Where to find good technical candidates when job boards feel broken
Standard job boards often fail to surface qualified technical candidates, leaving employers overwhelmed by low-quality applicants or forced to hire single-handedly without functional support. This difficulty prevents growing businesses from expanding their teams, delegating specialized workloads, and getting back to selling and scaling.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Posting jobs on LinkedInDid this help you?
- 2Using staffing firms like Robert HalfDid this help you?
- 3Advertising on Dice or CraigslistDid this help you?
- 4Making the role fully remote and increasing wagesDid this help you?
- 5Posting on job boards like workopolis, monster, and neuvooDid this help you?
- 6Using specialized subreddits like r/mspjobsDid this help you?
- 7Looking through local recruiters, community college IT programs, and local IT meetupsDid this help you?
- 8Asking vendors or checking internal IT departments for referralsDid this help you?
- 9Using free platforms like Indeed, LinkedIn groups, Telegram, and WhatsApp job groups.Did this help you?
- 10Relying on resume signals rather than guaranteed competenceDid this help you?
- 11Walking new hires through basic tasksDid this help you?
- 12Promoting technicians from withinDid this help you?
- 13Using guerrilla marketing like placing flyers in local gas stationsDid this help you?
- 14Contacting local junior college part-time HVAC instructorsDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I've been a one person show for a while now, and it's no longer a functional model as my workload has increased substantially.”source ↗
“I'm looking for someone who can do similar to what I can do, so I can start selling, and growing again.”source ↗
“Is Indeed, or LinkedIn the way to to go here? I get the feeling these services are enshittified, but I may very well be wrong.”source ↗
“I need to hire a systems engineer and our company (healthcare) generally posts on Indeed but last time I hired (different position) I struggled to find a good candidate.”source ↗
“We hired a big 4 senior who didn’t know how to use excel. Literally had to walk them through what rows and columns were. They didn’t last long in industry”source ↗
“I've scouring Linkedin, facebook, and posted on Ziprecruiter but I'm coming up dry.”source ↗
“I’m an HR professional hiring in Kerala, and I’m finding it difficult to find quality candidates locally.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 7Why do hiring managers reject qualified candidates over superficial things?
- 11Why can't I even get a job interview with years of experience?
- 4Why do I keep losing final round interviews to more experienced candidates?
- 9Why do recruiters ghost and waste time during a job search?
- 2How do you filter resumes for soft skills and basic competence?
- 24Why are job boards full of impossible roles and ghost listings?