TalentBin, founded in 2011 and based in San Francisco, describes themselves as finding “all the wonderful things candidates do across the entire social web”, then combining them all together into a “one-stop search stop for talent pros to find candidates and reach out”. TalentBin takes information from people’s Facebook profiles, Twitter profiles and LinkedIn profiles (as well as activity from Github, StackOverflow, Quora and Meetup) to create one profile (which they call ‘implicit resumes’) showing candidates’ social interests and skills.
In this sense, it saves recruiters a lot of time by ensuring they don’t have to source out the various profiles of candidates, and TalentBin really gives them an idea of what a candidate is really interested in. Here are the basics of how to recruit via TalentBin, including a short video interview with the founder.
Installation
When signing up to the website and creating a ‘TalentBin’, users are given the options to add other users from the three largest social networks – their LinkedIn network (first, hence showing the professional nature of TalentBin), their Facebook network (second) and their Twitter network (third). TalentBin states at each instance that it will not be able to see the user’s username and password, will not contact any ‘connections’ or post to any feeds, but will only pull necessary “resume information” that it uses to build the TalentBin profiles.
There is one final option – adding a ‘team’, where TalentBin asks a user to invite their colleagues via email, therefore inviting their colleagues to join their network, and increasing the number of “resumes” on the website. This is very useful if you do not want to connect your Facebook profile (for instance, if you use it for personal reasons).
Job reqs and searches
When needing to search for new talent – recruiters need to open up a new ‘Job req’ (short for Job Requisition) – this will allow them to organise results easily and not lose past searches.
There are two types of searches – a simple search, and an advanced search. A simple search is made up of search terms which can be altered for necessity – to either required (✓), optional (+) or prohibited (-). Simple searches can be saved, and can also have the options of whether results are from a referral of a member of your network, and method of contact (Facebook, Twitter etc).
Advanced searches are different – terms can be categorised (such as keyword, skill, school, location, role etc), as well as categorised. Again, advanced searches can be saved, can be via referral only, and can also have a contact method chosen’. A short video from TalentBin explains the search aspect in more detail:
Results
Each person on TalentBin has a profile page – listing their various social profiles, their professional and personal interests, a short summary, and job and school history. Each interest is given a rating for how often it is spoken about on the candidates profile (example below):
Recruiters can contact candidates through the relevant social networks, and can note, star or hide profiles. Smaller chunks of information appear in the search results, giving an overall idea of the candidate before clicking on the profile – giving the recruiter an idea of the person’s interests, history and contact information.
Pricing
TalentBin has three payment options – Trial, Individual and Corporate. The free option is normally 10 free searches per week, but with a social share of TalentBin on networks, recruiters can gain an extra 10 searches. Other features are obviously limited with the free option, but are included with the other two.
TalentBin is extremely easy to use, well built and a whole new concept of creating overall social profiles – have you given it a try?
Interview with Founder
We were lucky enough to conduct a quick interview with TalentBin founder, Peter Kazanjy, where he answered some questions about why recruiters should use TalentBin to recruit:
Related: Top 5 Twitter Apps for Recruitment.
