This is the second part in a series on how recruiters can market to tech workers. You can find the first one, “Recruiters: How to Market to Tech Candidates”

I am a seasoned former tech marketer and have used “guerrilla” marketing strategies to not only target tech workers but also to learn more about them.

When I created developerDB, i did the same things that I did when I first began marketing to tech workers. I talked to alot of recruiters. Read all the recruiting blogs. And I went to a few recruiting conferences. At these recruiting conferences, something shook me as being odd.

Strange that some of these pricey conferences on recruiting/sourcing had everybody but the people who are being targeted (Talent42 conference in Seattle is an exception). You get tons of recruiting experts, boolean ninjas, the prerequisite “AI won’t Replace Recruiters” sessions, even some marketers but never the actual talent being recruited. Why not have a panel developers or nurses or other highly in demand talent telling you what will get their attention and what will annoy the heck out of them.

I am not suggesting that these conferences fly developer speakers/panelists in but it should be easy enough to find some local ones.

These conferences reminds me of the Americans who would go to another country to study or visit but live/hangout with only other Americans. While it is certainly important to network with other recruiters, learn a few tricks, that should not be the whole learning experience at these conferences.

Can’t find a conference with a good panel of developers. Create your own. Tech recruiters, save $3000-4000 on conference fees, travel and hotel costs. Grab a handful of gift cards and find some developers and pick their brains. Developers know where others are, what will get their attention, what

Go to tech meetups or hackathon and bring a pizza and some beer (or red bulls for the hackathon). You will have lots developer friends. Besides the obvious beer/pizza motivation, developers will actually want to help you since the better you get, the less annoying you will be to them.

So don’t be intimidated by these tech events. Sure some developers are a little crusty but most will warm up quickly.  But if you still have some questions, ping me. I have spent a career marketing to tech people.