Filling technology vacancies has proved to be quite a challenge in recent years, and to get around it, you need to take advantage of all available tools. It was in this context that some HR professionals started to do recruiting developers on GitHub.
If you’ve never heard of this platform, don’t worry: despite being widely used by IT professionals, GitHub is still new to many recruiters – especially those who are just getting familiarized with the IT Recruiter universe.
Knowing this, today we are going to explain how this solution works and how you, the HR professional, can use it to your advantage when recruiting developers.
But, before I tell you about Hunting on GitHub, let’s do a little background check.
Demand for technology and IT professionals
Finding talent in the areas of technology was no longer so easy. However, with the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic and the rush of companies toward digital transformation, this scenario has intensified even more.
While companies had to invest more in technology, as many employees started to work remotely, their customers also had changed consumption habits and demanded even more digital resources.
As a consequence of this movement, the search for technology professionals has increased by more than 670% in 2020 alone, with more than 85,000 new vacancies being announced since the beginning of the pandemic in Brazil.
According to a study released by the Brazilian Association of Information and Communication Technology Companies (Brasscom), last year, our country will require 420,000 technology professionals by the year 2024.
However, Brazil currently trains only 46,000 professionals in the area per year – which, once again, reinforces the challenges that recruiters have faced when it comes to attracting and hiring talent on this front.
To be successful in this context, gaining agility in recruitment is essential. And that’s where the importance of GitHub comes in!
But what is this tool anyway?
GitHub is an online platform created to serve tech workers. In it, it is possible to host source codes and software files under development, including version control.
The tool also allows developers to collaborate on each other’s projects, from anywhere on the planet, as long as they are logged in as registered users.
The range of options that can be done on GitHub also includes code development in an online studio, with a desktop version for the developer’s computer.
Because it has such facilitating tools for professionals in the area, GitHub is widely used by developers – who, despite not being so easily found by HR, exist in droves!
These developers get together and exchange experiences through the provided community interface, which works more or less like a forum. This is exactly where GitHub gets interesting for recruiters.
Why can recruiting on GitHub be an IT Recruiter ally?
By working collaboratively and allowing contact between one developer and another, GitHub also ends up being a kind of social network. Every user, upon entering, needs to register, filling in a series of information.
Fields such as name, current employer, location, email, and even a brief summary of what they have had experiences need to be filled in by the developer who signs up on the platform. Thus, a profile is created.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but in the end, the GitHub profile ends up looking similar to the LinkedIn one, only much more niche.
In addition to being very positive for the developer, who creates an online portfolio with everything he has already developed and what he is working on, the platform also ends up being very advantageous for the recruiter.
After all, through GitHub, it is possible to navigate through the professional profile of users, and understand which area of development that person is most dedicated to if they are close to the vacancy you need to fill, among other factors.
If you are an IT Recruiter, creating a profile and starting to recruit developers on GitHub can be immensely helpful! Next, we will explain how to do this.
Step by step on recruiting on GitHub
To start recruiting on GitHub, the first step is to create an account on the platform.
For this, you will only need an email, username, and password. Ready! Guaranteed access to the platform and completely free of charge.
After accessing the GitHub website and registering, the second step is to use the search bar. Nothing far from what you already know on LinkedIn, the difference is only in the way you, the recruiter, will search for the bar.
As this is a developer platform, you will need to do more specific research.
Establish the parameters you want to look for in your candidates, such as location and type of programming language in which they must have the knowledge to meet your demand.
To make it clearer, you should type:
Language: name of the programming language you are looking for;
Location: Name of the city where the candidate must be or city where he must work if he is hired.
After performing the search, you will need to filter the results. First, select the “users” option so that only people are shown in your search.
There is also a language filter, which can be quite useful. When searching for the language, GitHub will search for everyone who, at some point, developed projects for that specific programming.
With this main language filter, the platform will only show users who regularly work with that type of project.
Then just look at the profiles and find the most suitable candidates! Contact is also very smooth, as GitHub allows users to chat.
Also, it is quite common for developers to leave link trees in their profiles with contact information and more items from their portfolios.
How to further improve the use of the tool
Now that you know how to do recruiting on GitHub, how about knowing two secrets to improve hunting on the platform? So let’s go…
A nice tip is that you know or have people who know about the technical aspects necessary to fill the vacancy. Analyzing the profiles with someone who understands the codes is essential for assertiveness.
Another point is that the information from GitHub, which can reach the developer’s favorite hobby, will give you the basis to research about it on other social networks and even start evaluating the cultural fit.
Technology as an ally of HR
Recruiting on GitHub is just one example of how digital tools can help HR when hiring IT professionals. But there are even more specialized solutions.
With GeekHunter’s software, for example, it is possible to hire skilled programmers in various technologies (such as back-end, front-end, mobile, and data science) in a more agile way.
The tool makes use of data intelligence to attract, pre-validate, and select the most engaged developers with the greatest technical potential for each vacancy.
To give you an idea, recently Fóton Informática, an IT company with almost 30 years in the market, reduced the time to hire developers by 85% by using GeekHunter. More precisely, 20 new hires were completed in just 6 months.
Is your company facing problems when hiring technology professionals and wanting to gain more agility on this front? Schedule a conversation with one of Geek’s consultants!
