In Silicon Valley, there are two universal truths for tech companies: The first is that finding office space is hard. The other is that finding good engineers is really hard.
Tech recruiters certainly have a tall task in front of them: With a firm cap on visas for highly skilled foreign workers, a large source of the talent pool comes from those who are already gainfully employed with six-figure salaries and used to perks like free lunches, on-site haircuts (paywall), and monthly maid service.
In the face of these challenges, Ali Behnam, managing partner at the recruiting firm Riviera Partners, says his company’s strategy is to figure out when potential candidates are ready to switch jobs—often before they know it themselves.
“What we’re trying to do is get the timing right,” he tells Quartz.
To ascertain if a prospective candidate is amenable to jumping ship, the firm relies on data—much of it publicly available—to identify certain patterns. This helps reduce time wasted on cold calls since recruiters are (ideally) reaching out only when the candidates want to be contacted. Here are four of about a dozen signals that Riviera closely tracks:
