Posts tagged "tech recruitment"

Employer

The 5 Most Common Mistakes In Technical Recruiting

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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.

 

 

 

Employer

Should You Share Leadership with Your Tech Recruitment Team?

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Should You Share Leadership with Your Tech Recruitment Team?

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.