I have a secret. Well, not for long. I’ve been using the awesome new app about sharing anonymously with friends called Secret. It lets you post messages to friends without revealing who you are.
Because I’m building YesGraph, a referral recruiting tool, I naturally thought about what kinds of conversations would happen on the platform related to talent and HR. I’ve seen people post their salaries and net worth, which are obviously private.
Then I tried a different experiment. I claimed I was a iOS engineer and designer looking to leave my startup. A half dozen people posted contact info to get in touch.
My first reaction was, “What?! They don’t know anything about me!”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. The app works along a social graph showing posts from friends and friends of friends. That means people seeing the post knew there was potentially a 1st or 2nd degree connection to the mythical candidate. That adds to the signal.
There are a few other gems in the brief description. A mix of talent in engineering and design is rare. Startup experience is a huge plus when you want to filter for productivity. Here is an outwardly passive but secretly active candidate, which is an good recruiting target. Mobile talent is in incredibly high demand because there is a race among startups and large companies alike to capture the space.
The full thread is below. I apologize to the companies involved if they found this obnoxious. The good news is that I can directly endorse a lot of them: Secret, Aviary, FundersClub, CodeAcademy, and Flickr are all amazing companies you should consider joining if you are a mythical mobile developer.
