{"id":999881531,"date":"2016-04-07T17:44:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T17:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpstage.dice.com\/?p=184375178"},"modified":"2016-04-07T17:44:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T17:44:00","slug":"are-friends-the-most-effective-hiring-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/recruitment\/are-friends-the-most-effective-hiring-tool","title":{"rendered":"Are Friends the Most Effective Hiring Tool?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How do tech pros find new jobs? This year\u2019s edition of the <a href=\"http:\/\/stackoverflow.com\/research\/developer-survey-2016#work-employment-status\">annual Stack Overflow survey<\/a> provides some valuable insight\u2014including some data-points that may hearten recruiters. Roughly 63 percent of those developers surveyed by the Website said they weren\u2019t actively looking for a new job, but that they were \u201copen to new opportunities.\u201d Another 22 percent said they weren\u2019t interested in a new job, while a mere 15 percent were actively looking. When it came to landing a recent position, 28 percent said that friends had referred them. That far outpaced finding a job on websites other than Stack Overflow (17.2 percent), external recruiters (13.8 percent), seeking out an opportunity directly (9.8 percent), an in-house recruiter (9.5 percent), or a career fair (6.3 percent). For those tech pros on the hunt for a new position, opportunities abound in many markets\u2014especially for those techies with highly specialized skill-sets in \u201chot\u201d areas such as cloud and mobile. The unemployment rate for tech pros <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dice.com\/career-advice\/job-report-demand-for-tech-talent-stays-high\">hit 2.5 percent in February<\/a>, suggesting that many employers are hungry for talent. Nor is hiring restricted to traditional tech hubs such as Silicon Valley. With cities across the United States recognizing the value of fostering a healthy community of tech professionals, many municipal governments have taken steps to encourage startups to move in. That\u2019s in addition to the accelerators, incubators, and \u201ctech corridors\u201d springing up in various U.S. regions. Considering the number of tech pros who come to jobs via friend networks, offering a significant bounty for referring new employees seems like a wise recruiting tactic for employers to pursue. (Major tech firms such as Google, always on the hunt for top talent, are more than willing to <a href=\"http:\/\/qz.com\/404494\/the-simple-way-google-supercharged-employee-referrals-and-why-it-wasnt-enough\/\">pay out thousands of dollars in referral bonuses<\/a>.) For recruiters, Stack Overflow\u2019s data may come as good news: external and internal recruiting combined for 23.3 percent of the total, good for second place (and external recruiting didn\u2019t do too shabbily by itself, either). The personal touch provided by recruiters clearly has an effect on swaying potential employees to jump to new positions\u2014so long as those recruiters follow some best practices, of course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do tech pros find new jobs? This year\u2019s edition of the annual Stack Overflow survey provides some valuable insight\u2014including some data-points that may hearten recruiters. Roughly 63 percent of those developers surveyed by the Website said they weren\u2019t actively looking for a new job, but that they were \u201copen to new opportunities.\u201d Another 22 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":184375178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2155],"class_list":["post-999881531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hiring-candidates"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Are Friends the Most Effective Hiring Tool? - Dice Hiring<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How do tech pros find new jobs? 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This year\u2019s edition of the annual Stack Overflow survey provides some valuable insight\u2014including some data-points that may\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/recruitment\/are-friends-the-most-effective-hiring-tool\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dice Hiring\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-04-07T17:44:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/shutterstock_263751047-2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dice Staff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Dicedotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Dicedotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dice Staff\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/recruitment\/are-friends-the-most-effective-hiring-tool#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/recruitment\/are-friends-the-most-effective-hiring-tool\"},\"author\":{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Nick Kolakowski\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/authors\/nick-kolakowski\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/x.com\/nkolakowski\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/nick-kolakowski-b405501\"]},\"headline\":\"Are Friends the Most Effective Hiring Tool?\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-07T17:44:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/recruitment\/are-friends-the-most-effective-hiring-tool\"},\"wordCount\":358,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/recruitment\/are-friends-the-most-effective-hiring-tool#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/shutterstock_263751047-2.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Hiring Candidates\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/recruitment\/are-friends-the-most-effective-hiring-tool#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/recruitment\/are-friends-the-most-effective-hiring-tool\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/recruitment\/are-friends-the-most-effective-hiring-tool\",\"name\":\"Are Friends the Most Effective Hiring Tool? - Dice Hiring\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/recruitment\/are-friends-the-most-effective-hiring-tool#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/recruitment\/are-friends-the-most-effective-hiring-tool#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dicepilot.npgdev.com\/hiring\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/shutterstock_263751047-2.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-07T17:44:00+00:00\",\"description\":\"How do tech pros find new jobs? 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