It's Not You, It's Me: The Internal Challenges of Hiring Tech Talent (pt. 1)
Millenilink's in your corner to alleviate your biggest recruiting headaches. In this multi-part series, we’ll be addressing the leading challenges afflicting companies on the hunt for tech talent and some ways to remedy them.
We get it. You're on the search for tech talent that will help grow your company but success feels.... Herculean. Like the Labors that the demi-god had to overcome, finding the right talent to grow your business is daunting. But with the right plan in place, you'll attract and retain the caliber of talent that will move your company forward – the way that you envisioned.
Maybe you've tried to hire a Tech Staffing agency in the past and they didn't find the right candidates. Or maybe you've taken many bites at the apple using your internal teams only to fall short for a variety of reasons that seem insurmountable. Whatever approach you've taken, you're reading this article because your results are not matching the work you're putting in. Jobs are left vacant for months on end, resulting in lost revenue and, in most cases, increased project costs.
No need to worry, here are some solutions to the leading challenges affecting companies from all sectors looking for technology support – from operations and logistics software to Customer Relations Management (CRM) and data analytics.
Challenge #1: Excessive Time to Fill Job Vacancies
The longer job vacancies stay open, productivity and overall output are stunted, ultimately affecting your bottom line. We’re regularly introduced to companies where they are actively looking for candidates for 60 days, 90 days, 6 months, sometimes even up to a year! This wastes time and money that you can’t get back.
Especially when pursuing experienced hires, finding the right candidate takes planning and strategic positioning. These aspects are crucial to attracting talent since most skilled workers are currently employed – current tech unemployment is at ~3% even with sky high interest rates and significantly reduced hiring across the labor market.
Planning and strategic positioning can be done in a number of different ways depending on the skills you require, seniority level(s), volume, and competition for that talent. Reactive hiring often generates poor applicant quality for both technical skills and company culture, ultimately resulting in misaligned policies and procedures, or sub-optimal hiring practices by stakeholders that are unaware of labor market dynamics.
It's invaluable to have real-time job market data on-hand to better inform your search. This helps you target the right individuals by offering market accurate compensation and perk packages, and a job design that aligns to your target market’s skills and interests. Since the government's labor market info is often outdated by the time it's made publicly available, partner with an agency or resource that gives you real-time market data and strategies specific to your goals.
Challenge #2: Disconnect Between HR and Tech Decision Makers
Nothing wastes time like having a candidate go through preliminary interviews only to discover that once they get in front of the hiring manager they will report to, the candidate never had the right skill sets to begin with. This restarts your search all over again… and again… and again…
This wastes time for the applicant and multiple employees involved from your company. Plus, this whole backward dance wastes precious resources and drains morale of both your HR and Technology teams. The hiring process is not cheap.
When everyone is aligned on the role they play when hiring, resources will be used more efficiently and offer superior candidate experiences. Alignment of HR and Technology stakeholders is crucial to this process; Tech talent hiring is a unique combination of both expertise. When coupled with executive sign off, you’ve unlocked the ability to build a great team that builds great products/services the way you’ve envisioned!
Conclusion: It's more than just resumes. It's about human connections.
The hiring landscape is constantly shifting and it's important to stay on top of it. Your team is going to need to be on their A-game, keen to adapt with the fast-changing, post-COVID technology labor market.
By covering your bases before your recruitment journey even starts, you're preventing the loss in hard/soft dollars and time. Which will help you win over and over again.
If you need support with this process, schedule a technology workforce planning consultation with us. Our Tech Talent Advisory is an investment in your people and processes; it helps to find the blind spots in your current hiring protocol and we’ll create an action plan with you. Whether it's employer branding or stakeholder alignment, we'll be there every step of the way to set you up for success – for today and tomorrow.