Jot Thought

Well, we’re officially in hiring mode. Business is so strong that we need help asap. After doing lots of research and advice gathering on general employment (and there’s a lot,) we got down to business by writing up a couple of job descriptions and heading out into the world seeking great talent. Our methods to date have consisted of:

1. Posting on our web site
2. Posting on free sites like rubynow.com and rubyrockstars.com
3. Posting on paid sites like jobs.37signals.com and linkedin.com (we also used their free posting to our own networks)
4. Posting on the Stanford and Berkeley job boards
5. Announcing open positions at local ruby meetups
6. Posting on various message boards to which we belong
7. Sending out requests for recommendations to friends and family

The results have been interesting so we thought we’d share.

37signal’s job board, at $300 a post, generated the most traffic to our site, but not the highest number of applicants. In fact, we got as many inquiries through the free ruby boards as through 37signals. We’ve had the most luck from the meetups (fewer candidates, but much higher quality) and using LinkedIn (great candidates through our own network and more submissions through their paid listings than any other source - which is a good deal since they only charge $145 a post)

We also encountered a couple of unexpected results:

1. A ton of recruiters and staffing firms submitted to our jobs form. Suffice to say, we’re not willing to pay fees of up to 30% of first year’s salary.
2. We had a number of folks contact us looking for help obtaining an H1-b visa or sponsoring them for one they already have.

All in all, we’ve actually met a number of really promising candidates, and have one who’s accepted our position of web developer. You’ll hear more about him when he starts in a few weeks:-)