Where can your technology business find great Millennial talent? Sure, techie job search websites like Dice.com remain popular. And when it comes to the IT channel, keep a close eye (and contribute) to our own ChannelE2E Job Board.
Other options? I've been surprised by the traction we found over the years using good old... CraigsList job boards.
Yup. If you look at some of the talent we recruited and mentored during our days running and building our previous company (2008-2011), CraigsList delivered for us at least four times. That's where we first connected with aspiring technology bloggers like CJ Arlotta, David Courbanou, Nicholas Mukhar and Matt Weinberger. They each succeeded in their freelance run for us.
And all four have gone on to great opportunities, including:
- CJ Arlotta ran Talkin' Cloud (one of the sites Amy Katz and I built and then sold to Penton Media in 2011) and now runs a Haymarket Media website focused on health care.
- David Courbanou is now a help desk guru in New York -- and he's still one of the best Apple experts we know.
- Nicholas Mukhar is now a senior finance writer at Adaptive Insights.
- Matt Weinberger has made multiple career moves, climbing to a key content position at Business Insider.
While all four had vastly different personalities and covered different beats for us, they did share some key similarities:
1. Constant follow-up: As we contemplated potential freelance engagements, all four followed up with us in a proactive way to keep the conversation moving forward.
2. Text or Google Docs, please: Voicemail and phone conversations were rare -- but they did happen. Most of our pressing items were handled via text messages and Google Docs.
3. Road warriors: Each was willing to hit the road for us, flying to a range of conferences across the country and representing our brands at the time in a professional manner.
4. Networkers: They weren't shy about building sources across the industry -- and staying in touch with us once they moved on to new opportunities.
Of course, we also did our homework as well. We received hundreds of resumes from our CraigsList ads. Pouring through all those submissions to find a few promising candidates to hours of effort. Next, mentoring the most promising candidates required ample time describing the channel, the history of IT, and plenty more.
Still, their respective talent was impressive from the get-go. And we continue to watch and respect their continued career success from afar.
