Dan Wang Interview – Senior Technical Sourcing Recruiter – Engineering Leadership & Executive

Jonathan Kidder

2 years ago

I have had the privilege of knowing Dan Wang for many years, and right from the start, I was impressed by his exceptional technical knowledge and talent sourcing abilities. He was an invaluable member of my team at Amazon, consistently delivering outstanding results as a top-performing recruiter. What’s more, Dan was always eager to share his expertise with others, which made me feel incredibly fortunate to have worked with him. Thanks to his mentorship, I became a better talent sourcer myself.

Dan Wang is a technical sourcer and recruiter with a Master’s degree in Information Technology. He specializes in hiring senior, leadership, and executive-level Software Engineering professionals for top-tier tech companies such as Amazon and LinkedIn. Dan leverages his deep technical domain knowledge, advanced sourcing strategies, proactive partnership with hiring managers, and creative candidate engagement skills to deliver the best matches for his clients. He is also adept at tracking and analyzing recruiting funnel metrics, talent insights and intelligence research, process improvement, project management, and mentoring and developing junior Tech Sourcers and Recruiters.

Dan’s recruiting philosophy is simple: he believes that being a human being comes before being a recruiter. He genuinely cares about understanding your interests, aspirations, and career goals, both professionally and personally. While your resume or LinkedIn profile may showcase your accomplishments, they may not fully capture what you desire in your next role. Dan believes that building a strong relationship with you and learning about your desires is crucial in creating a great match that benefits both you and the company.

The demand for Software Engineering professionals is at an all-time high, and companies struggle to identify and retain the right talent for their needs. As technology continues to advance, the need for an even more specialized workforce will persist. That’s why Dan decided to pursue a Master’s degree in Information Technology, to gain hands-on knowledge and industry insights to better partner with Software Engineering professionals and provide even more qualified talent to exceptional organizations.

Intro:

Hi Jonathan, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to share my professional story to date with this wonderful community! To be honest, I have sat on these questions for almost two weeks not sure how and where I should start, what to write, how much to write, and how much would be too much to write. It is a strange feeling that I am at the center of everyone’s attention when normally all my work happens behind the scenes (well screens and phones to be specific).

So here’s my best attempt to answer all of your questions based on what genuinely came to my mind. And to those who are taking the time and read about me, thank you. And also, Jonathan Kidder is pretty damn awesome to work with 😆

Tell us about your work experience in recruiting – how did you get your start, how did you progress, where are you at this point in time?

I fell into recruiting, by pure chance all thanks to an amazon person, mentor, and now friend, Aaron. Coming out of my undergrad, I was convinced that I would be some sort of an Analyst until Aaron tapped me on my shoulders when I walked past by his company’s booth at a College Career Fair to tell me that my suit jacket collar was up and I may want to fix that before I go to my next place.

Then I stopped and asked him if he was free to hear more about my background and see if the company could help me find an Analyst role. After some initial conversations, he asked me if I’d ever considered being a recruiter and that the company has a slot for an interview at 4:30 pm later that day. Of course, I said yes and then carried on to hit up more companies so I didn’t have to go home still with a stack of my resume left.

Later that afternoon, 30 mins before my interview, I started Googling about staffing, recruiting, and what recruiting for a large staffing company really meant. After a few subsequent interview rounds later, I joined Kforce Inc. “Holy crap! I have a job now” – I thought to myself. And that was my start in recruiting, specifically, Tech Recruiting.

I fell in love with both the sourcing aspect and learning all about tech knowledge. I loved the research, find, and hunt before that first message or phone call would go out, and I also loved learning the keywords in tech and how things worked together. That’s when I decided to further re-invest in myself and said professor Google was just not enough. I began to look for career opportunities focusing on Tech Sourcing and then got into my Master’s program in Information Technology. After Kforce, I joined a boutique staffing/consulting firm leading their way into Tech Sourcing before going corporate to Amazon and then later to LinkedIn.

