Seattle, where I live, is a coffee obsessed city. No matter you live here in Seattle or elsewhere, if, when you hear the word “Java”, a computer programming language comes to mind before a cup of hot drink, count yourself in as a denizen of Geek-speaking land.
Being one of the leading technology hubs, Seattle seems to have an even stronger obsession with technology and geek culture than with coffee. You might not be a geek who writes code, but most likely you have plenty of geeks around you at work, in your social circle, or in your family.
So you ask, “Why should I, as an HR or recruiting professional, care about speaking Geek?”
If any part of your job involves recruiting technical people, you should care deeply. Here is why, according to this Undercover Recruiter article on “How to Recruit Technology Talent”:
“It is important to ensure that your recruitment team is tech savvy, otherwise the candidate will have a very low opinion on the company, and look elsewhere. Technology talent can easily tell if a recruiter does not know what they are talking about. They don’t need to be able to do the job themselves, however they need to understand the language and the roles in the organization to be able to reach and keep hold of the right people.”
To give yourself a sense of how much Geek you can speak, here is a fun quiz to test your Geek language knowledge (click here to see the answers and more quizzes):
- How are Java and JavaScript related?
- What is so-called Open Source Technology?
- What’s the difference between SDE and SDET?
Don’t worry if you run into cryptic technical jargons. There are several resources to decode them. We list some of the available resources below, starting from the most generic to most specific help:
- Abbreviations.com
- Quora.com
- Wikipedia.org
- Your developer friends
- HRCI pre-approved Technical Recruiting Training Programs for HR professionals, such as Geekology.biz
It’s not difficult to learn geek and have meaningful conversations with technical people when you have the right help. If you put your mind to it, both your hiring managers and technical candidates would notice and appreciate your ability to speak their language.