Blog

Recruiting at Scale, Part 3 – Large and Enterprise Organizations

After exploring recruiting needs at high-growth and small to mid-sized businesses, we’re moving over to large and enterprise organizations. Now, on the surface, you might think that these companies have it made: resources, budget, technology, brand recognition…

But nothing is ever quite as it seems, is it?

That’s because the bigger the organization, the more there is to account for, with layers building up over time.

The more factors in play, the more challenging talent acquisition becomes – for everyone. That is one of many reasons economists predict hiring bottlenecks in the coming months, with the Wall Street Journal pointing out that, “Even after an employer posts a job opening, the hiring process can take weeks or months. Meanwhile, the labor pool changed and shrank during the pandemic.”

What worked in the past might not work today – or in the future – which is why large and enterprise organizations need to take a closer look at how they recruit sooner rather than later.  

 

Peeling back the layers

While these companies have a lot working in their favor, there are precluding factors also – and size can be one of them. Or rather, organizational structure. The higher the headcount, the more stakeholders are involved in even the most straightforward decisions, while disparate departments complicate budgeting and approvals.

Infrequent communication and inconsistent documentation don’t help either. Then there’s technology, a boon in most instances, a burden in others, with Aptitude Research reporting that 30 percent of companies say integrations remains a top frustration and only one in two companies measuring the ROI of these investments.

The underlying issue with all of this being, it’s not enough to have the resources, budget, technology, and brand recognition. You have to use them too, and that requires understanding the entire talent ecosystem.  

The 2020 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends survey found that “organizations are least likely to collect workforce metrics in areas critical to the future of work.” That means, instead of taking a predictive approach to talent, companies are relying primarily on descriptive information, which in practice equates to more of the same rather than scaling to meet changing needs.

Deloitte further identified the areas where the majority of companies collect data: headcount, hiring, and turnover; salary costs; and workforce composition – all of which relate directly to talent acquisition (and talent management).

 

Staying one step ahead  

We spend a lot of time talking about using recruiting to carve out a competitive advantage, and there is inherent opportunity to do this in large and enterprise organizations – provided you’re willing to do the work. Here’s how:

Improve your intel

Taking the Deloitte findings to heart, most large organizations benefit from technology stacks with intelligence built in. This intelligence can – and should – serve as the basis for the understanding you’re looking to achieve.

Again, it’s that Four Agreements-style of thinking, that says “Without action upon an idea, there will be no manifestation, no results, and no reward.” The more you look at the data, the more informed you become.

The more informed you are, the more leverage to operationalize information and turn it into strategy.

Increase your flexibility

Of course, flexibility continues to elude the enterprise. It requires being able to cut through the noise and get from problem to solution faster. But that doesn’t necessarily mean ripping out your ERP, ATS, or CRM and starting over.

It means looking for ways to enhance talent acquisition and talent management using the intel mentioned above. The more your technology and tools map to improving outcomes, the more fluid your process.

The more fluid your process, the more agile recruiting becomes.

Extend the experience

You’ll notice we mentioned talent management throughout this piece. That’s because for large and enterprise organizations to improve intel and increase flexibility, they need to think about talent longer-term.

The Aptitude Research report referenced above indicates that only 22 percent of companies have gone through a digital transformation of their tech stack, but 58 percent are using or planning to use internal mobility capabilities this year.

The recruiting lifecycle doesn’t end with the offer letter – consider where learning and development, performance management, retention, engagement, and the like fit your approach.

 

Change is hard for all businesses but especially in large and enterprise organizations. It causes friction and disrupts a well-orchestrated status quo, which is how we created the cringe-worthy “that’s the way we’ve always done it” mentality.

Moving away from this is how we recruit at scale, in the moment, rounding out the modern talent journey instead of reinventing it.

Dismantling the HR Ego: Looking Outside the Echo Chamber

This series takes a deeper look at what’s happening inside human resources and talent acquisition now. Over three parts, we’ll hold up the mirror for self-reflective HR and TA pros keen to open their eyes to the vulnerabilities impacting the work they do, from inside, outside, and the echo chamber surrounding the space.