What are the unique talents you bring to the field?

My recruiting/sourcing career has been focused on building vertical depth within the tech domain, specifically Software Engineering. I have had the opportunity of supporting all levels of software engineering roles from entry-level to mid-senior level all the way to the Principal/Executive level hires. Leveraging my passion, experience, education, and expertise in tech sourcing, I find myself relating to hiring managers and candidates exceptionally well, and am also very effective at finding my way to the right set of profiles that I would want to talk to for open roles with few calibrations needed.

In addition, I deliver the right match through advanced sourcing strategies/techniques (thanks to this generous community for always sharing about new tools and ways to source), proactive partnership with hiring managers, and personal & creative candidate engagement. I am also skilled at recruiting funnel metrics tracking & analysis, talent insights and intelligence research, process improvement, and mentorship and development for junior Tech Sourcers and Recruiters.

I aspire to be the glue of the teams that I have joined where I can not only identify and fix broken processes but also can create a blueprint, a model for the future so that teams are going to be in a better state than when I first joined.

Share your biggest success story in recruiting so far?

Years ago a candidate came to our office and thanked me relentlessly for helping him find an amazing job when he already packed his bags and was ready to go home since his work Visa was about to expire.

A candidate that I couldn’t find a fitting role called me out of excitement and told me that he was going to throw a big birthday party for his youngest child and would love for me to be there. And more recently a really high-profile candidate out of a large tech company told me that one of the reasons he wanted to join the company was because we have always met over Zoom, face-to-face while the competition companies’ recruiters didn’t bother to go beyond just phone calls.

All these memorable stories that came to my mind happened when I thought I was just going through my day-to-day trying to be the best person I can be for others. (Which transitions perfectly well to the next question)!

What is the best advice you’ve received during your career path, and from whom?

I don’t remember who said this originally or where I have read/heard about it, but this has been my philosophy ever since I started in this profession:

“I am a human being first and a recruiter second.”

What’s your favorite recruiting tech tool?

Chrome extension-wise: OneTab, WhenX, Grammarly, Multi-Highlight, Pomodoro Timer, Glossary Tech, Swordfish, SalesQL Lusha, and of course Recruiter Wand!

Sourcing Platform: Have always been a big fan of SeekOut and LOVE LOVE all the advanced Boolean operators you can add to keyword searches!

+ ChatGPT, how can we not talk about it when it is so great at helping you get started on Boolean strings, reach-out messages, job description templates, breaking down technology terms and so much more!

What do you hope to achieve in 2023?

Sourcing is a combination of science and art. The science part is where all the numbers and tracking come in: pipeline funnel metrics, conversion ratios, time to fill, interview scores, etc. I hope to bring more science to streamline my sourcing processes and get more precise. And the art portion, to me, is where I would hope to achieve even more growth and hone in this “craft” that all the other master sourcers have!

Any future predictions on talent sourcing?

It is hard to make predictions when the future seems so uncertain and the ever-growing list of folks getting laid off by companies. However, I hope this can also be a blessing in disguise as other industries, especially those that have not had the chance to incorporate OR separate sourcing from recruiting, get the opportunity to feel the massive positive impact that sourcing can really add to talent attraction and retention.

What’s your favorite Boolean String?

site:linkedin.com/in (🏳️‍🌈|🌈) Engineer (Java|Python|Backend)

I have used this template string to X-ray into other social sites and can always change the emojis and keywords/skill sets needed.

Anything else you would like to add? 🙂

I would like to end on a self-plug and thank those who have spent the extra time reading through my interview. I, too, unfortunately, have been caught up in the layoffs and would love to take this opportunity to network with more folks in the community that I simply didn’t get the chance to meet and build a relationship with moving forward! If there’s anything I can do to help you, please reach out. And to those that are searching for their next career play just let me, we got this!

Having a Talent Sourcer opening? Please connect with Dan Wang on LinkedIn (here)🔥

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