Have I now correctly counter-denominated? With the colon? Write me gladly, if it's wrong ... Man(n):Frau lernt ja nie aus ...
I am incredibly happy with the results of my search. In fact, the attempt to write a very personal job description apparently resulted in significantly fewer candidates being found initially.
And at this point also a very big thanks to all those who have shared my posts or simply helped in the search!
Yikes and Yuck
Whereas in previous processes I often had up to 100-300 applications, now I've had just 20 in the first two weeks. But they've got a lot to live up to!
The classic way was to post a job profile mainly in portals like Infojobs here in Spain. These are also really well done, which makes it very easy for the applicant to send you his CV. And it is made very easy for you to reject him or to bring him further forward in the process.
The point is: this simplicity pays off. You receive an incredible amount of CVs. Rarely with a personal cover letter. In Spain, they almost never include references or certificates. So you have to work through an incredibly large number of CVs and try to make a good selection.
Not as easy as it sounds
I've always found that difficult. On the one hand, it's really boring. On the other hand, I honestly don't really care at which universities my candidate studied and when. At most, I can try to interpret why he only ever lasted half a year with his respective employers. Or basically try to use other potential negative factors to reduce the pile.
Why me?
But what I always missed was: Why does the candidate want to work for us or for me? What appeals to him? What does he or she envision?
Of course, almost never in these mass CV mailings does an applicant write you a personal text explaining their own motives. And that's what makes it pretty worthless for me, to be honest.
How does the process work?
I finally tried to make the funnel narrower at the front. I would always advise against this. But if the result is obvious, that the later selection is possibly also fed by general conclusions that make little sense in individual cases, then we have to make sure that we inform each other better, don't we?
I was told a lot that no one would bother. And that I run the risk that no one would apply.
Therefore, I have tried to explain my own motives with my own personal letter to potential candidates, which thankfully many of you have spread on social media. Which are certainly not compatible with every possible candidate. Which is perfectly fine!
However, after I had been diligent myself, I then felt more able in good conscience to ask my candidates to write something as well. I then pre-formulated five questions that should at least be a guideline as to what I would like to learn from the candidate.
Where to apply?
I still had a paid job ad in LinkedIn in the beginning. By the way, I posted it after LinkedIn aggressively promoted the free job ad. Seconds later, it strongly recommends that you spend some money every day to get more applicants.
Of course I fell for it ... I took it out after the first calculation and didn't notice a big difference in the number of incoming applications. Which of course can be a specific effect for this job posting, which had a very good organic distribution.
Instagram "brought" a few candidates, Facebook was negligible. I noticed in particular that the reposting with the emotionally naturally charged image ("office by the sea") worked great.
In Facebook, I think only the groups still work. For example, we usually only look for housekeeping staff in certain Facebook groups where there are a lot of applicants for this job.
And the technology?
All self-made with on-board tools. The website predatorsl.com runs on WordPress, the plugin for the forms is called Formidable Forms.
When the user submits the form, the system sends the data to MAKE (formerly INTEGROMAT). There, the data is written to a self-hosted database. In this database, each of the authorized internal users can easily select whether they want to arrange a Google Meet with the candidate. Or send a nice rejection.
The process then continues, sometimes with different internal colleagues working together, until through various predefined stages there is either a hire or a rejection from us or from the candidate.
If you are interested in how to build such a system (took less than a day), write me in the comments. Then I'll try my hand at a tutorial.
And do you already have someone?
In fact, I had so many good applicants that I could already make two decisions. And both candidates, fortunately, wanted to. I decided in the process that I would change the role a bit and distribute it among several heads.
The first surprise for me was that a candidate had applied who had worked for me before. I'm sure many of you remember him from Holiday Rental and I'm happy to say that Anatol is "back on board"!
Then I was able to hire Sebastian, who will start in March. And is already helping me diligently. But both will still introduce themselves, I do not want to anticipate.
And: there are still talks going on. Let me surprise you, I will keep you up to date! Give me feedback if you are interested in such "internals" at all. And if so, whether more in technical or more in prosaic design 😉
