It’s March 2022 as I am writing this article, and as we see it today, it’s still exceptionally tough to hire the right talent in the Australian Technology marketplace. Supply and demand factors likely won’t change in the short-term, so employers need to adapt to meet the new challenges. I have the privilege of seeing how multiple firms are handling this and want to share what I see working the best.
First to offer often wins
If you take nothing else from this article, this is the most important…the SPEED that you move at is the most critical thing. Being fast is often more important that the salary on offer!
When a candidate decides its time for a change, they can often gain multiple interviews in a few days. Demand is high, if you can complete your internal process in a day or two you will have a huge competitive advantage over other employers. Many organisations have already made these changes and are winning in the war for talent.
Most organisations, for a wide variety of reasons, simply aren’t geared up to ‘hire quickly”, many haven’t changed their internal processes to adapt to the new reality of hiring talent in the IT marketplace. Some have, here are a few suggestions that may help:-
- Prepare your hiring managers and block out time’s to interview people as part of your ‘starting to hire process’. Many employers are still taking days to review resumes, then another couple of days to book interviews… the best candidates are already gone.
- Look at your hiring process, if multiple interviews are required can these be done in one interview? Block off 2 hours, do them back to back if this is an outstanding candidate.
- Technical tests are hated by most candidates as part of the ‘initial’ interview process, many will drop out if they have multiple interviews happening, mainly as many employers had added this step to their process and no-one wants to do multiple tests for multiple employers at (or prior to) first interview stage. If you need them to do one can they get an offer “Subject to technical testing” instead?
- “Make an offer subject to” is a great tactic to use, then add the things that you need as part of your recruitment process such as reference checks, medicals, background checks or anything else. The first offer often wins, ‘a bird in the hand’ principal is a powerful tool.
How do you look to candidates?
Many employers aren’t used to having to provide a solid pitch specifically to Technology candidates, and what interests IT candidates isn’t always the same as what attracts candidates for other roles. Technology candidates want to know more about the Technology Roadmap, what platforms organisations moving to, what’s happening with cloud platforms and what sort of implementations or updates are on the horizon.
Often we find that this information is readily available in the organisation, however it’s just not often pitched as well as it could be to potential hires. Addressing this can greatly increase your attraction level for potential hires, and changing job specs from ‘Title/Duties/Money’ into ‘Sales Pitch to work for us’ can be a huge help.
Remuneration and Benefits
I’m not going to dwell on this however relying on outdated data to benchmark the cost for skills isn’t going to help. Its important to keep an eye on raising salaries both to retain key staff and hire new ones.
Is your recruitment partner 100% focused on filling your role?
Most recruitment staffing agencies are struggling to deliver on the volume of roles they are being given in 2020. Moreover, the amount of time/work it’s taking to fill roles has increased significantly. Quality IT Recruiters are also in short supply across the industry so many are hiring trainees and investing in them.
Your recruitment partner will prioritise “Fillable Roles” as most operate on a “success only fee” basis, so what does this mean? Clients that offer work on an ‘exclusive basis’ rather than sending roles out to multiple suppliers, roles where they have access to the hiring manager directly and where the customer is geared up to hire quickly will be given priority. Its simple, recruiters will prioritise the ‘most fillable role’, so is your role that role?
How can Technology People help?
Our team are vertical specialists. We headhunt rather than rely on advertising, and we’ve spent over a decade investing in our candidate database, giving us more tools to utilise, instead of online adverts and LinkedIn that’s used by most of our competitors.
We offer you real advice, telling you why you can’t fill roles and act as a partner, not a supplier, to fix the problems being faced.
We also offer a unique service where we take on packages of roles, for a fixed fee, exclusively and deliver all the people needed in a fixed timeframe.