How To Use GitHub Advanced Search For Recruiters

The demand for tech talent is substantial, but the pool of experienced candidates is in brief offer. It also does not support that unemployment is low, as it additional narrows down your expertise pool and tends to make it tougher to find fantastic staff. 

With opposition for tech talent superior, you’re possible looking for new and impressive methods to identify, entice and recruit outstanding tech professionals. This report will aid you do just that by outlining a exclusive sourcing tactic, Github innovative lookup. You are going to study what Github is as properly as why and how you need to resource tech experts from the system.

Desk of Contents

What is GitHub?

GitHub is a cloud-primarily based social sharing site. Rather of sharing daily life updates, position postings or pics, on the other hand, GitHub users share code. The platform operates on an open-supply framework, meaning the code is open up to the general public and can be altered by anyone. The improvements are tracked by way of the platform’s Git revision regulate method (that’s why the title GitHub), so end users can see how code alterations from its primary type. 

Why Recruit on GitHub?

In this working day and age, just about every single firm requirements pros with coding, building or programming expertise. No matter if you are updating your firm’s site or developing an app, you want software program engineers and program builders — each of which are some of the most in-demand from customers roles in the occupation industry. 

Employers need to get a lot more strategic with their sourcing ways if they want to conquer out the competitiveness and attract leading application engineering expertise. Since tech professionals have countless task opportunities, they are not actively on the lookout for jobs or updating their digital resumes. They are also not heading to respond to the extensive list of recruiters striving to join and get them to apply.

As an alternative, for those challenging to retain the services of technological roles, you need to have to satisfy talent on the platforms they repeated. For most software program engineers and builders, that system is GitHub. 

How to Recruit with GitHub State-of-the-art Research

In get to uncover great software engineers and developers on GitHub, you initial want to fully grasp how the system operates and what to search for. Start by developing an account on GitHub that involves facts on your corporation.

Moreover, build a candidate persona so you know what to look for throughout your search. Your candidate persona should include things like information and facts like site, expertise, training, programming language and capabilities.

Equivalent to other social sharing websites, GitHub customers have profiles with the following data:

• Standard: Title, Site, Date joined, Deal with (or monitor title)
• Experienced: Career title, Employer, Education and learning, Expertise, Web site, Speak to facts
• General public activity
• Followers/Subsequent
• Forks (code that’s been copied)
• Resources (authentic code from person)
• Stars (GitHub’s version of likes)

GitHub profiles also consist of a calendar graph of when and how lots of contributions a person has manufactured to open up source code in the previous 12 months.

Furthermore, there is a part termed repositories, or “repos”, which are destinations on the platform where open up-resource improvement assignments or software offers are stored. On a user’s profile, you can see which repositories the consumer has worked on and how a lot their operate has been starred or forked. Repositories give you perception into what languages and skills a consumer has demonstrated, which is a great deal additional educational than bullet details on a resume. 

Look for for Candidate Personas

Repositories are a goldmine for recruiters looking for unique information to come across aptly experienced industry experts. Dependent on what you are on the lookout for, GitHub breaks down a variety of research inquiries and how to employ their web site to slender down your success.

Yet again, your prospect persona will help you ascertain what you need in your subsequent computer software developer or engineer, so make guaranteed you comprehensive that to start with. Here are the most common methods to research for users by requirements on GitHub: 

• Language
• Quantity of followers
• Variety of forks (copied code)
• Selection of stars (likes)
• Subject or variety of matters
• License
• Repository sizing, name, description, or contents of the README file
• Inside of a user’s or organization’s repositories
• Look for dependent on the contents of a repository
• Research based mostly on no matter if a repository is a mirror
• Lookup based mostly on whether or not a repository is archived
• Research centered on the quantity of issues with great first difficulty or enable wanted labels

Dependent on your look for metrics, you can reorganize the search effects you get by most effective match, most followers, fewest followers, most not long ago joined, least lately joined, most repositories and fewest repositories. While it could seem counter-intuitive to locate individuals with handful of followers or repositories, if you might be on the lookout for a junior software engineer, this can be beneficial to locate men and women new to the subject.

