How I became a Hind - and what I have learnt from it...

Some of you may recall my recent experiment to create an international "business name" under my personal profile here on LinkedIn.

Simply put - I have translated my name to English.

I have also changed my location to one of the Western European countries I am currently sourcing in. (Thanks Balazs Paroczay for this fab tip)

Why have I done that? Because I wanted to test how an "international name" would influence response rate for sourcing activities in a Western European country.

A deeper explanation can be found in my original post here

This article is about the findings, lessons learnt and sharing of experiences openly.

Facts and data

My response rate has not changed significantly. It went a tiny bit up and down but stayed steadily around 25%. Job markets I have tested are mainly Germany and Switzerland.

This was a real surprise for me. And made me do my own self-check.

I thought German and Swiss people preferred "their own" so to speak.

But that is simply not true based on my recent experience.

Lesson learnt - sourcing is really ALL about our own mindset, our own approach, our own self-limiting or self-unlimiting believes.

Or as Hanry Ford said “Whether you think you can, or you think you can't - you're right.”

So changing my name to an international name has not changed the response rate of my outreach messages.

Good news and bad news for international recruiters sourcing in Western European Countries - no one cares a hack about your name! Work on the title, the body and the right content of your outreach and people will respond. Do a crappy job at reaching out and people won't respond. It's that simple.

Another surprise

Those candidates who responded positively to my outreach, were actually more engaged, therefore it was easier to convert them into active applicants. I say this because I was able to present 30% more candidates (and really good ones).

Now this can be a coincidence or an actual fact - I don't know for certain.

Lesson learnt - if people feel you are "close" to them, they tend to trust you more.

This is really not about discrimination or prejudice. It's about a normal sense of security of a human being.

All in all, the outcome of the experiment surprised me absolutely positively.

Sourcing is good fun. Prospects are cool people. And I love my job.

:-)

Thanks for reading.

Please feel free to comment your thoughts or questions :-)

AND Many many many thanks to prospects and sourced candidates! You are not guinea pigs, of course not, you are real treasures on my treasure hunt ;-)