As a general rule, be specific

Early Google was struggling to keep up with its growth.

They knew their best source for recruiting was current Googlers. But they couldn’t get enough of the right candidates through this referral channel.

Until they made one change to their process. In retrospect, it was dead simple.

According to Laszlo Bock’s “Work Rules,” Google kept very close track of its recruiting metrics. Once they made this change, they saw an increase in the number of referrals and, simultaneously, their ratio of successful referrals.

All they did was start asking for specific referrals.

Not “got any recommendations for future Googlers,” but “who do you know who would be good for this specific role?”

Small shift, huge results.

I’ve applied this lesson outside of recruiting to similar success.

For example, when I maintained a ridiculous volume of technical posts at SendGrid, I got fewer and poorer contributions with a blanket call for articles. Once I asked for specific topics, it became easier to maintain our pace.

You might have struggled to get engineering or developer relations contributions before. I get it!

Often, you take whatever you can get. It feels reactive.

Counterintuitively, being specific will increase both the number and quality of contributions. It also works for outsourced content contributors and freelancers, by the way.

But you have to know what topics to request and whether those topics will resonate.

If you don’t know what specific content to request, or you haven’t been successful with this approach, you might need some outside help.

When you’re ready, contact the EveryDeveloper team. We help dev-focused companies publish more strategic content.