If you’ve made it this far, you know that we have egos, and not just us (though certainly us, too), but everyone. These egos influence us and the way we interact with people around us. Sometimes our egos go undetected, minding their business and letting us go about our days.

Other times, they cloud our judgment and make it impossible to act objectively or even rationally. While we believe that ego is primarily an individual issue, one that we ultimately control, it can also manifest on a larger level.

The HR echo chamber is a prime example, one where the majority of the ideas come from a few folks at the top that bounce around and around and around. Now, to be perfectly clear, we’re not here to attack any one person, organization, or association. That’s not our style.

The HR and TA industries are rich with resources. We’re writing this in one such destination, grateful to have the platform. But we have noticed ego often creeps into the conversations surrounding these spaces, both from the people doing the resourcing and those absorbing and putting the information into practice.

 

So, What’s the Problem?

The concept of an echo chamber comes from media studies, and while definitions vary, the basic theory is that these are environments where opinions and beliefs get reinforced through repeated interactions with peers or sources who have similar tendencies and attitudes.

In practice, that means reading and re-reading similar stories, listening to similar presentations, and internalizing similar thoughts from the same thought leaders until you consider their word to be the final truth. We see the effects of this with some of HR and TA’s more rigid mentalities.

This is not to say that the information out there is bad. But the ego associated with the HR and TA echo chamber has led to the idealization and adoration of some over others, directly challenging the growth and expansion of ideas. At a time when many are looking to move the needle on initiatives such as diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, we have to challenge the status quo.

That isn’t comfortable for some egos, and that’s the point. The same old doesn’t cut it anymore.

It’s up to HR and TA to shake off their egos and develop resources outside of said echo chamber – resources full of new or even dissenting ideas and opinions.  

 

But What Else is There?

We’re here to advocate for a more flexible sentiment. We want to hear from up-and-coming voices and explore content that exists outside the immediate landscape. Doing this supports both unlearning and gaining a broader understanding of what surrounds you. It also helps you overcome your ego and bring a fresh perspective back to HR and TA.

Where to start? Micole Garatti, Marketing Director at Fairygodboss, recently said, “Be the person in the room who constantly brings up other people who should also be in the room.” Think about that because it requires humility and the ability to actively listen to, recognize, and amplify the thoughts of others.

That can be a big ask of our egos. But what impact could you have on those around you by merely introducing them to someone else? Seeking out people who think differently than you do, who challenge your mindset, is a small step in an entirely new direction. You might already know these people and just haven’t thought of them in this context.

They could be hiring managers, marketing, legal, even your CEO. Why not step outside the HR and TA comfort zone to invite others in?

Likewise, look for adjacent content. We send one another things we find interesting almost every week. Very few have anything to do with HR or TA directly. Not long ago, this meant an episode of the podcast, Call Your Girlfriend, about burnout that talked at length about what’s behind the façade of success and ambition.

The episode was mostly about workplace issues, even though the hosts consider themselves a journalist and a businesswoman, respectively.

You might be questioning the relevance of certifications or continuing education from one organization versus another. Know that you have options. You don’t have to follow a set course because it’s what someone, somewhere recommended.

In the same vein, you might aspire to become an influencer, wondering why you see the same people on these lists, year in and year out. Recognize that what worked for them likely might not work for you. Blogs don’t have the same pull in 2021 that they did in 2011. Everyone has a podcast now, and many think Clubhouse is the new Twitter.

Maybe that means this is your chance to revolutionize HR and TA on TikTok. You get to decide. Just don’t let the fame go to your head, OK?

Ego surrounds each of us, and in professions that rely on engaging other humans, egos get magnified. To cut through the noise of the echo chamber and find your true voice, you need to get quiet and listen. Drop any and all doubt and silence your inner critic by listening hard to yourself – and to others.

Foster self-trust by acknowledging you don’t have all the answers and neither does anyone else. At the same time, adopt a mindset of mental liquidity, which enables you to quickly change your mind without being stuck on a particular worldview.

