[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WgitTkP4fc&w=560&h=349]

On the floor of the Tech Career Expo at SXSW I made an attempt to match up one recruiter and one job seeker. Each expressed what they were looking for and I tried my best to see if I could get them to connect. What was promising from both the recruiter and the job seeker was their desire to not just check boxes on a resume. Neither was looking for a specific type of job that required specific skills. The job seeker, Michael Yee, was looking for a possible challenge in technology, even though his background was in bioengineering. And the recruiter, Anderson Mills, a Senior Software Engineer with Reddwerks, was simply looking for problem solvers. Mills’ background is in electrical engineering and acoustics and now he does Java development for Reddwerks. Given that his background is similar to Yee’s, he’s very open to someone with a bioengineering background doing the same. Even though his title is software engineer, Mills is in full-blown recruiting mode because his company has put together the most impressive incentive for recruiting I’ve ever seen. They’re giving away a BMW to the employee who delivers the most referrals to hires and Mills is currently number one in the race.