How Dropbox goes beyond traditional talent sourcing

How Dropbox Uses New Features in LinkedIn
to Tap Into a Promising Talent Pool

When she first spotted the Dropbox posting for her future position, Veronica Velasco wasn’t looking for a new job for herself. Instead, she was helping a friend job-hunt. At the time, Veronica was happily employed and a top performer at her company.

Still, she was open to new options and had heard great things about Dropbox’s culture; intrigued by the position, she took a detour from helping her friend and clicked to apply. Taking advantage of LinkedIn’s new Apply Starters feature, she shared her full profile with Dropbox before continuing to the Careers page on the company’s website.

But after being redirected to Dropbox’s site, Veronica reminded herself that she was getting off-task and abandoned the formal application—after all, it was her friend who needed a new job, not her.

A few days later, she received an InMail from her future boss, Dropbox’s Sales Development Manager Kevin Nothnagel, saying she was exactly what they were looking for.

“I definitely wouldn’t have completed the application if Kevin hadn’t reached out,” Veronica says, adding, “I was happy where I was and wasn’t actively searching… I wouldn’t have left for anything less than an amazing opportunity.”

Identifying Open Talent 

For Kevin, Veronica’s interest couldn’t have come at a better time. “I was hoping to add someone to my team in Q4, but I wasn’t having any luck with enough volume of inbound candidates,” he shares. As a hiring manager, Kevin wanted to make sure Dropbox was expanding the search outside of just active candidates.

“We’re so excited to widen the funnel of inbound candidates beyond the people actively pursuing a position with us."

Open candidates, like Veronica, are right in the perfect zone: happily working and at the top of their field, but open to new opportunities.

“That’s the sweet spot,” says Kevin. Just as he had hoped, Veronica is already proving to be a phenomenal hire. The onboarding process went seamlessly, and she’s hitting it off with her new team.

Recruiting the Best Talent Goes Beyond Looking for
Experience and Skills

As any good recruiter knows, the value a candidate can bring to the table goes above and beyond what can be found on a LinkedIn profile or resume. While sourcing for those additional qualities can be challenging, Dropbox leverages its current team members and talent brand to create a stellar candidate experience. In doing so, it educates candidates on its culture and reinforces its reputation as a great place to work. And as a company whose mission it is to “simplify the way people work together,” creating an efficient and simple process is key to a great candidate experience.

“I want to bring the best folks in as fast as possible,” shares David Liu, a recruiter at Dropbox. “To the extent that it's possible to reach more people more efficiently, it’s better for us and for the candidate experience.” While Open Candidates have always been a promising pool, surfacing this talent used to be far more time-consuming. “Getting in touch with people who aren't quite at the ‘make a move stage’ makes tools like this super valuable,” David says.

“The most valuable resource we have is time, and this both multiplies my efforts and makes it easier for the candidates.”

A company’s work culture is only as good as its employees. Dropbox’s recruiting team doesn’t simply look for top-performers, David explains, “we also want someone who is a culture-add—who can help everyone excel as a team.”

While most sales organizations are known for being fiercely competitive, Dropbox fosters a uniquely collaborative culture. “We’ve established something really special here,” Kevin adds, “and it takes the right kind of personality to protect that.”

“It’s a virtuous cycle,” he concludes. “We thrive by hiring people who can perform at the highest level and make contributions to our culture that attract even more people.” Now that Dropbox’s team has a new way to find open talent in the sweet spot between active and passive, that virtuous cycle shows no signs of stopping.