The point is to get familiar with your ego, where it comes from, how it infiltrates your work and shapes your way of thinking.

We think HR and TA owe it to themselves to unlearn, to dismantle the ego in, out, and all around the space. That’s why we’re here to pose this challenge. We’re ready to take this journey, growing pains and all. Are you?

Dismantling the HR Ego: Collaborating with External Skeptics

This series takes a deeper look at what’s happening inside human resources and talent acquisition now. Over three parts, we’ll hold up the mirror for self-reflective HR and TA pros keen to open their eyes to the vulnerabilities impacting the work they do, from inside, outside, and the echo chamber surrounding the space.

Ego impacts the way we see the world around us. It influences how we perceive threats, challenges, and opportunities. And whether we realize it or not, ego clouds the judgment of HR and TA on a daily basis. This is not a criticism so much as an observation and a concept we explored in-depth in the first part of this series.

For this part, we’re going to carry the conversation forward and look at what happens when ego intervenes in HR and TA’s interactions with other audiences.

But first, Nietzsche:

“What damages a person most is to work, think, and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—as a mere automaton of duty.”

Now, read that last part again. What did you see first – automaton or automation? We talk a lot about automating HR and TA, allowing these functions to free up time in their day, to improve speed and efficiency.

And while automation absolutely works to the benefit of HR and TA, it doesn’t solve for what’s happening internally – for being automatons.

By many accounts, HR and TA have spent the last year just trying to get the work done. They were told to do more with less and to do it now. Given that HR and TA partner with others, these pros have found themselves in precarious and unenviable positions.

That’s not necessarily new, so much as it’s gotten worse. The blame and shame game has led to increased finger-pointing – at hiring managers, at candidates, at leadership – and intensified feels of loneliness, inner turmoil, and defensiveness.

More often than not, this plays out as ego on the part of the HR and TA pros, tasked with justifying their actions and expertise at every turn. But defense mechanisms aren’t the answer, and sometimes the only way out is through.

 

Mending Fences

You’ve probably heard about Clubhouse, the audio-only chat-based social network. HR and TA took to the app almost instantly, launching rooms and having conversations about everything from robots inside the ATS to griping about hiring managers. The nice part about these off-the-cuff discussions is that people from across the space have a platform to share their experiences.

Listen in, and you’ll realize that ego creeps in pretty quickly as some get louder and more aggressive and others jockey for the opportunity to demonstrate their expertise. Even in a room with like-minded professionals, HR and TA still feel the need to prove their worthiness.

There are four possible responses to most scenarios – fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Since flight might imply weakness and freeze could infer incompetence, the ego of HR and TA tend to go with either fight or fawn, depending on the threat at hand. But what typically comes across to the other party is insecurity.

Insecurity leads to discomfort, discomfort to miscommunication, miscommunication to misalignment, and the issues pile up from there. How do we help HR and TA persevere? We make it OK to be vulnerable. We make it OK to be human. And we start to mend fences with the other side.

 

Improving Communication

We’ve talked about the challenge of silos and the “us versus them” mentality before but not in terms of finding a solution – and certainly not through the lens of ego. And at the end of the day, it’s these gaps that create the tension and cause ego-driven reactions.

Going back to Clubhouse for a moment, one thing we repeatedly hear in HR and TA rooms is that “we’re speaking different languages.” It’s the Tower of Babel, and it’s up to HR and TA to bridge the divide and make sure everyone is on the same team.

It’s nearly impossible to predict or control external variables, so much of this work needs to come from within HR and TA. That means learning to understand our egos and use them to our advantage, through active listening and effective communication.

Both require discipline, practice, and taking comfort in our own discomfort. Adam Grant recently shared, “Vulnerability is not the opposite of resilience. Vulnerability builds resilience. Projecting perfection protects your ego but shuts people out and stunts your growth. Revealing struggles shows humility and humanity, opening the door to new sources of support and strength.”

