Posts in "Employer"

Employer

Should You Share Leadership with Your Tech Recruitment Team?

February 26, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

When there is pressure on team leaders to employ new developers, it is not uncommon for talent acquisition managers to micromanage their team. One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a manager is to micromanage your team because it will cause you to miss out on potentially beneficial service and insights which these team members can offer.

On the other hand, giving your team too much autonomy might be deleterious to your leadership autonomy. Although, taking them along on how you optimize your management strategy is very important. But it should not be done at the expense of your supremacy as the leader. Therefore, there should be a balance in your talent management strategy. How can you now share your leadership responsibilities with your recruitment team without losing your supremacy? Below are ways by which you can get this done.

Be Open-Minded

As an HR Leader, you must be able to embrace diverse opinion from your tech team since your goal is to create and implement a sustainable management strategy. No doubt, you are the leader and at the same time, you make the final decision on which tool and tactics to use. But then, you have to understand that some of them will likely have some experience or they can even be more experienced than you. Taking this into consideration, you should listen to their opinions and recommendation in order to fully implement your plan.

Although it is not mandatory for you to ask for feedback from your subordinates on everything you do, it is usually wise to take time to listen to anybody who comes to you for clarification as well as to give suggestions regarding your methods. Ask questions on the ideas the person is bringing and how it may benefit the team and firm as a whole. At the end of the day, you may not necessarily make use of the idea but your discussions and interactions will most certainly boost the morale of the team members and help the team in discovering new ways of dealing with developers.

Let Them Take the Lead Whenever They Propose New Initiative

Sharing leadership is far beyond passing tasks on to your team. You must also make them feel leadership potential. Suppose one of your tech recruitment team suggest a new employer branding campaign and you feel it is a way in which you can get your work optimized, why can’t you let him or her take the lead?

It should be said, however, that the fact that you are giving your team a little more responsibility to lead does not mean that you are on the same pedestals. Instead of thinking this way, give them proper countenance and also find a way to be actively involved and make them feel motivated by your action. If they do not have the requisite confidence and support from you, the recruitment team could end up failing.

Employer

How Ad Retargeting Impacts Tech Recruiting

February 21, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Keeping your developer on all the time is not only necessary but very essential as an HR leader. In view of this, ad retargeting as emerge as a suitable way to keep your developer on. Although ad retargeting is not a requisite to HR certification, as an HR leader, it is very important you get yourself acquainted with ad retargeting campaign to boost your employer branding strategy. Ad Retargeting is a process whereby you keep your brand in front of your developers when they leave your website without checking out, thereby touting them to reconsider your offer when they are in need of it.

During retargeting, specific developers are targeted with specific ads in order to tout them to consider your offer. Ad retargeting is a good initiative, retargeting can serve banner ads to people who have already visited your website (According to Dan Hecht and HubSpot). Retargeting can also serve as a way to aid your employer branding strategy because relevant ads attract developers. However, a survey conducted by Nanigans reveals that 77% of developers believe that they see many ads placed by the same companies.

As an HR leader, have you been thinking of how to boost your branding strategy or perhaps you have been ruminating on how to stay relevant without turning developers off? Consider ad retargeting for your tech recruiting and also keep at the back of your mind the following significant ways by which ad retargeting campaign can impact tech recruiting.

Targets Developers Based on Site Activity

Creating a retargeting campaign based on site activity give you an edge among competitors. According to Aaron Doades of search engine land, creating a retargeting campaign based on site activity enables you to change the ad on the specific product category. Also, it helps to put in a very strong call to action.

When you want to start an ad retargeting campaign, you must be aware of which developer types are clicking on your open roles? Which roles are they reading? Which positions do you want them to see? You can use the result from the questions to create a list of keywords to target in your ad campaign for tech recruiting. This will ensure that you are engaging with the right candidate.

