Ashby’s “Less Obvious” Sourcing List

Looking to break out of the LinkedIn bubble? Ashby’s consulting team has put together this list of sourcing locations you might not have thought of.

1. Skill-relevant Slack communities

2. MeetUp communities

3. Github, Dribble, and other coding websites

Break-In Talent If you’re open to hobbyists, you come across gems of talent that aren’t full-time engineers, but would like to be.

4. School websites

5. “First 50” groups

Kicking Off With a Team If you’re hiring for an early-stage startup, there are many people who want to get in on the ground floor - first 50 groups will help you find them.

6. Programs for under-represented populations

Great Groups Identity-specific schools, clubs, bootcamps, and classes are a great way to source great talent from specific populations.

7. Hackathons

8. Quora

9. Gyms and fitness studios

Go Where The Talent Is If you have a role that requires heavy physical work an ad at a gym might do some “heavy lifting.”

10. eSports tournaments

11. Relevant subreddits

12. “Jams”

Coding and More While “code jams” were once the purview of just engineers, “jams” have expanded into all kinds of roles and areas of expertise.

13. Message boards and interest groups for role-related certifications

14. ResearchGate

True Experts Need to hire for a scientific or research-focused role? ResearchGate is often called “Facebook for academics.”

15. Skill, job, or interest-related Facebook groups

16. College cafes for new grad roles

More Than Career Fairs You’ll find students about to enter the job market in many campus-adjacent areas. An old fashioned posting on a coffee shop tackboard is a great start. So is checking to see if the campus has a career center that shares open job listings.

17. Facebook career pages in the local market

18. Specific interest meetups

Think Beyond Role-Focused Meetups What does your ideal candidate do for fun? You might find excellent engineers at a robotics club or great content marketers at a writing workshop.

19. Industry or skill-related panels and speaking events

20. Running an ad in an interest-specific newsletter