As highlighted earlier in the announcement of our partnership with CodePath, our COO John Simonelli spoke with Carmel DiAmicis over the weekend to discuss our motivation for doing so. In a candid conversation with DiAmicis, John discussed the current state of recruiting (including the flaws and negative stigmas associated with those who do so), our vision for giving back to the engineering community, as well as further details about the current bootcamp. DiAmicis also speaks with the CodePath founders who share their own perspective and vision for the partnership and address the issue of talent gaps with newer coding trends like Android and iOS.
(PandoDaily) – Job recruiting in Silicon Valley is broken, and these guys are trying to fix it
When Riviera Partners recruiting firm asked serial entrepreneur and Y Combinator grad Michael Ellison to join the company, he gave them a list of demands a mile long. They would need to fund a non-profit in the education sector, shift their marketing and branding strategy, and change their relationship with entrepreneurs. After he sent his requirements he assumed he’d never hear from Riviera again. “I was requesting a lot that was not traditional for a recruiting firm,” Ellison says.
But much to his surprise, the very next day Riviera CEO John Simonelli invited Ellison to the firm’s new offices and welcomed him to the team. Riviera wanted big changes, and Simonelli thought Ellison had the right vision to help.
Technical recruiting has been disrupted by the Web just like other industries. LinkedIn has made talent recruiting more competitive, by giving everyone access to a pool of applicants. At the same time, recruiting firms annoy the hell out of developers by cold-calling them. As a result, many headhunters don’t have a great rap with the industry talent they’re supposed to be placing. “We would go so far as to say recruiting is broken,” Riviera’s Simonelli says. “My characterization is that recruiting spends too much time focusing on the recruiter.”