A Recruiter's Guide to Sourcing Talent on GitHub

We've been talking a lot about different online recruiting strategies lately. Recently, we discussed some general techniques, and in a previous article, I covered some tips for locating and reaching out to talent on LinkedIn, the world's leading social media site for connecting professionals and finding jobs.

In many ways, LinkedIn is undoubtedly a gold mine for recruiters looking to source great talent. But as we discussed previously, there are also some significant downfalls to LinkedIn. For many recruiters, it's a great starting point, but it represents one of the most basic sources of candidates available.

So, in this article, we'll cover GitHub, a sort of social media platform for software developers to host their projects and connect with like-minded users.

Why LinkedIn Isn't Always Enough

LinkedIn is a great starting point because there are so many users, many actively searching for new job opportunities on there. However, this also means that it may be hard to find specific, specialized talent among the hordes of users who are unrelated or unqualified for more advanced roles, such as software engineering.

If you're looking for this sort of talent, you shouldn't limit your search to LinkedIn. In fact, you may forego LinkedIn altogether in favor of more specific sources. For specialized technical talent, you should consider searching for and reaching out to potential candidates via GitHub.

Let's talk a little bit about GitHub and why it's a great source of potential talent.

What is GitHub?

You're likely familiar with the concept of open-source software: the copyright holder allows the software's code to be modified and redistributed by the public. This is the principle that GitHub is built around. Software developers use it to upload versions of their projects, track the changes made with each software iteration, and then share the code for feedback and input from the public. You can think of it like a social media platform where users can have followers, star (or "like") projects, and share information about their qualifications and skills.

Why Should Tech Recruiters Use It?

Technical recruiting is not easy. Software developers and engineers are some of the hardest positions to fill out there, despite how lucrative they can be. Many, if not most, technical candidates are passive, which means they aren't really actively looking for work, usually because they're already in a role they're happy with.

That being the case, their LinkedIn profiles may not also be up to date, if they have one at all. LinkedIn is a great resource, especially for more generalized roles, but chances are you'll have to dig a little deeper in order to find truly qualified talent.

Although GitHub isn't made specifically for recruiting, staffing, and finding jobs like LinkedIn is, it's still an incredibly valuable resource you should consider when hiring for specialized technical roles. Chances are that developers are much more active on GitHub than they are on LinkedIn. Therefore, the information will be up-to-date and especially relevant for the role you're looking for. It's common to find contact information on GitHub, and you can also consider reaching out to them via the platform itself. Best of all, it's completely free.

How to Find Talent on GitHub

Even though it's not made specifically for hiring, GitHub contains plenty of helpful features to help you locate and narrow down candidates with the skills and qualifications that you're looking for. First, let's break down the elements of a typical GitHub profile to see how they are valuable for learning more about your potential candidates.

Deconstructing a GitHub Profile

A typical GitHub profile gives users the opportunity to display a variety of information. Keep in mind that not every user chooses to display this to the public, but the more you can find here, the easier it should be to reach out to them.

• Username: This is self-explanatory; it's the name they use to sign in to their account. Their username may not be terribly important to us as recruiters, but be sure to take note of it in case you want to try to locate the candidate on another platform—they might use the same username.
• Current Employer: This is important to take note of. Passive candidates can be especially difficult to engage, but you can gain some insight into their current salary and benefits by doing some research on their current role and employer, allowing you to approach them with a more competitive, lucrative offer.
• Location: Keep this in mind if you're looking for candidates in a specific location. It will be less relevant for recruiters hiring for remote roles.
• Email Address: Obviously, this is an incredibly valuable piece of information to look out for, but it's not always available. If you find yourself viewing a profile without a public email address, there is a potential workaround. Locate one of the user's repositories and then find commits by the user. Commits are like saved snapshots of a user's project. Click on a commit ID, and you may be able to locate a user's email in the commit information. It should be noted, though, that users have the option to hide their emails from commit information as well. If you're unable to locate a user's email and since there's no direct messaging feature on GitHub, you can try reaching out to the user via a comment on one of their projects. This is also where you might consider searching their username on other platforms for contact information.
• Website: Users can choose to display links to relevant websites on their profile. Consider searching these for more information you can use to your advantage.
• Followers: Here is another important section of a GitHub user's profile. The follower count can give you a great indication of their skill and reputation. Unlike other social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, users on GitHub don't have thousands of followers. In fact, numerous sources indicate that anywhere from a handful of followers is good, while a very respectable number is between 11 and 25. Having 26 to 75 followers is great, and anything beyond that likely belongs to a significant figure in the open-source community. Chances are, the more followers a user has, the harder they'll be to engage. Just something to keep in mind, as it's very competitive.
• Contributions: Beginning with the user's contributions, the technical details of a user's activities are where you'll really want to start paying attention. Along with repositories, forks, and stars, you can get a good idea of a candidate's skills, qualifications, and the overall quality of their work. Contributions represent input or changes made to other users' projects. Keep an eye out for relevant keywords within the contribution titles. For instance, look for C++ if you're looking for a developer who uses that particular programming language.
• Repositories: Repositories are the developer's own projects they've posted to GitHub. You can see how popular a particular user's projects are by looking at the number of stars (think of them as GitHub's version of "likes"), as well as the number of forks.
• Forks: A fork is a copy of a repository made by another user in order to use it in some way. They may incorporate code or a function into their own projects or iterate on the repository to make their own offshoot of the software. The more forks a repository has, the more popular it is.

Mastering the Search

Now that we've broken down the valuable elements of a user's profile, we can then start the search process.

Start with an Account

It's important to first create an account on GitHub. You won't get very far without this one. Non-users are very restricted and won't be able to access certain parts of users' accounts or search functions without first logging in. You may consider developing your user profile a bit if you intend to continue to use GitHub.

Advanced Searching: GitHub Filters and Google Boolean Searches

You can search for users directly on GitHub using several search parameters. Adjust them to match the type of candidate you're looking for.

• If you're looking for users with experience in a particular programming language, you can use the language: tag, like: language:javascript
• For a specific location, use the location: tag, like so: location:"boston or new york" You can skip this if you're looking for a remote, work-from-home candidate.
• Finally, depending on how well-established of a candidate you're looking for, you can also use the followers: tag to define a range of the amount of followers a user should have, separated by two periods. Here's an example: followers:10..20

While these parameters are valuable for searching within GitHub, you can get even more specific by going to Google and using what are known as Boolean strings. These are almost like mathematical formulas you can create in order to narrow down your search parameters. The key to keep in mind when using Google to search specific sites is to use the site: tag. For GitHub, it looks like this:

site:github.com

Reaching Out to Potential Candidates

Once you've defined your search parameters, there's one last step to do in order to locate users. By default, GitHub displays repository results. Make sure you filter the results to "Users" on the left-hand side of the screen in order to see results relevant to you.

Once you've located potential candidates, you can then begin to reach out to them, either via email, a comment on their GitHub repository, or elsewhere. Remember that research and personalization are key to engaging users.

This just about wraps up this brief overview on how to utilize GitHub to source talent. This is only one way of doing so, and you may have your own methods of utilizing the platform.