Rather than keep pointing fingers or making excuses, HR and TA need to drop the façade, within this space and out. There is nothing perfect about working with other humans, day in and day out. Humans are, by nature, flawed creatures. Pretending otherwise is how we become that “mere automaton of duty.”

Dismantling the HR Ego: Escaping the Internal Demons

This series takes a deeper look at what’s happening inside human resources and talent acquisition now. Over three parts, we’ll hold up the mirror for self-reflective HR and TA pros keen to open their eyes to the vulnerabilities impacting the work they do, from inside, outside, and the echo chamber surrounding the space.

We recently talked about what’s next for HR and TA, and in doing so, we realized that we might be getting a little ahead of ourselves. Like the rest of the world, we’re eager for those next steps, a return to “normal,” or at the very least a life that vaguely resembles the “before times.”

The truth is that many in HR and TA are burned out, and if they’re not there yet, they’re well on their way. As a result, these spaces have become contentious – a hotbed of infighting that goes beyond Twitter and LinkedIn.

HR and TA professionals are tired. Tired of doing more with less, tired of solving everyone else’s problems without outside support, and frankly, tired of each other. Of course, a lot of these feelings actually pre-date the pandemic, an experience that’s only exacerbated the situation.

We’re talking about years of blame and shame, unhealthy behaviors and unchecked biases, defensiveness, resistance to feedback – and that’s just what’s going on inside.

The issue is how these internalized struggles present, and often it comes across as ego. Sure, some will say we’re wrong, that there is no ego, just insecurity, but even insecurity sometimes masquerades as arrogance or, worse, indifference.

 

How We Got Here

There are a few ways to talk about ego. We can look at it in the Freudian psychoanalytical sense, where ego serves as the mediator between the person and reality. That echoes the function of HR and TA, which work as mediators, sitting between the organization and its audience, typically employees or job seekers.

Or we can take a more philosophical approach and see ego as the self of self-consciousness of self-reflection, which also applies because here’s the thing: everyone has an ego. It is a driving force for human beings, whether we realize it or not. As Cy Wakeman advises, it’s when we accept and get to know our ego and how it distorts our thinking that we’re able to overcome its challenges.

In the past, HR and TA often found themselves stuck in a fixed mindset, mired in ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it‘ thinking. A never-ending list of demands meant these pros constantly felt the pressure to demonstrate their worth to their organization and audience.

That’s not to say HR and TA didn’t want to be strategic and innovative but getting stuck in the weeds kept them in one place while the world around them evolved.

Over the last decade or so, organizations grew flatter, and job seekers grew more empowered. Technology and automation entered into the conversation, a threat to some and a boon to others. Compensation and benefits became freely discussed between coworkers.

Work took a turn for the transparent, but what’s unclear is if HR and TA were psychologically prepared for the shift.

Even so, HR and TA certainly saw what was happening, absorbing and observing. That why we’ve heard the desired ‘seat the table’ diatribe repeated over and over again. The convergence of internal struggles and an external evolution forced HR and TA into an awkward – often uncomfortable – spot, so it’s no surprise that we see self-protection in the form of egocentrism as the outfall.

 

How We Move Forward

Dave Ulrich recently wrote, “For decades, all of us in the human capital profession have relied on best practice logic…But using best practices falls short when human capital issues become ever more central to changing business conditions.”

That’s where we stand now, so what can we do about the damage done to the HR and TA psyche? We can understand how the state of HR and TA informs everyday actions and decisions. We can find new ways to resolve what HR and TA feel on the inside. Some say they’ve been lumped together, others siloed.

Some feel lonely, others hyperconnected. Almost no one has the support they need, and nearly everyone has questions about where the function should report and how it advances.

Tech is a great example, given the reticence by many to adopt solutions designed to support and not supplant. If and when HR or TA moves to implement tech, do they have the power or budget to decide? Does the CFO or CEO always need to get involved?

Training is another example. Who is coaching HR and TA through this? What’s the hang-up? Do HR and TA not feel ready to embrace new technologies or opportunities to develop? Do they feel threatened by newness? Is ego blurring their vision?

