Posts tagged "recruit"

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.

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

What’s Really Fueling the War for Tech Talent

January 15, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Without a doubt, any careful observer in the tech industry will easily notice what can be rightly called a war for top tech talents. The signs are quite obvious and clearly seen from how much companies battle fiercely to win top tech candidates to their sides, not minding the higher salaries they might have to offer them with additional incentives. The basis behind this is not hidden, and the economical law that backs up this observed phenomenon is simply that of demand and supply:

John Reed, a senior executive director of IT staffing firm Robert Half Technology explained that the continued investment of companies in tech has created an increase in the demand for tech professionals, however, the number of people who chose the field of tech is not increasing, leading to a “supply-demand imbalance.”

However, in the midst of this seeming “scarcity” of tech talents, a tech job-listing website, Dice.com claimed that the scarcity of good tech brains might have been over exaggerated by some companies. This is supported by comments from some other tech recruitment executives such as Tony Martin (Vice President, Recruitment Process Outsourcing) who believes that many companies are not doing their best to attract the best talents which are available, and he expressed the view that a smart way to recruit great employees is by looking at the skills available in the market and looking into ways to apply these needs to meet the specific needs of the company rather than matching a set of skills with job requirements.

Another challenge which might have been responsible for this “tech-talent-scarcity” could also be from the part of employers’ branding which could be inappropriate or unenticing to the prospective employees. This is a marketing problem from tech companies and it boils down to their branding. Funny enough, when people think about tech and its employees, they already have in mind a biased mindset that the employee must be within a particular age-range which is not always advantageous as many times, the desired tech talent wanted might not be in that category being specified, hence it could be seen more like a case of looking into the east when the answer lies idle right in the west. What this could translate to for the employer is to brand the company in a much better way and allow prospective employees know that the company stands for and what they stand to gain by working with the company, and also, the goals and objectives which they are going to fit into work with.

Yet, often left undiscovered in the cause of this war in the tech-talent hunt is the fact the company sometimes have workers leave their work easily while the company is looking for new talents. Many times, the talent being sought for outside a workplace might in the real sense be present at the workplace, and only needs to be identified, hence, there is a need to sometimes consider existing workers when tech-job opportunities open up.

Therefore, it is necessary for employers to look in the right directions when looking for their tech talents and not forget to be proactive and act smart. Also, it is essential to ignore biases and sometimes consider already available talents who might only need to be brushed up with training to meet the job requirements.

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.

Employer

Should You Start Planning Your 2019 Tech Recruitment Budget?

November 20, 2018 Comments Off Roxana read

As the year 2018 is gradually approaching its end, it is only ideal that people, companies, and organizations make plans for the succeeding year – 2019. This is done in order to ensure that things get better than they are. But then, for every plan to materialize, there has to be a cost. It is therefore important that a budget is made for every plan, so as to know whether the capability to handle them is available.

Among those faced with the question of whether to begin to make plans and allocate resources to hire new professionals ahead for the coming year are organizations who employ the services of Technology Experts. Are you or is your company one of those who do? Then you’ve come across just the right post to provide helpful suggestions to enlighten and help you make the right decision.

Take stock of your Current Fiscal Year

The first thing to do before making further plans is to take stock of the company’s fiscal year and note the factors influencing the gain or loss in profit for the company. This will help you as a recruiter, to understand the exact areas where new staff need to be brought in and how helpful Tech experts will be to your company’s advancement.

Recognize if Recruiting will support the Organization’s Long-Term Vision

It is very important that as a talent acquisition manager or recruiter of Tech professionals, you have a proper understanding of the company’s vision and future plans, in order to bring in the right set of qualified candidates who will help advance the company’s course. By taking this factor into consideration, it will be possible to rightly assess any expenses made in hiring new tech staff and know if it will yield long-term benefits.

Identify the type of Developers you need

Knowing that the areas of expertise of Tech professionals vary, you need to be very specific about the particular ones you’ll be needing to achieve your goals. This will bring clarity as to how soon they need to be hired, taking into consideration their particular functions in the company.

Analyze the Cost of Recruiting

It is vital that you set and understand budget expectations. Expenses (which include; Job boards and advertising, Employer branding events, Candidate assessment, Recruitment Agencies and salary of the hiring team), will be made through the recruiting process and you need to be able to rightly and effectively allocate funds for each of the involved expenses.

Maximize your Recruiting Budget

It is important that you are able to reduce recruiting cost where necessary and possible and fully optimize the budget for the entire recruitment process. Among ways to achieve this are;

Pre-assessing qualifications to know best-fit candidates
Allocating funds effectively
Optimizing Technology to Reduce Cost.

By taking all the mentioned suggestions into consideration, and putting them to practice, you will be able to rightly decide whether to begin to plan the Tech Budget for the coming year 2019 or to wait till some later time.

