Andrés Sáenz Peñas, Co-founder & Executive Director, CIVIX Colombia

In order to attract good candidates to our organization, we have used a lot of strategies that are traditional but we have also tried to innovate a little in this aspect.

One of the ways in which we have done this is through the learning communities in which we are involved. We have a learning community, for example, on the fight against disinformation, together with 11 other organizations in Colombia that are working on that same topic. 

What we do is rotate the information of the profiles that we need, precisely in the ecosystem in which we are moving. In this way, we ensure that we have people who are focused on our mission areas, and not receive 200 resumes of people who do not fit the profile and waste the time of our administrative and HR offices.

Mainly, the communication channels that we have used for the recruitment processes are very digitally focused. We use WhatsApp a lot, but we've also realized that a tool such as LinkedIn is very useful to be able to effectively know the profiles that we need and that will connect us directly to people associated with the organization.

From there we have been able to gather talent that has been very positive for the type of mission we are currently working on at CIVIX Colombia.

David Salas, Founder and President, Disruptia 

I think the main thing we've realized, which is more powerful, is that when you have a good person on your team, that person will certainly be surrounded by very good people.

Our first source of talent are those who are already working with us, or those who have been going through our programs.

If you notice, we work on employability issues. So, many of our members are people that we have been training for the past few years, and that today, after their training, have joined Disruptia.

So, always the good people are like the main source to find more good people. That's where we've found others.

And this is based on a philosophy I really believe in, which is, you are the average of the five people you surround yourself with. If they are awesome, you already have the pressure to be awesome.

WhatsApp is the social network with the highest penetration in our countries, in Latin America. So, if you share the information via WhatsApp in your status, surely talent will come to you that you didn't expect. It's also about people having the tool to share them. And then, the same platform helps you filter who is talent that best fits or does not fit the vacancy.

Key takeaways 

• Share job openings across your organization's communities and ecosystems to find potential candidates with similar objectives

• Use references from current employees to efficiently find talent aligned with the mission

• Use LinkedIn for a quick assessment of profiles  and to strategically identify candidates

• Share openings through WhatsApp to obtain a broader reach within established contacts