Slim Down Major Candidates

As you start to recognize industry experts that resonate with your group and replicate the candidate persona you established for the position, you can get started narrowing down your possibilities further by seeking for far more particular conditions, this kind of as:

• Location (site:chicago)
• Expertise (language:ruby)
• Followers (followers:<100)

On the profiles that stand out, make sure to take note of important information on their profiles, like:

• Name 
• Job title
• Email
• Website
• Public activity

Additionally, you can use Boolean search tactics on Google to further narrow your search on GitHub. Boolean search is like a DIY version of advanced search fields, and using Boolean search in recruitment saves time sourcing candidates, ultimately reducing your cost-per-hire.

Let’s break down some examples of how to use Boolean search to find information on Github. 

URL: AND SITE:

You can search for results on a specific website by entering the URL: or site: Boolean search operator to target specific candidates on GitHub (or any other site for that matter). You can use this search to narrow down candidates by keywords, like their job title, current company, location, skills and language. 

Boolean Search Example

• site:github.com software AND (engineer OR developer) AND ~resume -job -jobs -hire -hiring

*Do not include an extra spacing between operators. Follow the format above exactly.

This is an example of a search query for someone looking for:

• Candidates on GitHub (site:github.com) 
• Who are software developers or software engineers (AND (engineer OR developer))
• Who have a resume or something similar (~resume)
• And wants to exclude any job postings (-job -jobs -hire -hiring)

INTITLE: / INTEXT: / INURL:

You can also utilize Boolean search tactics to search GitHub for resume pages or links within a website. Candidates often create websites with digital portfolios and professional documents. Such documents are often uploaded under a file name that includes “resume” or “CV.” Use the following search string to locate those downloadable documents on GitHub.

Boolean Search Example

• site:github.com (inurl:resume OR inurl:CV) software AND (engineer OR developer) -job -jobs -hire -hiring

*Note: intext: searches the body text of a web page, whereas inurl: searches within a URL.

This example is for recruiters who are looking for:

• Candidates on github (site:github.com) 

• With a downloadable resume or CV ((inurl:resume OR inurl:CV))

• Who are software developers or software engineers ((software AND (engineer OR developer))

• Excluding any job postings (-job -jobs -hire -hiring)

Connect with Candidates 

Once you’ve identified a few prospective candidates you want to pursue, do your due diligence and learn as much as you can about them before connecting. Go onto other social platforms and search their name to see where they’ve worked and what projects they’ve worked on. The more information you gather, the more personalized your message can be, and the better chance you’ll have at standing out from other employer inquiries.

Consider the projects they’ve worked on in the past and inform them of similar or more challenging projects your job opportunity has to offer. If you know their interests, you can identify how they will add to your company culture, and you can share elements of your culture that will entice them to take a closer look at your company.

Most profiles have a public email address so you can reach out to candidates and add them to your talent pipeline. Even if they’re not interested in your job opportunity now, it doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in your company altogether. You can always ask them to join your talent community so they can hear about open positions in the future.

In the event that they are interested in pursuing your offer, prepare your team for how to handle salary negotiations. In a candidate driven market where tech talent is scarce, these candidates know they’re in high demand and will wait around for the best opportunity. Having a solid negotiation strategy will make sure you’re prepared to meet the candidate’s expectations while staying within your budget for the role. 

GitHub is one of the best resources out there for companies looking to find exceptional tech talent. All it takes is a little learning and adaptation to optimize your search tactics on their website. Once you get in the swing of things, you’ll become faster and more efficient at finding the specific candidate personas your team needs to drive business and boost your culture. Continue to grow your tech recruiting expertise by brushing up on additional tech recruiter resources.