Employer

Benefits of Hiring an Artificial Intelligence Developer

November 14, 2018 Comments Off Roxana read

One fast evolving aspect in the area of technology is Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is the intelligence demonstrated by machines (composed of complex mathematical algorithms, software programs, and specialized hardware), enabling them with functions such as learning and problem-solving. In recent years, there has been a continuous increase in the application of AI, as it is making previous impossibilities in many fields now possible. This trend is even bound to exponentially increase in the coming years and with the rise in its use is a corresponding increase in the demand for those who can develop this technology.

Artificial Intelligence developers are those who design, develop and structure AI software in order to achieve specific objectives. Thus, in order for AI to be useful to anyone, these developers need to be available to play their roles.

Before we delve into the specific benefits you or your organization will obtain by hiring these professionals, it is important that we highlight the areas of everyday life where AI is impacting. These areas include:

Healthcare
Agriculture
Aviation
Education
Finance
Business Management
Transportation
Marketing and Sales Management
Geography and Ecology
Human Resources and Recruiting
Media and E-commerce
Music
News, publishing, and writing
Telecommunications maintenance
Defense and Security

Also, there are typical problems to which AI methods are applied. They include;

Handwriting recognition
Optical character recognition
Speech recognition
Face recognition
Artificial creativity
Computer vision, virtual reality, and image processing
Game theory and strategic planning
Photo and video manipulation
Natural language processing, Translation, and Chatterbots.
Nonlinear control and Robotics

Artificial Intelligence methods are also implemented in fields such as; Automated reasoning, concept mining, data mining, semantic web, hybrid intelligent systems, and litigation.

Having considered the aspects of life influenced by Artificial Intelligence and the problems to which it is applied, we now look into the specific benefits of hiring its developers. These benefits include;

Improvement in business efficiency, productivity, and quality.
Increase in sales as a result of focused and targeted marketing of the products for reaching the desired customers.
Exploration and implementation of hidden opportunities for the business.
Acceleration of slow business process through AI automation to save time and other resources.
Making insight based decision on the business processes to create greater competitive advantages.
Improvement in customer experience through AI based customer support.
Improved ROI (Return On Investment) and a decrease in operational costs.
Effective detection and deterring of security intrusions.
Resolution of user’s technology problems.
Gauging of internal compliance in using approved technology vendors.
Monitoring of social media comments to determine overall brand affinity and issues.

With popular AI-based applications like; cogito, Siri PA, Tesla Car, and NetFlix really having a constant increase in customer base, you should consider hiring an AI developer for relevant purposes in order to get these benefits and many more.

Employer

Companies using Gamification for Recruiting IT Talent

November 8, 2018 Comments Off Roxana read

Recent years have witnessed huge advancement in Information Technology and with this rise is the corresponding increase in the demand for IT experts. In a bid to get more talents for hire, companies now use gaming to attract, develop and motivate candidates, increase their own prominence and create workplace reward and recognition.

The use of gamification in recruiting is the application of typical elements of game playing to contribute to workforce development, by introducing fun, creativity, competition, and rewards into areas where they didn’t earlier exist. Understanding its diversity and effectiveness, a number of companies now use gamification to recruit experts in the field of Information Technology. Contained in this article are some of these companies that have taken advantage of the assistance gamification renders in recruiting IT talent.

Google

Google, a very innovative and creative InfoTech based company is definitely one to be on this list. For over a decade now, the company has been organizing a Google Code Jam software-writing competition to attract fresh and new talent. Monetary prizes up to $50,000 can be won as a big motivation to potential employees. However, the main aim of Google is to attract potential hires who have the appropriate skills that meet up with the company’s requirement.

Umbel

This big-data startup created a gaming challenge called Umbelmania. Via this platform, amateur and professional coders code their movements to earn points in the first-person fighter-style game. Competing head-to-head, gamers accumulate points to progress in the interviewing process with the company. Through this, coders are able to measure their coding abilities in relation to that of other contestants, improve on them, and know how suited they are for the job at the Startup.

AXA Group

Through a tool called Knack, this global insurance brand has implemented gamification in its hiring process. This tool builds various types of assessment games to identify the abilities, struggles and personality traits of candidates that might not be obvious in an interview or on a resume. Among the games that serve this intended purpose are, Wasabi Waiter and Balloon Brigade. These games collect several megabytes of data on potential hires to measure against successful employees already within the company.

Domino’s Pizza

Through an interactive software called Domino’s Pizza Mogul, this company is able to build a brand awareness with a particular appeal to young people in search of exciting jobs in a fun and innovative work environment. This game allows users to personally create and name Pizza ideas and Toppings and then market it. The users also earn monetary rewards for every Pizza sold.

Formapost

This French postal service was constantly faced with the challenge of retaining new hires. They were losing a quarter of their new recruits and this was costing a lot in their recruiting and hiring budgets. In a bit to resolve this challenge, they wielded the tool of gamification.

Having launched a gaming platform called Jeu Facteur Academy, they are now able to walk candidates through a routine day as a postal carrier and get them familiar with the job. By using this platform to prepare potential employees for the job, they were able to cut down the dropout rates from 25% to 8%.

Considering these companies, it is obvious that gamification is a reliable tool that you can use to achieve your company’s recruitment goals, attract people with the right skills set and increase your chances of keeping them for a long time.