Tech Candidates Know How They Are Being Targeted

Retargeting is a difficult way to create banner ads for developers and programmers because they have in-depth knowledge about the working principles. Many developers (Software developers) have claimed that data are shared in an implicit manner with separate advertisers.

These remarks are not too good for ad retargeting. For instance, you create a campaign to hire a desktop developer. You start by targeting a suitable candidate at any reputable company such as Apple or Microsoft. This is not bad, but if you stopped there, your ads would be seen by desktop or mobile developers at Apple or Microsoft company. The only intended candidate would found the campaign relevant. In the long run, this will definitely leave a negative impression on other developers that saw the ads.

Employer

How to Recruit an Engineering Manager

February 19, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

A results-oriented and efficient team is one with two main components: skillful developers and a manager to show them the way.

First of all, management, no matter the type is a title that focuses on people, the team members who make things happen. No manager can do a great job if he or she focuses on tasks and data only.

In order to make a team work and be successful, you need to make sure that each and every member works at the best of their abilities in a healthy environment and optimized workspace. Here is where the manager comes in to listen to them, coach them and optimize the dynamics.

An Engineer Manager is, of course, a developer or technical person at core. But aside from the tech skills needed to understand the process of the team, that individual needs to have great people skills. Not a combination you find lying around. Here’s how to approach the recruitment process for a position like such:

Hit their hubs & gathering points

More often than not, those who aspire to be managers or to become better managers, won’t gather for public coding sessions, but rather for self-development, people-oriented trainings, and other similar events.

Find out about the places where qualified people might hang around. Meetup events or Stack Overflow get-togethers can be linked together in the bigger cities. Get to know the insides of such people!

Listen to their concerns or issues

In a technical manager role, the main task in your hand is to tackle people. To do so successfully you need to understand what they experience daily and yearly. Once you’ve done this, you can address these concerns when targeting a candidate. Help them find the optimal way of working with the team and build an evolving path for the near future. They need all the support they can get.

Empathy – the key to driving businesses

Because a technical manager will tend to preoccupy him/herself with the technical workability of their responsibilities, they will miss on the business side of things. You should not dump numbers and pressure on them in terms they don’t understand, but rather try to see their point of view and stir the boat gently in your desired manner.

Code reading – a key skill

A manager in a technical team will most likely have less code to write, but a lot to read. Because their main task is not to develop code, but to ensure the team does so successfully, they might get frustrated or try to contribute with some code themselves to break the routine. However, coach them on code reading so that they can easily supervise where the team is headed and adjust in consequence while keeping the focus on team management.

Developer Employer

How Important Is the Cost per Hire for Developer Positions?

February 14, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Ever since the market for developers experiences such a gap and there are so little potential candidates out there, managers stopped consider the cost of hiring one programmer. If you talk to them, they will justify this by saying that the benefit of hiring a developer far exceeds the money spent on doing so.

In reality, however, the cost is very relevant to your recruiting strategy and this is why you should pay more attention to it. Even though the cost per hire (CPH) is not the only way to measure return-on-investment (ROI) as there are quite a few other success factors to consider, it plays an important role Knowing this figure can help you make smarter investment decisions, define your referral bonuses and save your organization money in the long run.

Get a better understanding of the real cost of a bad hire

Lately, people focus on the subject of quality-of-hire. Since the goal is not only to fill up a position but to find a right fit, many say that you can go over budget as long as your company acquired a good developer.

While this makes sense, you should also keep in mind your return on investment. Making a bad hire will eventually cost you more. Losing a developer will also take a toll on your overall profit because you will lack productivity and will have to invest in another recruitment and hiring process.

Having a good sense of how much it costs you to hire a dev, gives you a better image of how to adapt your screening and recruiting process in the future. Because a professional that is not the right fit for your particular position will drain you after.

Justifying the money spent on recruitment

There isn’t a moment when your team does not need new recruits and, additionally, a budget for it. But in order to receive an increased budget, you need to show the ones in charge that your hiring history is clean and effective.

