Insider Q & A: Jordan Shaw on Hiring at EMC & How to Befriend Recruiters

Jordan Shaw is a Senior Corporate Recruiter in EMC Consulting’s  Application Infrastructure practice. EMC, a global provider of storage hardware solutions that promote data recovery and improve cloudcomputing — and ranked as one of the best places to work by Fortune magazine. Prior to working at EMC, Jordan has been a Senior Recruiting Consultant at Microsoft, Recruiting Manager for an Executive Search Firm and full cycle recruiter for local consulting companies.

We sat down with Jordan to learn about EMC, how he looks for new talent, and a few good tips.

Throughout your career, you’ve recruited staff to build teams for leading tech products. How do you identify candidates with the right combination of tech knowledge and teamwork?

Old fashioned headhunting. I start off with my network, move to social media, main stream job boards and then it is a lot of phone calls.

What types of jobs is EMC hiring for right now?

We are hiring across the board. You can find a list of current jobs on our career site.

My team (Application Infrastructure) is hiring for the following positions, these are all full time roles that can be based nearly anywhere in the United States with a Monday-Thursday travel requirement:

Exchange Migration Architects
Exchange Migration Project and Program Managers
Technical Delivery Managers
SAP Infrastructure Architects
SAP Team Lead QA
Practice Team Lead / Unified Communications
VDI Architect

You hire primarily for EMC Consulting. What don’t job seekers know about working at EMC that they should know? Any subsidiaries or websites other than EMC.com that they should check for job leads?  (For example, McGraw Hill also includes Standard & Poors.)

We are a large player in the Consulting world and have consistently had very positive gains (even in the down economy) and continue to grow at a healthy and robust pace. Check out our webite: www.emc.com/consulting

Any bad assumption that you’ve seen job seekers make in applying for jobs with EMC?

We are just a big data storage company. Certainly we have a foothold in that market but we are so much more.

Tell me about a recent hire you made – how they got your attention, and why you hired them.

I recently hired for a leadership position based in NYC. I got their attention through social media (LinkedIn) specifically. I hired them because they proved to be one of the most technically sound, detail-oriented, hard working, hungry and personable people I have come across in my years of recruiting, just the type of person I want in a leadership capacity.

Do you have any “never do” tips for individuals in working with recruiters? What are your pet peeves?

Asking “what does this pay” right away? I have a very large range I can offer someone based upon their skills and how the interviews go. I can’t answer that question well based on just viewing a resume.

Another pet peeve is when job seekers aren’t being honest about being serious in the job search and are slow to respond to emails and voice mails.

Are there any questions I haven’t asked that I should be asking? What’s the question, and what’s your answer?

Where do you find the majority of your candidates?

Most of my candidates are people I have had a dialogue with for months or even years that I stay in touch with. I often introduce myself to people on LinkedIn who are in my particular niche to open the door.

Use it now—actionable—advice for job seekers:

Make friends with recruiters, get to know them, keep track of the good ones and the bad ones. Reach out to the good ones to touch base every few weeks. Always offer something in return when asking for something, (candidate referral, a recommendation on LinkedIn, etc.)