Posts tagged "recruitment process"

Recruiting Solutions: Staff Augmentation vs GoLance

Recruitment is the core element of every Human Resources department and ensures that the company will have enough top talent to lead to its success. There are no well-performing organizations without carefully chosen employees, so an effective recruitment process is key. 

A wrong decision during the recruitment process may lead to stress and hinder the development of the business. If an employee is not performing well at his job role, they can negatively impact other employees and potentially lead to reduced sales and unnecessary expenses. 

And hiring the right person means that the business will have more means to move in a positive direction and be more successful. To ensure that the hiring process goes smoothly and has the best possible results, consider using one of these popular recruiting solutions – StaffAugmentation and GoLance. 

StaffAugmentation

A global staffing company based in Switzerland providing highly experienced programming specialists for companies that need top tech talent. The company operates since 2008 and retains professionals specialized in mobile development, backend development, eCommerce, JavaScript, CMS, which can include Android, iOS, PHP, Joomla, Magento, and much more. 

StaffAugmentation provides an outsourcing solution so your company can meet your business objectives by taking advantage of scalable options. You can hire professionals to work within your team or on a particular project to add more value and skills. The company concentrate on sourcing talent in 4 main areas: 

Mobile Developers – specialized in iOS, Android, Ionic, Java, React Native, Xamarin, and Unity. 

Certified JavaScript Developers – highly competent in Angular JS, Backbone JS, Vue JS, Typescript, Aurelia, Ionic, Ember JS, Electron, Meteor, React, React Native, and Node JS.

You can choose a developer specialized in Shopify, Concrete5, BigCommerce, Drupal, and eCommerce and CMS developers. Joomla, Open Cart, Magento, Presta Shop, WooCommerce, WordPress, Expression Engine, and Typo3. 

Backend developers – fluent in C#, Java, ASP.Net, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python, and Erlang. 

All the developers have gone through complete on-going studies and have been pre-screened to demonstrate the required level of skills and expertise. 

You can take advantage of the various services StaffAugmentation offers, such as corporate relocations, managed services, consulting, strategic staffing, and permanent placement. They also provide on-going support to improve retention and help you establish relationships to save time and money. 

GoLance

 

An online platform that connects freelancers from all over the world with potential employers. The company is US-based and operates since 2015. It aims to provide a flexible, efficient, transparent, and fair workplace by providing a platform that handles all payments and contracts between freelancers and employers. 

There are other useful solutions such as goMeter Time Tracking tool that can be used to monitor activity, a smartphone app to stay connected on the go, and a work diary to summarize monthly communications and gigs. 

You can simply post a task or project you need help for and find a freelancer that is willing to do the work. You can use the platform to find freelancers specialized in web development, graphic design, marketing, copywriting, technical web related work, and much more. 

There is an option to set an hourly rate for each job to make sure you stay within your budget. The platform takes a 10% commission fee and is best for short-term projects rather than long-term opportunities. 

 

The 5 Most Common Mistakes In Technical Recruiting

Many think they have a great recruitment process, others seem to struggle in one area or more. Today, we will look at 5 ways you can improve the process for technical hires. Even if you have a high success rate, you may find some tips to get the most out of your process.

#5 – Going over the CV before carrying out a technical interview

There are some parts to a CV that are irrelevant when hiring technical talent, or at least not as important as the candidate’s technical abilities. Looking at things like which school they went to or what interests they have may lead you to form an opinion of this person before learning about their skills. Once you know a candidate has the right skill set, then you can find out more about the person.

#4 – Having an unclear strategy to measure skills

It is quite normal for companies to have more than one person carrying out interviews. It is also common practise for management to ask engineers to devise their own sets of questions to ask in the interview. On the one hand, it shows your team members that you have faith in them. On the other hand, candidates who are interviewed by different people will not be asked a set of standardized questions. When it comes to regrouping to discuss the potential talent, you won’t have a fair assessment of the various candidates.

Some may choose to assess a candidate’s knowledge of JavaScript, which is more than just general ability. You can’t compare this candidate with another who wasn’t assessed on JavaScript.

Decide what skills need to be tested in an interview and how exactly they should be tested. This way, when the interviewers get together, they will be able to compare the results based on the same test.

