Anyone looking for technical talent in the Bay Area doesn’t need to be told that the number of technology jobs has now surpassed the dot-com era; it’s an understatement to say recruiting is tough!
There are far fewer qualified candidates and companies are rarely in a position to train people given time to market pressures. Most of the valley darlings like Facebook, Apple, Google are growing rapidly with
The Wall Street Journal citing compensation off the charts at most--$200-250K an average paycheck for senior software engineers.
It’s time to take the recruiting tips we’ve offered up in the past to the next level.
It can’t be all about money Jobs at big consumer electronics companies can be very narrow, managing a part vs a product, for example, while jobs at resource strapped startups get you involved in things beyond your job description and offer a front row seat to how businesses get built.
Selling the richness of the role, the rapid career development of an under resourced play, the ‘mini-mba’ you can get participating in growing a company, will differentiate conservative cash salary against the big darlings.
Job descriptions are dying—flexibility in the role and the talent interested in YOU are keyWith fewer people in the pipeline, cutting edge employers think more about how they can utilize a particular individual’s skills vs how closely they map to a set of bullets on a job description. You may never find someone with all the skills you’d like. Splitting tasks across multiple individuals, hiring for the future and rethinking exactly what you need, all may help in lessening the hiring burden.
Be open minded about talent, look for what they can bring to the table vs looking to DQ themProbably the hardest skill to develop for most young managers, particularly analytics, are the social aspects of wooing a candidate. Testing is de rigueur in college, but relationships are the key to team success in business.
Think more about lunch, dinner or coffee, talking culture and opportunity and less about grilling, testing and challenging candidates. It’s part of the process but not the lead story.
Every impression counts, particularly when the candidate pipeline is thinYou’re really lucky to get more than a few candidates interested in any one role that you have open, don’t blow it with a bad experience or message. Too often the little things, a rogue interviewer, the ill prepared receptionist, or the simple lack of manners in offering drinks or food kills a candidate’s interest in a role.
Plan a candidate onsite in the same way you’d plan having your boss over for dinner. The details count and preparation shows.
Great recruiters have a deep knowledge of the industry and do the heavy lifting of identifying and pitching prospective candidates on the opportunity. If all the game you have is ‘key word searching’, good luck, you’ll be competing with hundreds of others for the same people.
‘Posting and Praying’ isn’t a strategy. The higher the employment rate, the less effective job posts are.
Successful CEOs know that developing an employment brand is critical; you want to be known as a great place to work. Every interaction people have with your company shapes that, from applying for jobs to coming into work every day.
Pour it on when it comes to recruiting—training, holding people accountable, getting creative, hiring help and most of all spending time on it reaps rewards.
