Of all types of talent that are discoverable on Reddit, IT is the most abundant in terms of users and variety of communities. If you have worked in my Reddit Sourcing Toolbox, you’ll notice that there are dozens of communities and about one for just about every programming language—and those are just the ones that I have indexed. There are far more communities that you will likely stumble upon if you spend enough time going down that rabbit hole.
Below are 4 subreddits where you have the best chance of finding and engaging talent without getting banned. As always, most communities on Reddit are not friendly to recruiters or aggressive promotions. Before interacting with the members of these communities, make sure you have an understanding of the rules and nuances of how to interact. Last but not least, do not spam in these or any subreddits.
r/coolgithubprojects/
Description: A subreddit for developers to show off their work on GitHub
Safe to post jobs: NO
Members: 29k since July 2019
Rules: None specified by admins
What is great about this community?
This subreddit utilizes flair, a tag to help users filter for a specific type of post or username, to index which programming language the project uses which makes searching easier. If you look in the image below, every post is required to select a flair. When you click on the programming language it will sort out the page to only include posts in that subject area. From there you have the option to sort by oldest to newest or relevancy.
Best Practices: Although the admins have not explicitly stated any rules for this subreddit, it’s obvious that they do not want posts other than developers sharing their projects. Since the main focus of this subreddit is linking to GitHub accounts, this will provide you with the pathway to reach out to passive candidates outside of Reddit since a good number of GitHub profiles will have the user’s email, location, and/or LinkedIn profile.
r/jobbit
Description: A subreddit for posting IT jobs and for Redditors to post when they’re available for work
Safe to post jobs: YES
Members: 14k since July 2019
Rules: None specified by admins
What is great about this community? It’s an easy and safe place for IT recruiters to get the word out about their jobs without getting banned because that is the entire purpose of the subreddit. Since it also uses flair to indicate whether the post is hiring or for hire, you can easily search where the listings and candidates are located geographically. For example, you can enter the string flair_name:“for hire” Chicago in the search bar to search for available candidates in the Chicago area or flair_name:”hiring” Chicago AND JAVA to search for job listings in Chicago related to the Java field.
Best Practices: Make sure to always use [Hiring] at the start of each post. Include a salary range if possible because this will most likely increase the chances of getting a response.
r/cscareerquestions
Description: A subreddit for those with questions about working in the tech industry or in a computer-science-related job
Safe to post jobs: NO
Members: 262k as of July 2019
Rules:
What is great about this community? The available flair for posts allows you to get an idea of where the user is in their CS Career. They can select from Student, New Grad, Experienced, Lead/Manager or Meta. Many IT professionals come to this group to seek advice about how to tackle an interview, to mull over a possible career change, or even salary expectations. While normally these questions are typically geared toward other CS professionals, there are plenty of opportunities to contribute advice as a recruiter.
Best Practices: Don’t aggressively promote jobs. Offer genuine and helpful advice and provide an email in case they want to speak with you further.
r/gameDevClassifieds
Description: A subreddit for game development studios, indies, and hobbyists to find talent in the video game industry.
Safe to post jobs: YES
Members: 14k since July 2019
Rules: None specified by admins
What is great about this community? This is another community that uses flair to index its posts but it does so in greater detail than other IT subreddits. You can specifically search for job titles that are “hiring” or “for hire.”
Best Practices: When posting a job, be sure to include location and a salary range in the title, and your email in the body text. In addition, make sure to flair your post with the appropriate tag. The more key information you provide the easier it is for local candidates to find your posts and express interest.
