The Atlassian Roadshow Crew has just returned to our Sydney headquarters, after a 15 day recruitment tour to London, Amsterdam, Berlin and Madrid. Atlassian kitted out a bus and travelled through Europe with the goal of hiring 15 awesome developers in 15 days. Over 1000 candidates applied in just 4 weeks!
Reversing the brain-drain
Finding really talented engineers in Australia is possible, but not easy due to an obvious technical skills shortage in Australia.
With local talent leaving to work overseas, and with a slowing European economy, we took the opportunity to point out the benefits of relocating to our Australian ‘silicon beach’.
By sending our hiring team to Europe we cut out numerous skype interviews. It also made applying and accepting a job a whole lot easier for candidates as they prefer to meet their prospective employer face to face first. The increased pipeline of candidates reduced the dollars spent on recruitment agencies.
Key learnings:
1. Make it easy
Our goal was to give candidates a lot of information before they even met us. We started by designing a landing page with information on the 10 easy steps to begin an overseas career. We also described life in Australia and Engineering @Atlassian. The campaign resulted in wide media coverage (even on Spanish TV!).
We got the biggest buzz from our many followers on twitter and flickr, who sent us tourist tips about cool places in their city. Some even popped in to hang out with us once they learned where we planned to spend our evenings.
2. Scale the screening process
In the month leading up to departure, we had already received over 1000 applications. In anticipation of the higher volume, the Roadshow Crew had developed an awesome online coding test in order to assess and select candidates for interview.
Our online testing system applies a series of tests to a candidate’s coded solutions, and candidates get a partial score even if their entire solution doesn’t pass all our tests. We can use it to test for ‘potential’ rather than just ‘pass/fail’. The testing system automatically scores and is integrated with our recruitment system, test results are automatically uploaded to candidate files.
3. A relaxed interview environment
It was important to show as much of our culture as possible to help people decide if it’s the right move. As the bus arrived in each city, the crew chatted to interested passengers, sharing their love for our products, the sun & surf, beer and other real ‘okka’ Australian experiences.
The evening finished with a pub stop, complete with videos and presentations about the company culture and successes. In true Atlassian style, some candidates were interviewed in coffee shops, lounges and pubs! Candidates received feedback before the roadshow was complete. Some candidates were offered on the spot.
Are you abroad? And awesome?
Check out our website: there are plenty of opportunities in San Francisco, Sydney and Amsterdam!