Not knowing the price per hire will not present you in a good light. A graphic of the number of applications, interviews conducted, potential candidates and final hires tells a story about your approach.

When you plan on stepping up your recruiting strategy and you already know how much you spend on new hires, the managing board will be happy to let you try a new approach that might reduce costs significantly.

With data such as cost-per-hire, it is easier to find the appropriate tools for your team. As a manager, you will be successful in getting new talent while the team will increase productivity because the right people are in the right positions. You can now ass to your portfolio the strategic planner and talent acquisition expert skills.

Employer

Is Your Candidate Experience up to Par? Ask Yourself These 5 Questions:

February 12, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

According to CareerBuilder, a good number of candidates see the candidate experience as an indicator of how much a company values its people. Every contact with candidates throughout the recruitment process is a chance for them to learn more about your company. Considering how important these interactions are, it is important that your company positions and portrays itself accurately.

Applicants generally hope to validate their preconceived perception about your company using the candidate experience. Since the recruiting process provides a glimpse into the daily life of the organization they may soon be joining it is important that you ensure that your candidate experience is up to par with the needs of the job seekers. Here are 5 important questions you can use to evaluate this.

How Good Are Your Job Descriptions?

Your job description is most times the first contact a candidate has with you. As yourself this, what do candidates see when they open the job listings on your website. Are they seeing generic posts which can be filled by just anyone on the street or they get a clear picture of the specific requirements of every position including a comprehensive list of the goals and responsibilities they will be required to fulfill?

If you want to make a good first impression then your job description is one of the important places to look at. Try to make sure it answers every question the candidate might have about a position and your organization including the vision and mission of your company, the structure, and culture of your organization as well as the benefits packages of the position.

Does Your Candidate Experience Reflect Your Culture As a Company?

The recruitment process should be aimed at giving candidates a taste of the culture within your organization. Your candidate experience should be based on the values of your internal culture. For example, if your company is team focused, ask candidates to demonstrate how well they can perform in a team or invite them to meet multiple team members within your company to demonstrate how you emphasize on teamwork.

Do You Have A Mobile-Friendly Recruiting Process?

These days everyone is on their phone and as a modern company, it is important that you keep up with the trends. The bulk of traffic to your recruitment pages is from mobile devices which means for convenience your career site should be mobile-friendly.

How Great Is Your Follow-Up?

While it is true that breaking a bad new isn’t easy on anyone, you owe it to the candidates to inform them about their status in the recruitment process. It also helps your company’s reputation as well. Let the promising candidates know that they did well even if you will not be able to employ them. Also, try to let the declined candidates why they didn’t get the position and what they could have done better to improve their chances the next time. This way you maintain a good reputation with the candidates and increase the chances of them applying for future positions in your company

What Do The Candidates Have To Say About You?

Asking the people that have gone through it to evaluate it is one way to get a picture of how great your candidate experience was. Ask your new hires to give feedback about the recruitment process. This will give you an idea on which part of the candidate experience you need to change or improve upon.

Not everything that works great for the company is great for the candidates. These questions will help you if you are thinking of adjusting and improving your candidate experience in 2019

Employer

The Importance of Rewards and Recognition Programs

February 7, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Better results, higher engagement, complex recognition programs. We are not just randomly mentioning buzz words related to modern business goals but giving you the concepts with a high correlation that are conducting to improved business results.

Let’s start from the beginning.

If you’d like your business to have higher customer ratings, increased profitability, and productivity, less turnover, decreased absenteeism, product defects, and shrinkage and little to no safety incidents you have to do something to increase engagement. And it’s plenty of room here for only 29% of employees are highly engaged working at a superior level, while 18% of employees are actively disengaged, hurting the organizations they belong to. 53% of the employee left in the middle are just performing at a mediocre level.

