was getting too much interaction from recruiters, but wasn't actually helping me secure any jobs. It can be a very hard balance to be able to use LinkedIn effectively to grow a network while also only getting relevant job offers to you.

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

Nice advice

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hellnar profile image
Stas Klymenko

Thanks a lot, Ben!

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hellnar profile image
Stas Klymenko

Not the best, but pretty okay.
Recruiters and HR's are always open for new connections. Devs are mostly too.

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

In LinkedIn I accept all invitations without thinking twice about it.

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hellnar profile image
Stas Klymenko

Same for me)
It's much easier to find the job if you have more connections.