#3 – Letting interviewers see other feedback before they have written their own opinions

If more than one interviewer will be conducting the interview it is because you value the opinions of each. It is incredibly easy to be swayed by someone else’s opinion before concluding your own. It is pointless sending in multiple interviews if they are all going to have the same feedback.

When using applicant-tracking systems, be sure to select the option to hide other people’s feedback. This way interviewers can’t read what someone else thinks about a candidate and unconsciously form the same opinion.

#2 – Setting open-ended take-home assessments

Some companies will set a take-home task to complete before a face-to-face interview. Candidates are provided with instructions and guidelines. If a candidate reads that the take-home assessment will take approximately two hours, it is likely to put them off before they begin, as this is a lot of time with no guarantee of a job. Some people will invest significantly more time in the hope of getting the job. When they don’t get the job, they often feel negatively towards the company.

Many of the take-home assessments are open to interpretation and therefore don’t provide a true assessment of a candidate’s skills.

#1 – Reviewing CVs as the first step of the process

We create a lot of biases while reading CVs. A CV rarely fills in all of the information we need. A CV might have all of the right qualifications on paper yet turn out to be a bad cultural fit for your office. Or worse, the qualifications aren’t as strong as other CVs but the candidate has the immense determination and high problem-solving abilities. You may reject the second candidate based on a CV and ultimately make a mistake. Focus on assessing skills rather than going on what it says on a piece of paper.

 

 

 

The Negative Effects of Under-Staffing on Your Business

The success of a team or organization boils down to the strength of its leader, whether that is the owner or a manager. Regardless, there are some situations where even with strong management, the business seems to be failing.

More often than not, this is due to senior staff members forgetting to add a human element to their business. Employees start to become treated like another statistic rather than a person. This, as well as other factors, leads to a business being understaffed.

Here are some of the ways understaffing can negatively affect your business:

Damage to your company brand

Your brand image goes further than a logo. It is all about each interaction a client has with your business. It includes everything from your logo to the after-sale customer service your company provides. Your company brand will take time, money and hard work.

Unfortunately, all of your investment, both time and money, can be ruined by one unsatisfied client. Poor customer service can lead to somebody posting a tweet, or a negative review on business pages. With so many people checking the quality of a business or service online beforehand, it is crucial that every comment about your business is positive.

Employees that are burned out

At first glance, cutting back on your staff will save you costs. Your bank balance will likely look better on paper but there is a stronger possibility of your employees becoming tired and overworked as they take on the excess work.

Not only will your staff be under excessive pressure, but they will also get sick more often as the stress plays a part in their overall health. Millions of working days are lost per year and this results in billions of lost revenue.

The idea of saving money is very appealing in the beginning but as you can see, it will cost you in the long-run. Another thing to consider, even if your staff aren’t completely burned-out, they will not be working at their full capacity, neither will they be happy in their work.

Recruiting becomes a nightmare

For many managers and business owners, the thought of beginning the recruitment process is not a pleasant one. It takes time away from other jobs you could be doing and it can interrupt the productivity in your location.

Exhausted staff who do not feel like their work is appreciated are going to seek employment elsewhere. The worst-case scenario is that your negative staff have been talking amongst themselves and your staff start to leave in the masses.

When things like this start to happen, you run the risk of gaining the reputation of being a bad employer. And so the recruitment wheel of death begins. You will find it harder to recruit new staff.

One solution to reduce the risk of these potential dangers is to hire temporary staff. They are a good way to hire qualified staff quickly and keep your costs down. It will also keep your current staff from bearing the extra workload, in turn maintaining a happy working environment.

The Top Five Tips for Recruiting App Developers

As your establishment expands, it will become necessary for you to increase the number of staff in order to cope with growing responsibilities and improve efficiency. This is because the current number of developers would be inadequate to manage all the projects you have at hand.

You would certainly want to hire people you can trust, who are efficient, motivated and creative. And since there will not be enough time for you to embark on staff training, you will want to go for workers who are already ground in the profession. You will get to know this by following some recruitment procedures.

Why recruit?