HR and TA are trapped in a cycle that’s creating a disillusioned population of professionals, doubtful of their own expertise and without the toolkit to succeed.

The frustration is both palpable and justified. Ulrich says that “now is the time for HR to reinvent itself by moving beyond benchmarking and best practices to guidance.” While that may be true, it won’t fix what’s broken on the inside. And for that, there is no sweeping statement or easy answer.

Instead, there’s the admission that there’s work to do inside the house first. That looking inward and accepting ego’s influence will help HR and TA evolve to a future state.

How AI Can Level the Playing Field for Women

A large-scale research study of 20 million candidate profiles reveals why women are less likely to be found by recruiters.

According to a McKinsey study, in 2020 women held just 38% of manager-level positions, while men held 62%. A possible explanation may be an intrinsic bias of Hiring Managers who favor men over women for managerial roles.

According to the McKinsey study, for every 100 men promoted to managers, only 85 women were promoted.

But there may be another explanation.  Outside of internal promotions, many companies hire external candidates for both managerial and non-managerial roles. The explanation of why women’s hiring falls short of men’s may have to do with recruiting methods, not necessarily bias.

It may relate to talent sourcing practices. If you have fewer women in your hiring pipeline, you may end up with fewer women in the workforce and eventually fewer women in senior roles.

To explore this further, we performed a recent study of over 20 million profiles to investigate why women do not get a fair representation in the hiring pipeline. One of the findings is that women tend to write 21% fewer skills than men on their public profiles (e.g. LinkedIn). 

That gap grew to 38% when women were compared to White men.

 

 

When recruiters search for candidates to fill roles, they tend to use Boolean search, a search method that relies on keywords. The problem with this kind of search is that both recruiters and potential candidates need to use the same keywords for a match between them to happen.

If a skill is written in a way that does not exactly match the search terms, a candidate will not come up or will appear lower on search results. That is the nature of binary search – it is zero or one.

Another tricky element is how profiles are formatted. Professional networking sites, like LinkedIn, encourage users to input skills in a skills section. However, recruiters tend to prefer candidates who write the skill within the profile text and even more if the required skill is mentioned in the text of the candidate’s most recent job.

Candidates are not aware of such preferences and may be missed or overlooked by recruiters, even if they entered a skill to the skills section.

This method can lead to bias against women, simply because they tend to write less on their profiles. According to a study by LinkedIn, profiles listing 5 or more skills are viewed 17X more than profiles with fewer skills.

If women aren’t writing as many skills as men, they have a lower chance of being found by recruiters seeking to fill a job. The solution would be to help close the gap between what recruiters need and what candidates present.

 

Leveling the playing field

Carefully designed, AI-powered talent sourcing tools can ultimately level the skills playing field for women. AI can provide an alternative to the Boolean search by eliminating keywords and by using strategies such as prediction of missing skills, rather than relying on imperfect and labor-intensive human search methods.

 

Recruiting at Scale, Part 2 – Small and Mid-Size Businesses

We recently looked at recruiting in high-growth companies, those early in their journey and scaling quickly or those most established with new needs and new audiences. Now, we’re going to switch gears and look at small and mid-size businesses (SMB), the organizations that exist primarily out of the spotlight.

But before we get into what it takes to recruit within these businesses, let’s characterize the SMB. For that, we’re going to use Gartner’s definition, which looks at the number of employees and annual revenue.

Small businesses are organizations with fewer than 100 employees and less than $50 million in annual revenue. Mid-size businesses are those with 100 to 999 employees that make more than $50 million but less than $1 billion in annual revenue.

Given that scope, it’s clear that we’re talking about a massive number of companies. And candidates, to the extent that companies characterized as “small,” employ more than 47 percent of the private workforce in the U.S. 

 

A unique set of challenges

Hiring within the SMB ranges dramatically, with those on the small end recruiting for just a handful of positions at a time while those on the medium end might have to fill 100 or more requisitions. Business needs vary wildly, as does their organizational structure.

