How one internal recruiter at a New York tech startup uses Open Web to personalize her approach – and add 75% more talent to her pipeline. “All recruiters are salespeople. At the end of the day, we all have to sell the job. But, I’m not interested in just putting warm bodies in seats. I want to find the right fit, and during the entire process, treat candidates like the people they are.” That’s exactly the total-person approach that Jennifer Valenti, an internal recruiter at a New York tech startup, uses to recruit tech pros every day. But doing this kind of research takes a lot of heavy lifting – and time. So Valenti has turned to Dice’s new
Open Web social recruiting tool to automate up to 95% of the drudgery. “I used to run a lot of back channel searches – first to find resumes and then to Google candidates to see if they were a match. But with Open Web, I can easily see all of the social information I used to dig so hard to obtain. I can get a glimpse of the person – which tells me right away if I should reach out.”
By reviewing tech pros’ work on the sites they frequent via Open Web, this networking superstar dramatically increases her chances of making a connection. When she approaches a candidate, she knows who she’s dealing with – and it shows. Recently, Valenti found a software engineer on Open Web, and after skimming through his latest tweets, was able to reach out to him with a very unique message. She tweeted, “LOL. You made my day. I love my job, but recruiting people with a sense of humor is key for me.” The tech pro not only tweeted back in a matter of minutes, but he liked her approach so much that Valenti was able to take the conversation offline. What’s more, he’s actually referring tech candidates to her as a result of their mutual relationship – a crucial recruitment strategy, especially for a small startup with little brand awareness. Valenti’s quick to attribute her success to Dice’s social recruiting tool, saying, “Because I could see a candidate’s Open Web summary and recent tweets, we engaged on a whole new level. I don’t think it would have transpired otherwise.”
In addition to using Open Web to take much of the drudgery out of sourcing, Valenti is also boasting strong ROI – both in dollars and a 25% uptick in candidate quality. In total, by leveraging Open Web, she’s added 75% more tech talent to her pipeline, and saved up to 95% of time in the process. “Not only is Open Web saving me huge amounts of time, but it’s putting the human touch back into recruiting. It’s amazing,” says Valenti. “If you aren’t using it, you’re missing a huge opportunity.”
About Jennifer Valenti Internal Recruiter 
Jennifer Valenti is an Internal Recruiter at what she calls an “A-Maz-Ing” startup. With more than three years of recruiting experience, this self-described “social media guru slash networking superhero” absolutely loves making 1:1 connections with her recruits. Ask any of her co-workers, and they’ll tell you Valenti’s one of the friendliest and personable recruiters they know – with a great internal gut-read on people. Her priorities for 2014 include putting the human touch back into recruiting – especially when sourcing the best talent to help her startup build something truly amazing.
@JennBklynNY