There are many answers to these questions. But as simple as the question seems the answers are not so straightforward. You might need to replace a member of the team. For example, if you are a small-scale development team, the members of the team will often keep changing because some people will want to explore other options after one or two projects together. One niggling concern is that bringing a new member to the team might be the equivalent of adopting a stranger into a family – the balance, dynamics, synergy, and synchronization of the team may be jeopardized. However, on a business level, you must not harbor a mentality like this. A certain set of programming skills – which no one in the team has – might just be the exact thing needed to keep the team in operation and you will definitely need other people to fill this role.

Some other time, recruiting is done in order to increase the workforce. Perhaps, you are contracted to work on two different apps simultaneously and the members are not sufficient enough to handle the jobs at the same time, then it becomes imperative to add new members to the team.

However, irrespective of the reason for which you decide to recruit, you must put it at the back of your mind that the purpose of recruiting is to get the best person for the job. In this article, we talk about how to go about it.

1.) Know What You Are Looking for and What Your Expectation

Be prepared. Try to figure out exactly what the role is all about and the duties such a role would imply; then outline the exact requirements you want from a candidate for that particular role before publicizing the vacancy. Never forget that the developer you want to hire is one that will fit into your team, and you have to put everything in place, in terms of preparation, if you want to get that perfect developer.

2.) Know Where to Look for Developers

A lot of companies – including the big ones – make the mistake of putting IP adverts in the wrong places. Eventually, they get overwhelmed with too many applications, most of which are from people who are clueless about app development. Try to look for app developers at places where they will be – conferences, conventions, boot camps, etc. Think of places – online platforms – where job seeking developers tend to go.

3.) Whittle Down

Try to reduce the member of applicants. Start by chopping off people with no app development background – they are usually many. You can also consider other factors such as communication and language skills, poor CV format and so on. Conduct interviews to bring down the number. There are different types of interview techniques and it is advisable to ask questions based on what the applicant has written in their CV.

4.) Remember to Make Your Job the Best Job

Make the job attractive. Let the applicants know that you are zealous and passionate about the job and that they will be working with a motivated group of people. You might also include the pay package and incentives.

5.) Knowing The Ropes

Recruitment is important. When fishing for talent, do not forget that the person will eventually become a member of the team. In order to avoid clashes or discontent among members, make sure the person is perfect for that role.

 

Get a Peek into the Future of Hiring and the Role of Machine Learning

When you talk about the future of any aspect of daily life, you are actually talking tech. Because we are moving towards everything digital, machine learning will have a major role. Let’s talk about what machine learning is, how it will impact future recruitment processes and why it is important to get up to date.

Q1: What is machine learning?

Machine learning is based on data science, but being a subject with many ramifications, giving a proper definition is not possible. But in order to simplify it to our understanding, machine learning is a computer’s ability to learn through patterns of data. The more patterns it processes, the more it learns to improve its recognition ability. By going over these patterns or samples of data, the machine is able to predict or decide on different matters.

Another way of explaining it is this: “A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to some task T and some performance measure P, if its performance on T, as measured by P, improves with experience E.” – Tom Mitchell, Carnegie Mellon University

Task T: predict shopping patterns in the Tesco store

Experience E: run an algorithm on past patterns in the store

Performance measure P: improves predictions for future shopping

If your machine successfully learned from running past patterns, it should make better future predictions.

Q2: How does Machine Learning influence recruitment processes?

First of all, recruitment relies on large amounts of data. This alone creates a strong connection with machine learning. If we look closely, we will easily infer that Machine Learning will have a major role in predicting job trends, demand on skills, shortages or over-demand based on location, human resource spread across areas and so on.

This gets the work cut out for recruiters who now need to source out prospective candidates, adapt to changing trends in the industry and analyze working patterns of candidates and employees. ML will also provide info on a company’s’ hiring habits, the lifespan of employees inside the company, satisfaction with jobs and migration tendencies.

The ability to “see into the future” and prepare for a shift in industries is invaluable information for recruiters when putting up a plan and sourcing out people.

With data analysis out of the way for the humans in HR departments, you get to focus more on quality of relationships, building valuable connections and nurturing long-term collaborations. Let the machine do the number crunching and you, the recruiter can develop your soft skills: intuition, empathy, approach, coping with changes and better supporting the people you meet in the process. Machines can do an assessment of skills and place in suitable positions. This will eliminate missing potential candidates because there was a mismatch in term use.

Futuristic as this sounds, you need to gear up for this change in approaches to make your recruitment successful.