How To Use GitHub Advanced Search For Recruiters

The need for tech talent is substantial, but the pool of skilled candidates is in short offer. It also doesn’t aid that unemployment is reduced, as it more narrows down your expertise pool and helps make it more durable to find fantastic staff. 

With competition for tech expertise large, you are possible wanting for new and progressive approaches to determine, bring in and recruit remarkable tech industry experts. This post will assistance you do just that by conveying a exceptional sourcing tactic, Github highly developed look for. You’ll learn what Github is as well as why and how you really should source tech professionals from the system.

Desk of Contents

What is GitHub?

GitHub is a cloud-based social sharing web page. In its place of sharing existence updates, work postings or photos, even so, GitHub buyers share code. The system runs on an open-source framework, that means the code is open to the standard community and can be altered by everyone. The alterations are tracked by means of the platform’s Git revision control procedure (therefore the name GitHub), so consumers can see how code variations from its primary kind. 

Why Recruit on GitHub?

In this working day and age, just about each and every enterprise requirements industry experts with coding, creating or programming expertise. Whether you’re updating your company’s internet site or developing an app, you need to have software package engineers and software program builders — both of which are some of the most in-demand roles in the work market place. 

Businesses will need to get additional strategic with their sourcing ways if they want to defeat out the competitors and attract leading application engineering talent. Simply because tech pros have unlimited occupation alternatives, they are not actively on the lookout for work opportunities or updating their digital resumes. They are also not heading to answer to the extended listing of recruiters trying to link and get them to implement.

Rather, for these hard to employ technological roles, you need to have to satisfy expertise on the platforms they recurrent. For most application engineers and developers, that system is GitHub. 

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

In get to come across excellent software engineers and builders on GitHub, you initial require to comprehend how the platform is effective and what to look for. Start off by developing an account on GitHub that incorporates facts on your firm.

In addition, generate a applicant persona so you know what to seem for for the duration of your search. Your candidate persona must include things like information and facts like site, practical experience, training, programming language and competencies.

Comparable to other social sharing web sites, GitHub consumers have profiles with the adhering to facts:

• Standard: Title, Place, Day joined, Deal with (or display title)
• Expert: Task title, Employer, Training, Capabilities, Site, Get hold of facts
• Public action
• Followers/Subsequent
• Forks (code that’s been copied)
• Resources (authentic code from consumer)
• Stars (GitHub’s variation of likes)

GitHub profiles also incorporate a calendar graph of when and how lots of contributions a consumer has produced to open supply code in the previous year.

Additionally, there is a portion termed repositories, or “repos”, which are areas on the system where by open up-source enhancement initiatives or program offers are stored. On a user’s profile, you can see which repositories the user has labored on and how substantially their operate has been starred or forked. Repositories give you insight into what languages and skills a consumer has shown, which is substantially extra educational than bullet points on a resume. 

Look for for Prospect Personas

Repositories are a goldmine for recruiters hunting for distinct information to come across aptly proficient specialists. Based on what you’re looking for, GitHub breaks down a wide variety of search inquiries and how to make use of their site to slender down your final results.

Once again, your candidate persona will support you establish what you require in your future application developer or engineer, so make sure you comprehensive that to start with. Right here are the most typical methods to search for buyers by conditions on GitHub: 

• Language
• Amount of followers
• Range of forks (copied code)
• Variety of stars (likes)
• Subject matter or amount of topics
• License
• Repository measurement, title, description, or contents of the README file
• Inside a user’s or organization’s repositories
• Research based mostly on the contents of a repository
• Research based mostly on regardless of whether a repository is a mirror
• Lookup based on no matter whether a repository is archived
• Lookup dependent on the number of concerns with good very first concern or assist wanted labels

Based on your look for metrics, you can reorganize the research success you get by most effective match, most followers, fewest followers, most a short while ago joined, the very least lately joined, most repositories and fewest repositories. While it may well feel counter-intuitive to discover individuals with number of followers or repositories, if you might be on the lookout for a junior software engineer, this can be helpful to uncover individuals new to the area.

Slim Down Major Candidates

As you commence to establish industry experts that resonate with your staff and replicate the prospect persona you made for the function, you can get started narrowing down your choices more by seeking for a lot more particular standards, these kinds of as:

• Spot (location: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.