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How to Find a Rare ASO Specialist for a Startup, If You Have a Large Stop-list of Candidates?

ASO specialists are professionals who are engaged in Mobile App search engine optimization. This is a very young and therefore rather rare profession in the IT market. Finding an ASO specialist with at least minimal experience is a great piece of luck, especially if we are talking about Russian-speaking candidates.

But what if we tell you that we managed to find not just an ASO specialist within a short time, but an experienced talent ready to fulfil the functions of a Team Leader?

In our new case study, telling you how our IT recruiter Maria Yurkanskaya managed to quickly find an experienced ASO specialist for one of our regular clients - an international IT startup.

Maria Yurkanskya,
the Lucky Hunter IT recruiter

Task and its difficulties

In summer 2021, a Russo-Finnish startup contacted us with a request to find a Senior ASO specialist. The candidate the company was looking for must not only have deep expertise in search engine optimization in mobile app stores but also have experience in team management.

The task was not among simple ones. As we've already mentioned, an ASO specialist is a rather exotic professional in the IT market. However, these are not all the obstacles we had to cope with:

The salary offered by our client was not higher than the market average.

The candidate had to complete a test assignment.

We were limited by a large stop-list of companies from which you couldn't lure specialists.

Being a fairly well-known service in the market, our client had a large number of companies using the service, and therefore close associates. Therefore, in order not to complicate regulations with partner companies, our client provided a fairly extensive stop list of companies.

This limitation further complicated the search for an already rare ASO specialist. Still, realizing that we are passionate about taking on unusual ambitious tasks, we started looking for a professional.

Finding a specialist: extra challenges

In order to fill the vacancy, we used all existing recruiting channels, but LinkedIn turned out to be the most effective one in this case.

Unlike other channels, where there are still no specific keywords for finding specialists in the field of mobile optimization, LinkedIn allowed finding relevant candidates by showing suitable CVs.

However, straight after we'd started the search, we faced an additional challenge. This profession is so new in the IT market that most Senior ASO specialists have no experience in team management yet.

Working on the principle of partnership, which implies an open dialogue with the client, we discussed the issue with
our customer.

Considering that only 30% of the tasks of a future employee were related to team management, our client agreed to look for specialists who don't have such experience but were ready to master team management skills. At the same time, high expertise, Senior-level and a vast background of a specialist remained key requirements for a candidate.

Filling a vacancy: Pivot

Having slightly adjusted the candidate's profile, we continued the search and just after a few weeks, we found a suitable specialist.

Our candidate perfectly fit the client company, accepted the offer and is currently working for
the customer's company.

In total, we processed 144 CVs of specialists, sent over a hundred emails and conducted interviews with 6 candidates. To one of them out client, finally made an offer.

ASO-specialists statistics

It is noteworthy that we worked in conjunction with other recruiters, but it was the candidate found by the Lucky Hunter team that turned out to be the most suitable for the role of the ASO team leader. This is yet more proof that the Lucky Hunter team provides only the most relevant specialists :)

How we managed to fill the vacancy:
success factors

Competent motivation
After we adjusted the candidate's profile, focusing on expertise rather than experience in team management, we built a slightly different motivation strategy.

Talking about the tasks in greater detail, we motivated to consider the offer even those candidates that have already had experience in team management and didn't want to return to the core competencies of an ASO specialist.

Shifting focus from the team leader duties to the core responsibilities of the ASO specialist turned out to
be the right strategy.

So, the candidate our Lucky Hunter team has found, had no experience in managing teams, was still interested in both the new "managerial" experience and the direct duties of ASO specialist.

Client's flexibility
Realizing all the complexities of the position, the client was flexibly approached the search process. So, realizing that it would be very difficult to find an ASO specialist from Russia, our client provided an opportunity to search for specialists from all over the world, without focusing on Russian-speaking candidates.

This approach helped us to successfully fill the vacancy. The candidate our team found is a girl from Armenia. She doesn't speak Russian, but knows English perfectly :)

In addition, paying heed to our recommendations, our client was ready to consider candidates with no experience in team management. So, we not only quickly filled a vacancy but also found a motivated, worthy candidate for our client.

This is yet more proof that the principle of partnership, according to which we at Lucky Hunter work with all clients, is one of the key success factors.

Lucky Hunter professionalism
Due to the fact that we know the specifics of the IT market and are well-versed in finding optimal strategies in each individual case, we were able to successfully fill the vacancy.

This is also proved by the fact that our client contacted us with a request to fill this vacancy after a long unsuccessful individual search.

If you have a rare and difficult IT vacancy that you can't fill for a long time, do not hesitate to contact our team. We will help you find the perfect candidate and successfully fill the vacancy. We provide CVs of the first specialists within 4 days after the job opening discussion!