Most Placeable Paraform Candidates

Most Placeable Paraform Candidates

With over 500 active roles on Paraform, the most successful recruiters optimize for candidate placeability—prioritizing talent that aligns with multiple opportunities, not just one. This means spending the time to get high-caliber candidates with the pedigree and startup-readiness to stand out versus getting a spread of “iffy” candidates.

Representing placeable candidates increases your chances of getting interviews, accelerates your time to hire, and makes your sourcing efforts go further.

Most Frequent Pitfalls

This is THE most important part of this article.

• Job hoppy: #1 red flag for most clients. If candidates are frequently leaving jobs before the 1 year mark, this is a big anti-signal for clients. If you still feel that they are a strong candidate, make sure to properly explain the reasons on the application, but represent candidates like these sparingly.
• #opentowork banner: an open to work banner can sometimes make the candidate appear weaker than they are.
• Contract jobs (for US clients): we are recruiting for full-time positions for our clients.
• Technical consulting (for US clients): another major red flag.
• Bootcamp grads (especially for <3 YOE candidates): our clients typically want to see candidates that have a university degree in the areas required.
  • However, there are some clients that want bootcamp experience :) Unless this is explicitly mentioned however, be sparing with bootcamp grad candidates.
• Not satisfying YOE: Typically, we see candidates that have graduated in 2020 have 5 YOE, 2019 6 YOE, etc. Please verify you check graduation years align with YOE.

Real Candidate Examples

Here are some examples of real candidates we've seen, ranked from 1 (not placeable) to 5 (very placeable). These are real candidates but certain job experiences have been swapped to maintain anonymity.

Candidate #1 - Not Placeable (1/5)

• Lead Full Stack Developer @ JP Morgan Chase (11 months)
• Full Stack Developer @ LTMindtree (7 months)
• Senior Developer @ Tata Consultancy (3 years 10 months)
• Rajasthan Technical University

We did not place and do not spend time representing candidates like these. Will almost be an auto reject for all clients:

• Contract roles - Avoid candidates currently in contract positions or with previous contract experience.
• Technical consulting - Avoid candidates with mainly technical consulting experience.
• Weak tenure - 7 months + 11 months - job hoppy.

Candidate #2 - Difficult to Place (2/5)

• Software Engineer @ New York Times (3 years 9 months)
• Software Engineer @ Citi (9 months)
• Master's in CS @ Tufts
  • + Bootcamp education

We placed this candidate, but they had a very tough time getting considered and required more effort identifying the role that would be a fit.


Real feedback from hiring managers:

• No CS undergrad.
• New York Times is more of a news company than a tech company.
• No past experience at a tech company.

If you get a candidate like this, make sure to carefully review if the client is currently interviewing candidates of a similar caliber and opt to calibrate first.

We'll chat about placeable candidates now - you'll want to represent candidates that are at least of the placeable caliber on Paraform.

Candidate #3 - Placeable (3/5)

• Software Engineer II @ Amazon (5 years)
• Bachelor's in CS @ Harvard

This is also someone we placed! Compared to Candidate #2, this candidate benefits from their undergrad at Harvard (top school) in CS and experience at a FAANG (Amazon). However, with a candidate like this, you’ll want to use the same discretion as #2 due to the fact that he’s only worked in big tech. Often times, working ONLY in big tech can be a huge detractor for candidates.

OK to represent and submit, but be sure to look for roles where hiring managers are currently interviewing big tech candidates or don’t explicitly say they require startup experience.

Candidate #4 - Placeable (3/5)

• Software Engineer @ Rippling (4 years)
• Senior Data Engineer @ Altitude Networks (1 year)
• Data Scientist @ Bank of the West (1 year)
• Data Analyst @ Investment Firm (9 months)

This is a really interesting one - if this candidate was not working at Rippling, they would be a 1/5 or 2/5. However, their tenure at a strong logo like Rippling overrode their other yellow flags and made them a placeable candidate.

Candidate #5 - Very Placeable (4/5)

• Senior Software Engineer @ Snorkel AI (1 year)
• Software Engineer @ Discord (2 years)
• Software Engineer @ Amazon (1 year)
• Computer Science @ UC Berkeley

Also someone we placed! Compared to Candidate #3 and 4, this candidate does have startup experience working at Snorkel AI and has worked at a big tech company with a higher engineering bar (Discord).

Generally - a candidate like this is very preferable: big tech + startup background + great school. You’ll want to invest time in presenting multiple roles to this kind of candidate.

Candidate #6 - Extremely Placeable (5/5)

• Senior Software Engineer @ startup #1 (8 months)
• Founder @ startup #2 (sold to startup #1, 8 months)
• Master's and Bachelor's in Computer Science @ Stanford

One of the most popular candidates on our platform - surprisingly because you could say that they are very jumpy and junior! However, having a spike helped override that. This candidate:

• Top school: CS from Stanford and multiple academic honors, meaning he was a top student
• Former founder/founding engineer: Founded and sold a company.
• Currently working at a startup - proves he can handle the startup life.

Wanted to show this example because it proves that you can represent candidates with certain red flags as long as they have signals of excellence.

This is an incredible catch and one you want to make sure to represent.