When speaking about engagement we speak from hiring to separation and lately we are more and more concerned on the candidates’ engagement too, for a disagreeable experience as an applicant can hurt the company’s bottom line. In the Rullion Candidate Survey, from 2014 and in the Ph Candidate Attraction eBook from 2015 you can see that 75% of the applicants were already customers of the company they applied at and 1 in 4 applicants consider stopping purchasing products and services as a result of poor candidate experience.

Let’s take an extra step forward. We now know that engagement is of paramount importance, but why correlate engagement with recognition and reward?

Experts point that there are for engagement drivers for engagement consistent among employees around the world:

The work itself, including opportunities for development
Confidence and trust in leadership
Recognition and rewards
Organizational communication that is delivered in a timely and orderly way

With a solid place among engagement drivers, recognition and rewards should be on the spot lite for all companies around the world when working to increase employee engagement. Add to this that, according to Gallup, number one reason people leave jobs is they don’t feel appreciated and the fact that Organizations with Recognition programs had 31% lower voluntary turnover, according to Deloitte, while 60% best-in-class organizations state that employee recognition is extremely valuable in driving performance. (Aberdeen Group) and I hope I’ve grabbed your attention to the reward and recognition topic.

Let’s talk about the way recognition was done not long ago. The manager remembered from time to time what he/she had learned in management/leadership training and gave the employee a tap on the back accompanied by the familiar “good job”. Sometimes he remembered that recognition should be public other time he/she didn’t remember such a small detail. Anyway, this type of recognition was rare to very rare and most of the time not accompanied by quality feedback. The employee of the month or employee of the year programs created on happy persons while all the other employees were unhappy. The other types of recognition programs, mostly related to increasing in seniority, remember the golden watch people received at retirement, had little to do with performance and competency improvement.

So, forget about these old programs for they never worked then and for sure they will not work now when Gen Y is almost 80% of the working force and Gen Z is starting working too.

You need a program based on social wisdom, on crowdsourcing, a program where peer to peer recognition and feedback is as important as manager’s recognition and feedback, a program where recognition and feedback are immediate and public to everyone in the company. To implement such a recognition and reward program you need a platform that provides the framework for an organization to structure and implement such a complex recognition program that reinforces behaviors and improves individual team performance while aligning it with organizational values and result.

Via such a program you offer your employees, beyond recognition and feedback, you offer rewards that are meaningful for them, customized to their needs, wants and preferences.

Employer

Are we facing a workforce crisis in the Cyber Security sector?

February 5, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

The employment situation – or should we say lack of – on the cybersecurity front seems somewhat dramatic if you look at it through the lens of statistics.

Even though cyber attacks on businesses are steadily increasing, and the number of data breach victims are constantly rising every year.

What could possibly be at fault for the tremendous shortage of skilled professionals!? We need to answer whether the market is going through a crisis in talents or companies that offer such positions struggle for different reasons.

ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Control Association) conducted a survey among hiring organizations to find out how long it takes them, on average, to fill in a cyber-security/information security position.

Long-term vacancies are the more accurate term

The survey brings to light the hard time enterprises appear to have when recruiting specialists for cybersecurity or information security positions.

The majority of companies surveyed admitted that it takes them 3 to 6 months to find proper candidates. A hire in less than a month is only reported by one in 10 employers. All the while, approximately 6% of the respondents say they are unable to fill these positions.

ISACA offers various certifications in the cybersecurity sector for professionals who want to level-up their career path. The demand for skilled individuals is very high and the need to attract new talents is continuously increasing.

Another survey performed by the ESG on the state of IT highlights the steady growth of cybersecurity professionals seen over the years. as we can see, the percentage of companies reporting a cybersecurity skills shortage has almost doubled in just five years

2014: 23 percent of respondents said their organization had a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills
2015: 25 percent of respondents said their organization had a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills
2016: 46 percent of respondents said their organization had a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills
2017: 45 percent of respondents said their organization had a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills
2018: 51 percent of respondents said their organization had a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills

One of the most in-demand cybersecurity roles is security analyst, Security analysts work to prevent and mitigate breaches on the ground. Another hot job is security manager. Security managers develop and implement overarching processes to keep information private. To get as a job as a security manager the applicant will probably need a professional certification to be considered for such a role, like a CISM (Certified Information Security Manager) or CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional).

