Hi all,
Just wanted to report back on the "Work at Wikimedia" banners that ran on the site the last few days.
The idea behind them was to uncover talent for the community department that doesn't necessarily haunt the "usual" places. We specifically wanted to reach out to people who used the projects, that had new, interesting, or well developed and thought-out ideas for the community department. We knew the banner usage was a little unusual but honestly believed that we'd cast a wider net and turn up some interesting candidates for positions in the community department.
I'm pleased to say that we're thrilled with the results. After a few days of running the banner at a relatively low display percentage, we have more than 1500 submissions, many of which are very interesting. It's obviously going to take us some time to look through them, but from our perspective, the banners did what we wanted them to do.
With all that said, the comments about the "opportunity cost" of running those banners on the world's fifth most-viewed web properties is an important one. It's one that we explored and will continue to explore. You may have noticed that we actually tried out two different "sizes" of banners, as well. I don't have any numbers yet to report as to whether the smaller size of the later banners made a different in the number or quality of the applicants; it's just too early to know.
While I'm about to turn off the banners, we want to continue to encourage people to go to the application page ( http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:CommunityHiring ), since we're actually turning the banners off in advance of the deadline that we set. However, we continue to look for talented people, and the community hiring page will stay live for the immediate future.
Thanks, everyone, for your feedback during this trial. Please look for people that would be interested in sending us their information for jobs in the community department.
Best, Philippe
____________________ Philippe Beaudette Head of Reader Relations Wikimedia Foundation
philippe@wikimedia.org
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