Hi Reader,

Connecting people is something I’ve always admired in others and always wanted to learn myself.

I’m getting better at it by watching the experts.

Timur Novopashin is one of them. He built International HR Club while working in-house as a talent acquisition leader. Today it’s a free, curated community of 1,800+ HR and talent professionals on Slack and Telegram, with verified membership and zero tolerance for toxicity.

We’re all busy, and when the week fills up, community is the first thing to go. Networking feels like a nice-to-have. But a lot of what people bring to these groups is work they have to do anyway. And it goes faster with people who’ve done it before.

Four needs a community should cover

In the latest Built by People Leaders episode, Timur and I talk about how to choose a community and how to get value from it. In his community, the same four topics keep coming up.

HR tech. At some point every growing company needs an ATS or an HRIS. Before choosing one, people ask peers who’ve already implemented it.
Experts. Implementation consultants, facilitators, fractional HR, trainers. People want a recommendation from someone they trust.
Peers. You’ve moved to a new country, or your company is opening a new location. You look for people who’ve been there.
Function questions. Recruiters ask where to find a certain type of candidate. Total rewards people ask which providers others use for grades and salary ranges.

Timur shared an example. A company was opening offices in several EU countries, and leadership asked HR which locations to start with. They wanted to know about salaries, immigration rules and the local labor market. The community opened a separate thread, people who had done this shared what they knew, and the HR team used it for their report to leadership.

So before you join a community, or decide whether to stay, check it against these four. If it helps with at least one, it’s part of your work.

Share your favorite communities

Which HR communities do you find most useful? They can be local or global, free or paid, broad or niche.

Hit reply and send me the name and one line on what you get from it. I’ll put together a list and share it in one of the upcoming issues.

One line worth keeping

Ask yourself what you want to get from the community and what you’re ready to offer.” — Timur Novopashin

In the full episode, Timur explains how to choose between local and global, paid and free, broad and niche communities. Spoiler: you don’t have to pick just one. He also tells how International HR Club started as a private chat with people he knew, and what it takes to run a community once it grows. You can listen on your favorite platform.