Posts tagged "career"

Tech Recruiting: Hire for Fit, Train for Skills

May 14, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Being a hiring manager in a tech firm can be very challenging. Virtually none of the candidates who applied to fill a certain role has the perfect blend of skills required for that role, to the extreme perplexity and frustration of hiring managers. For example, you can post a vacancy for the post of say, JavaScript Developer, and then not quite long after, you have already received a plethora of applications on your desk. There is nothing bad in this; in fact, you will be excited to go through the ‘interesting applications’ if you are a rookie hiring manager. But then you begin to go through the applications, you look at the CV of the applicants and then your headache begins; it is possible to have a seasoned candidate who has undertaken a lot of projects but is not conversant with the latest technologies. Another candidate is a master of JavaScript but does not have an academic qualification, and so on. Where one candidate is lacking competency, he makes up for it in other areas. As a hiring manager, you are in a dilemma – technical skills are essential, but how would you get the perfect candidates to suit the specific tasks you are hiring them for?

Fortunately, there are a number of methods to vet a candidate and verify their suitability for a job. These methods include:

Asking the candidate to provide their portfolio.
Giving them a programming problem to solve.
Request them to physically come for a programming exercise together with another program.

For what reason do these methods work for several firms who follow them? All things considered, investigate the main reasons employees do not do well in their roles. Obviously, specialized fitness can be a central reason. However, as a rule, chiefs battle with workers that are creating a ruckus due to their poor relational abilities, no longing to team up, or an absence of responsibility. Delicate abilities are hard to prepare for. You either have them or you don’t.

To ensure that a candidate fits your company, you should begin by asking questions that align with your core values. Do ensure to make the interview a conversational one, and not an interrogation. Based on some core values, these are some of the questions you could ask:

Individual Accountability – ask whether there had been a time when the candidate committed an error.

Team Work – try to inquire if the candidate has ever taught a colleague a skill before. Ask the candidate to expatiate on this.

Understudy Focus – Has the candidate at any point failed to adhere to a deadline due to the client not being satisfied with something in their work?

Work-Life Integration – they could describe how an effective day looks like to them.

People-Centered Design – try to see how the candidate would describe a technical concept to a non-specialized client

Fiercely Competitive Nature – What tech aptitudes would they be possibly keen on learning apart from the current skills they possess?

It is just not good for you to ignore potential fit issue just because the candidate has top-notch technical skills. And while it is important that a candidate has the skills required to execute projects, it is equally important, if not more important, to engage the services of a worker who fits into the company.

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.

Employer

Hiring In Tech: Potential Over Experience

January 17, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Every growing and advancing company seeks to recruit additional staff to handle and further their growth. In that light, companies usually seek the best minds and hands in the fields they intend to hire from. One such field is that of Tech; in which likely recruits fall into the categories of either those with experience in the industry or those with little/no experience but with potentials.

During the recruitment process, employers are usually faced with the question of whether to choose someone with experience over one with potentials or to do otherwise. This choice, of course, isn’t a straight forward one, as both categories of likely recruits each have their advantages and their drawbacks, and depends on what the company values most at the point of recruitment. But then, we will look into why tech companies should choose potential over experience.

Companies spend a lot of resources in order to get top talent for hire and have always favored those with experience. The reason for this isn’t far-fetched, as many think it is obvious that those with experience in the field will be able to handle more tasks and challenges and thus, are better suited for the job. But this approach no longer serves the best interest in today’s job market, as experience is not everything.

Potential is the capacity to develop into something great and everyone in the tech space will understand that jobs in this field are very competitive and need to be creative and innovative in order to stand out. These key areas of innovation and creativity are better handled by recruits with little experience but high potential than the experienced folks.

Also in the tech industry is the need for flexibility, adaptability to change, and diversity. These qualities are better found in recruits who have high potentials, as they are more willing to explore new options in the field; which is relatively new to them. This enables them to be able to effectively function and succeed not only in their current roles but also in sideways or upward roles within the company.

As mentioned earlier, hiring for experience definitely has its own benefits, as companies who recruit them can expect fewer errors in jobs, and better character and hindsight. But for a tech company whose main drive is insight and innovation, it is more advisable to go for the ones with potential over those with experience.

Sure enough, recruits with just potentials and little or no experience will have their own drawbacks, but with adequate support and training will be able to continuously improve over time. All the companies need to do is capitalize on the curiosity, motivation, and determination of these recruits to help them learn as much as they can. With this approach, the employers will be able to better understand them over time and give them more appropriate roles where they can function best.

Having said all that we have, we can confidently conclude that for long-term investment and future growth of tech companies, the choice of potential over experience in hiring is the way to go!

Employer

Common Misconceptions About Coding Boot Camp Graduates

November 23, 2018 Comments Off Roxana read

In many cases and situations, people make assumptions that are not based on facts or truths. One of such cases is the perception of coding boot camp graduates. Although these coders have over the years, proven themselves to be of high values to engineering teams, there are still erroneous ideas about things involving them.

Do you happen to also believe certain things about coding boot camp graduates, that cannot be well confirmed as the truth? Then, prepare to have your misconceptions debunked, as we carefully look and help you know the actual truth about them.

#1 Coding Boot Camp Graduates are Maths or Science Experts

When you hear the word, ‘coder’, are the next words that come to mind, “Maths, science, geek”? This need not be, as just about anyone can learn how to program by attending a coding boot camp, without necessarily having high technical skills.

#2 They don’t easily or quickly get Jobs

It is, of course, true that a boot camp won’t provide you with a job. However, you must recognize that their duty and responsibility is to teach and help you learn in order to hone enough coding skills to get a decent job.

#3 They are unaware of Industry Standards

Know that boot camps have the flexibility and adaptability to change tactics and approaches much quicker than traditional education (which is more rigid in structure). Thus, students get to be updated on recent trends and standards and get equipped with very relevant tools for thriving in their field.

#4 They have no original Ideas

If you think all boot camp graduates do is reproduce pieces of stuff other people have already done, then you’re misinformed. At the latter phases of a coding boot camp, students are given projects to be built from the scratch and several groups have rigorous milestones, technical endorsements and are able to effectively function in environments that require them to be proactive – just as they would need to be in the real world.

#5 They attend Boot Camps only to change Careers

Coding is a very interesting skill that some people just take up to supplement their present jobs and not necessarily as a main career.

#6 They have no experience as Professional Developers

You need to realize that not everyone who attends a coding boot camp is new to the field. Some are well experienced in certain aspects of coding but just want to upgrade their skills and add to their knowledge.

#7 They pay too much for too little benefit

By understanding the value and future benefits that learning coding at boot camps add to students, you will be able to recognize that the monetary price paid to gain the knowledge is not too expensive.

So, for recruiters or employers in need of the services of Coders and developers, you need not to discard the idea of employing boot camp graduates, as they just might be some of the best hands you can get for hiring. And for those unsure of whether to learn coding at a boot camp or not, be rest assured that enrolling in a coding boot camp is one right choice to make in order to hone your desired coding skills.