Salsa dancing has never been on Melissa Cardiff’s resume. 
As a Business Development Manager and Senior Technical Recruiter at Harvey Nash, she has a great pulse on the technology market – what talent is available, what it costs and what her clients want. She’s connected to the candidates, and her colleagues say she’s one of the fastest, hardest workers they’ve ever met. But salsa dancing? Cardiff has never touted that skill. Well, at least not until she reinvented her recruiting process. As the veteran recruiter tells it, “In the old days, I loved being able to find someone who could just spell ‘Java.’ But it doesn’t work like that anymore. There aren’t any great, easy-to-find tech candidates.” 
So Cardiff was inevitably forced to transform the way she targeted tech talent. She had to work faster and more efficiently. She needed to discover new ways to access those “silver platter” passives. And, she absolutely had to switch her approach to get tech pros to respond, instead of just shutting her out, without a trace. “My world is nothing but uphill,” explains Cardiff. “There is no such thing as an ‘easy order.’ The majority of the requirements are super hard-to-find engineers. They exist – but you have to look under every rock.” Thankfully, as Melissa tells it, Open Web™ allows her to do just that. “When I first started using Open Web, it was like ‘Oh my gosh!” says Cardiff. Cardiff is “a true believer in Open Web,” because it aggregates data from 50 social networks and billions of webpages, giving her access to millions more tech professionals – including those really unique candidates. But that’s just the start. 
Because Open Web also serves up a candidate’s social footprint, it gives Cardiff quick, easy access into each tech pro’s social profiles. Cardiff explains, “Today, a lot of my clients have a pre-requisite that every candidate must be on GitHub – or don’t bother sending. I love that Open Web gives me quick insight into all of their social profiles. That makes me fast. I can really hustle.” With almost 16 years of experience, this inventive recruiter knows all too well that success doesn’t just come from pleasing her current clients. No – it’s also essential to build a talent pipeline. That’s why Open Web is her second favorite asset, next to the resume. “I’m always trying to be proactive, especially on those super hard Python engineers, Ruby on Rails, or even the Java engineers you can’t find nowadays,” she says. “If I see someone on Open Web that looks great, but I don’t have the resume in-hand, I’ll cut and paste their Open Web profile into my ATS and keep it for the future.” But what Cardiff is most enthusiastic about is the record-breaking response rates she’s getting from personalizing her pitch. “My life is so much easier with Open Web, because it gives me instant access to a candidate’s email address,” she explains. “Plus, the info that’s included in the profiles is almost like a dating site. I can find something that both myself and the candidate connect to, and then I personalize my message around it.” Which brings us back to salsa dancing. Though she’s never danced the tango, Cardiff recently texted a candidate about his dancing interest, and not only did he respond – but he stays in touch. 
A successful approach? You bet. And that’s just one instance. Since reinventing her recruiting approach, Cardiff says Open Web is now contributing to more than 50 percent of tech candidates added to her pipeline. “It’s opened up a window into talent that I didn’t’ have access to before,” says this avid Harvey Nash recruiter. “I love Open Web so much; I’d like to thank the guy who created it. It’s genius.” Watch this short video to see what else Melissa loves about Open Web.
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Melissa Cardiff is a Business Development Manager and Senior Technical Recruiter at Harvey Nash USA, a global professional recruitment firm committed to delivering talent and IT solutions to some of the world’s leading businesses. With almost 16 years of experience in full life cycle recruiting, Cardiff has a strong record of consistently meeting and exceeding her recruiting goals – even in highly competitive markets. In fact, at Harvey Nash, she’s known as the “go-to-gal for discovering those candidates that just can’t be found.” Her recruiting priorities for 2014 include Java, Systems and Python Engineers, Front End Developers and Business Process Consultants. @HarveyNashUSA