Employer

How will Artificial Intelligence Impact the Future of Recruiting

November 6, 2018 Comments Off Roxana read

The field of Artificial Intelligence is a fast-evolving one, gaining influence in many spheres of human existence. It is the intelligence demonstrated by machines which have over time, proved its accuracy and dependability. This intelligence includes; decision making, visual and vocal recognition, and translation, – among other things. One aspect that is being influenced by Artificial Intelligence is that of recruiting people for jobs.

The reason behind the incorporation of A.I. into this field is not far-fetched, as it helps to reduce the workload of employees by making the mundane tasks of hiring and recruiting easier. It is expected to be a faster and more efficient alternative for companies to employ as a part of their Human Resource (HR) efforts. Contained in this article are some expected impacts of Artificial Intelligence in the future of recruiting.

Improved Efficiency and Experience

By optimizing AI, companies will be able to scan resumes, schedule interviews, and send routine emails, ultimately improving their efficiency and effectiveness. Also, via AI, candidate experience will be improved by making it more personalized and sincere and enabling the formation of real relationships between candidates and companies.

Faster and Smarter Hiring Process

As we all know, computers are built to perform tasks faster and more accurately. With the ability of bots to scan and identify the top resumes in a batch of applicants, the process of scheduling will be automated and predictive analytics will be able to capture quantitative and qualitative data to ensure a suitable and appropriate match.

Ability to predict employee success

AI is able to establish the past achievements of successful employees and search for candidates with similar backgrounds to those of such workers. This way, it can predict the success rate of potential incoming employees.

Minimization of Biases in Hiring

By developing algorithms that are fair and ethical for use in the hiring process, biases such as; gender, age, and race can be well minimized.

Interview Automation

By capitalizing on the automation AI offers via its facial recognition tool that can record and determine emotion from facial expressions, companies will be able to handle screening processes without the physical presence of humans.

Ease and Speed of scheduling meetings with candidates

With the availability of AI software that can automate appointment setting by performing simple tasks such as; looking at your calendar, asking a few basic questions and offering viable options to the candidate, recruiters will be able to quickly and easily schedule meetings with them.

Clarification of Expectations

AI is built with an objective algorithm which will give very clear and precise expectation. By using it, time and resources will be saved and one can be quite assured of accuracy. We must, however, keep in mind that AI only simplifies the process, leaving the completion and verification to we humans.

Inability to identify the most suitable person for the job

Understanding that Artificial Intelligence at its best, works based on computer programs written by humans, we should realize that it cannot identify the best person fit for a job.

Human behavior varies across different individuals, and AI might be making logical decisions where intuitions by humans are required.

Employer

Soft Skills Your Software Developers Need to Survive in e-Commerce

November 1, 2018 Comments Off Roxana read

Ability to efficiently structure codes using programming languages understand algorithms and data structures, master a development platform, source control or debug are all technical skills that will make a software developer relevant enough to be hired. But what will keep the developer in the company and help advance his career is the soft skills he possesses.

Soft skills are a combination of people, social and communication skills, character traits, attitudes and emotional intelligence quotients among others that enable people to navigate their environment, effectively work with others and achieve their goals with complementing technical skills. They are must-haves for any developer who intends to remain and continuously advance in his field for a long time.

Contained in this article are some helpful suggestions on the essential soft skills that a software developer needs in order to not only survive but as well thrive in the e-commerce industry.

Excellent and Effective Communication skills

Communication involves listening, clarifying, empathy and conflict-resolution in order for information to be well exchanged between people. It is a vital people skill that will enable software developers to work effectively and be able to easily collaborate with others in the organization. Along with the need for verbal skills is also the need for a software developer to be able to write well because this is needed right from the inception of a project to its completion.

Flexibility and Adaptability

Software developers will definitely encounter a lot of new challenges requiring solutions. Solving these problems will largely depend on their ability to think creatively, innovatively and improvise. When they are able to adapt and incorporate new ideas, then they’ll be able to solve almost all challenges pertaining to their job.

Life-long learning

The IT industry is a fast-evolving one with new ideas becoming quickly obsolete. Thus, developers must be open to continuous learning and updating of their skills in order to remain relevant and valuable to your company.

Integrity and Promptness

These are exceptional virtues required of every worker in any field. When software developers finish up your jobs before deadlines and do they say, they become more trustworthy and reliable in the company.

Taking Initiative

Learning to make sound decisions in the company and to function as a project manager, team leader and team member will help fast-track the progress of any software developer. Also, developers should learn to offer help, support, and mentorship to their co-workers when they have the ability and skills to do so.

Humility

The ability of a software developer to set aside ego, take criticism and learn from mistakes is very essential in enabling them to work in teams and continuously improve at their job.

Hard Work, Persistence and Meticulousness

Hard work and persistence are the basis for achieving anything worthwhile in life. Jobs in an IT company will come with their various challenges, but by applying focus, dedication, and intensity to them, developers can be assured of success in the long run. Also, by being meticulous and paying intent attention to detail, developers will stand out for excellence.