You would think people would be running toward a career with almost-guaranteed job security. However, very few people are entering the cybersecurity field.

But there is a way out of this. Here are three areas you can start working on:

Ongoing training and clear career paths
Adopt new education models – Education can be more exciting through hands-on training, hackathons, and gaming. The Intel Security survey found that hackathons were a great way to identify talent and develop skills
Diversify the industry – Cybersecurity is currently a male-dominated industry. Another option to increase the number of cybersecurity professionals is to make it more attractive to women and minorities, this way you will also widen the talent pool.

Employer

Pressing Need for Cybersecurity Specialists on the Market

January 31, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Cybersecurity is threatened not only by hackers and outside sources but also by the lack of talents on the market. Skilled professionals are in great demand according to a study conducted by the Capgemini Digital Transformation Institute.

Currently, companies who employ such specialists are in dire straits. 68% of them are looking to recruit talents that are not available since the gap between supply and demand has reached a score of 25%.

The senior executive of Deloitte and a recent graduate of a master’s programme in cybersecurity, has pointed out through her study, that by the year 2022 we will suffer a 1.8 million shortage in this particular area of expertise.

Is there a solution to closing the gap?

The first step consists of stimulating and attracting young talents to pursue a career in cybersecurity. This entails the following:

Coming up with creative and forward-thinking strategies of attracting talent
Build a story around the organization and work environment in the field
Target groups and hotspots of already trained professionals
Creating talent from within the company

The second step consists of efficient retention of current professionals. Ideas on how to improve the process include:

Creating goals and motivation for them to advance in their expertise
Coming up with a career plan system to help specialists grasp a better picture of their professional future
Promote an unbiased acceptance environment for all genders and orientations
Make tasks more challenging and entertaining to maintain enthusiasm by automating the dull ones

Closing the gap is not realistic, but bridging it can be an effective and progressive approach. The Human Capital Agenda for Cyber Security strongly encourage active collaboration among organizations in this sector.

Active involvement and collaboration could take the form of:

Providing controlled training in many sections of cybersecurity. Access to education can open up opportunities for young talents who would otherwise choose differently.
Facilitating access to extensive career plans that would emphasis on long-term benefits, quality of life, income and the sense of belonging in a close community
Promoting cybersecurity as a viable option for future talents and young professionals
Creating support groups and skill sharing communities among professionals to widen their expertise
Attracting students through events, competitions, and challenges like hackathons
Leading conferences and events to provide role models in the field and sharing stories on professional paths
Expanding beyond universities and college degrees to people of diverse backgrounds who may have the abilities to learn and excel in the cybersecurity sector

It would be a shame to leave untapped potential dormant while the market is suffering a major deficit.

Employer

Hot IT Hiring Trends and Trends Going Cold

January 29, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

A top challenge in the modern IT industry is that of hiring the best tech talents to bring about the achievement of goals and promote organizational development, this is partly due to the fact that tech talents are in high demand and also their paucity in the labor market. However, despite these challenges, companies have been able to adapt themselves to this seeming difficulty through various means, this article showcases how companies now carry out IT hiring and trends getting cold in the process of IT staffing.

Hot Trend: Workplace Flexibility

While companies still want their staff working in a specific base, an increasingly observed phenomenon in the IT world today is workplace flexibility which allows employees to work from home, café, coffee shop or even overseas during breaks or trips. The advantage of this is to aid retention and system burn out. Therefore, these days, employers are leaving rooms for their employees to work flexibly for greater efficiency.

Cold Trend: Full-time Remote Work

Full-time remote work has appeared to be a trend on the decline in the IT industry and fast getting outdated as a workplace practice. This is because there is usually always room for employees to strike a balance in their various engagements and duties and a full-time remote work doesn’t allow for this. Close proximity among staff, working together is proving more effective than a remote system of working.

