How to Use Slack for Recruiting

Slack. Do you use it? A great way of making people communicate within organizations. But did you realize it can also be used for recruiting? I’ve spoken to our great buddy Angela Bortolussi to get the scoop.

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What is Slack all about?

Right now with Slack, I think the best way that I can describe it to anyone is it’s a messaging app for teams. They initially launched, I think, back in 2013. So it was used as a tool to really cut down email, and it provides more fluidity in conversation and just really having the ability to share knowledge amongst an organization.

Now, since then Slack has become this new sort of phenomenon in terms of communication. So it’s not only used by organizations, just people in general…it’s essentially a tool that connects people with a general interest.

So, for example, you can go into a Slack community and talk about, for example, marketing, it could be about social media, it could be about, maybe getting up to speed on a specific technology. So it’s a platform for people to really engage in conversation in real-time as well.

Why would we be using Slack for recruiting?

So my background is in technology and product recruitment. From my experience in technology recruitment, I’m finding that more gainfully employed, engineers, for example, are spending less time on like LinkedIn and checking InMails, which for us being in the business of recruitment, is difficult because we want to engage with them about opportunities, but obviously, they are bombarded with messages from all recruiters around the country.

So when I first got introduced to Slack I found it to be a recruiting platform where I could connect with talent and able to have really more intimate conversations with people and again, going back to that real-time conversation. You can engage with them at that moment about, really, about anything.

And a nice thing about Slack is when you think of it from a recruitment perspective you’re really honing in on their turf. So if it’s a topic, for example, about maybe AngularJS, you can start a conversation about their interest and then, you know, kind of gradually get into opportunities that might interest them with your employer.

What’s a step-by-step approach to using Slack for recruiting?

1. I think my number one rule if you’re going to use this as a recruitment tool, is really to step up your knowledge, Slack offers on their website so many great demonstration videos on what the social media platform is, and how to navigate around channels.
2. And then I think the next step is finding out the purpose behind your Slack channel that interests you. For example, if you’re looking for product managers, maybe find a relevant channel that might be of interest to product managers in terms of just the topics of the conversation that they’re talking about, perhaps job opportunities that they could be talking about within that channel. Right now, I think Slack, they’ve probably got about 300 communities happening right now, so it can get a little bit confusing to see all the Slack channels in which one would be of interest, so, I think right now it’s just best to hone in on ones that pick your interest as a recruiter and, of course, understanding who your audience is within those Slack communities as well.
3. And then I think it’s really important to step up your Slack etiquette, is what I call it, so really in this case when you go into a Slack channel, because what happens is when you go into a Slack channel you actually have to get invited to that Slack channel.  So, once you get invited by the administration person within that community, I would say reach out to them directly just to understand the rules and the regulations and best practices within that community and know they’ll be quite transparent as well.
4. After you get the lay of the land of the Slack community then I would just kind of navigate around just to see what other channels are within that community. So, for example, if there is a job or career channel, check it out because that’s a great opportunity for recruiters to post the jobs that they’re essentially looking to fill. And of course, within those Slack channels, it’s a free place to post jobs, and I think that the really cool thing about Slack, is that we can use it as an extension of our recruitment best practices as well.
5. So once you find a channel that really interests you, then you can really start engaging with people in terms of the topics of conversation. So, someone might be talking about their interest in using like AWS, for example. Find out what interests them about AWS and then you can actually use that in conversations with candidates as well. So it’s almost like as a recruiter you know what you’re talking about in some way or form.

Where exactly do you find Slack channels?

They aren’t listed on the Slack website. So that’s another little obstacle when it comes to finding Slack channels. So there are websites like slacklist.info, Chit Chats is another great tool to find Slack channels. Usually sometimes what I’ll do is I just do a basic Google search to find out, for example, a .NET Slack channel or it could be a marketing Slack channel. I think just doing a quick search like that you’ll get a lot of results as well. It just takes a little bit of time just to go through which Slack channel might interest you, but that’s the best start just in terms of finding one.

With is the Slack etiquette do’s and don’ts?

I think, well, in terms of Slack etiquette as I was mentioning, not being spammy, writing with purpose, and really introducing yourself. So one example that I can give to that I would say if you are posting on the jobs or career channel I would usually introduce myself. So, “Hi, I’m Angela. I’m a recruiting manager at Recruiting Social. I’m looking to hire a senior software engineer in the San Francisco area. These are the particular skills that I’m looking for. This is not a remote position, this is an onsite position”. And then I would provide the link to get more information and then put my email and then LinkedIn profile.

So, it gives people that are in that group a lot of visibility on who I am as a recruiter and being very transparent with why in that particular channel posting the information. And then, if anyone has any additional questions, they’re more than welcome to send me a Slack message.

Have you calculated the ROI of using Slack for recruiting purposes?

That’s another excellent question because I often come across that, what is it in terms of Slack that makes it a better tool than other social media platforms. And in this case, I wouldn’t say it’s a better tool, I’d say in terms of just how we use social media, I think, social media in general is not a new thing to the recruitment practice. I think how we’re leveraging it is something new.

So, again, using Slack is just an extension of your other tools that I’m sure that many of us, recruiters use. I think one important thing to note when it comes to using Slack right now, there’s probably as I mentioned about 300 Slack channels out there with nearly 3 million daily active users.

With this particular product I don’t know any other product that creates this entire sort of ecosystem around conversation, right? And I think that the main sort of key thing to remember is that it’s in real-time chat. It’s not where an email where there’s that delay, it’s not a LinkedIn message where there’s that’s delay. This actual conversation is happening right at that moment. So, the engagement can be really high for many recruiters.

What are your favorite Slack integrations?

One cool tool that I’ve come across is called Blitz. It’s a free app that allows for instant messaging when you are engaging with candidates. For example, suppose I were to send a message to a candidate on LinkedIn or maybe via email. In that case, I could send a link via Blitz and it would invite the candidate into my Slack channel, where we could actually engage in conversation rather than sending a bunch of emails back and forth. So, it gives that fluidity in conversation as well.

I’m obsessed with Giphy. I think Giphy would definitely be my number one. I know a lot of the engineers that I’ve been chatting with have a preference with GitHub as well. I would say Blitz like I said the app that I was just mentioning is really kind of cool tool to check out. Appear is excellent as well.

Follow Angela on Twitter @ABortolusssi.