Hot Trend: Flexibility Staffing

A standard pool of staff is being made possible in the IT industry, this system allows the availability of employable flexible staff who are well equipped and skilled to handle different challenges which might be thrown at them and even excel at this. Hence, this provides easy access to employees who are willing to work and deliver the required service at any time they are needed.

Cold Trend: Rigid Recruitment

The impact of the imbalance between the demand and the supply for tech talents have made it practically impossible for tech talents to be treated to a very stiff requirement before they are recruited. Hence, employers now rely on hiring employees who are less experienced but motivated to acquire new skills quickly.

Hot Trend: Incentives

Despite the fact that IT talents hiring is very competitive, IT talents are not immune against following the path of incentives and better workplace welfare, IT talents also follow the direction of “perks” if they are found as part of the employment package. Some of the popular perks include flexible work schedules, regular social events, remove work opportunities, free gym membership, a compressed schedule, and free food.

Cold Trend: Prolonged Hiring Period

Since the nature of the IT market is competitive, one thing which turns tech talents off is if the recruitment process extends beyond two weeks after the interview. Many tech professionals have explained that they lose interest in a job if there is no follow-up within two weeks after an interview, hence, employers are advised to look for ways to make their hiring process smooth and fast to avoid losing desired workers.

Employer

Why Candidate Engagement Matters in Recruiting

January 22, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Employee engagement is one of those often talked about but rarely understood concepts. We all know that a fulfilled employee is more productive, but in order to attract and retain top talents, companies need to engage employees in the long run.

To realize how important the candidates’ engagement is you’ll have look at your recruitment and selection processes from the candidate’s perspective and change things accordingly. Some of the most common problems we find embedded in each process are:

The application form, candidates find on your website is too long and too complicated.
There is no confirmation email that a human being has seen that a new candidate filled the application form
The recruitment and selection process has too many steps and/or is too long or worse no expectation is set on this.
The candidate is unable to contact a recruiter for no contact info are available.
No notice is given when the position is filled/closed or just a standard automatic mail is received weeks after the job was given to someone else.

Communication is key and by simply addressing some of the basics above and further scrutinizing your process most will understand if another more qualified candidate has been placed in the role or recognize if the organization is no longer hiring. Be clear and notify candidates if passed over or not, answer promptly to all candidates’ questions/emails, explain the timeline of the selection process. Also, ensure you offer feedback to all candidates after each step including after interviews or tests and questionnaires applied.

The improvements shouldn’t stop here make sure to survey the candidates and the newly hired employees by asking them for feedback on what they like or didn’t like about your application process and change things accordingly.

Candidates will always prefer the human touch but this doesn’t mean automation is obsolete, on the contrary. Use recruiting technology or even the trendier Artificial Intelligence (AI) for speed, to automate repetitive tasks, such as screening, use chatbots to answer questions that potential applicants have about posted job offers, use AI to generate insights that you as an HR professional wouldn’t think of by yourself, for example. Thus, recruiters will have more time for tasks that really add value such as network-building and communication. AI is clearly the future as discussed by LinkedIn and other but is now only coming to the fore and gaining acceptance because the experience is more human-like. However, AI is only as good as the logic you invest in it and technology will only execute what you’ve told it to automate so don’t skimp on the investment of time in engineering your process for a successful candidate experience all around.

Take time to understand how these new trends match with your current hiring process and you will be able to add extra more valuable tasks to your “to do list” for improving the candidates’ experience and engagement but also for attracting and hiring top candidates from the marketplace.

With all this info at hand is time to act, so be critical when scrutinizing your hiring process and improve it using candidates feedback, common sense and of course the 80-20 rule (Pareto distribution). Results will show but you need patience for this is not an overnight transformation. Analyse, change, measure again and change again and don’t forget that recruiting is changing fast and so should your ways of doing it.