A company with only 25 employees might not have much of a talent acquisition presence, with HR accounting for all aspects of the talent lifecycle. Whereas one with 999 employees is more likely to have a dedicated team. Regardless of the difference in size, small and mid-sized businesses deal with similar recruiting challenges, from brand to resources.

We’re going to start by saying the thing that no one wants to admit: we live in a world obsessed with labels.

You see it in conversations about who we’re wearing, what we’re driving, and where we work. So, it’s no surprise that the SMB faces an uphill battle in terms of brand recognition. Sometimes it feels like there’s the Fortune 500, and then there’s everyone else.

Research from LinkedIn shows 73 percent of SMBs are challenged by competition from better-known companies, and in turn, 84 percent of SMBs struggle to find enough people to interview and hire.

Underlying this is the issue of resources, or as mentioned earlier, the lack thereof. Establishing an effective process in today’s hiring landscape requires finding the right blend of strategies and solutions to give TA professionals and teams the support they need.

But even that takes time, budget, and energy that SMBs don’t necessarily have an excess of while trying to keep up with business demands. Compound this with a lack of market research and minimal resources, and companies can spend 25 hours a week just trying to search, outreach, vet, and interview candidates.

 

An opportunity for improvement

Despite the odds, the SMB persists, continuing to make up 99.9 percent of all businesses in the U.S. There’s real value in this sector, and we’re past due on addressing what it takes to recruit in these environments.

Here are three ways to enhance your strategy:

Know your brand

Though we can’t all be the FAANG, those hiring within the SMB can supplement their recruiting efforts by optimizing their employer brand. To do this, you need to understand who you are and what you have to offer candidates, from your initial interaction until their last day as an employee.

You want to exceed candidate expectations and give them a reason to work for your company. You have to tell your story clearly, understanding that where the SMB shines is in its ability to stay agile, adaptive, and highly personal.

Out-of-the-box recruiting

To connect with candidates on that level, you’re going to want to spend less time on administrative work and more time in conversation with them. That means finding technologies to streamline everyday tasks. Remember the 25 hours referenced earlier? That breaks down to six hours searching for candidates, another six reaching out, six more vetting them, and seven for interviews – every week.

Shorten up your hiring cycle with a self-service solution that automates messaging, scheduling, and screening and go from there.

Follow the golden rule

It sounds simple, but you were a candidate once too. Always remember how you got this job – and why you stay. From job descriptions to interviews, onboarding to career development, the SMB has the opportunity to differentiate the experience it provides at every stage of the talent journey.

Seek to create experiences that are easy to navigate and configured to the needs of candidates and the company.

 

Ultimately, when it comes to SMB hiring, there will always be someone else gunning for the same candidate, and as is often the case, that other company might even be bigger or better known. But rather than fret about everyone else, focus on what you can control.

Remote Work and the Truth about Recruiting in 2021

As companies navigate the new normal future of work in these unprecedented times, many things keep recruiters up at night. After a year of living under pandemic conditions compounded by increased social unrest and drastic economic measures, the truth is, no one knows what’s going to happen next – especially when it comes to hiring.

It’s clear that the talent acquisition landscape is changing, maybe even faster than ever before, as companies strive to keep up.  

Of course, with all of the change comes the questions. Questions from candidates. Questions from employers. Questions from recruiters themselves.

Perhaps the biggest question on everyone’s mind is about remote working.

Candidates want to know, “Is this job remote forever?” Employers want to know, “How soon can we reopen the office?” Recruiters want to know, “What do I tell both sides about the other?”

Everyone is trying to find the right answer, one that satisfies the need to know without seeming misinformed.

 

What’s Different

In the before times, the ability to work remotely was a perk more than anything else. Companies debated the merits, concerned about the impact on productivity and culture. With no pressing need to embrace remote work, it remained only a possibility – until it wasn’t.

The events of 2020 into 2021 tested and broke that “way we’ve always done it” dynamic.

Research from Indeed underscores the importance of this particular narrative, finding that searches for remote work jobs doubled from February to March 2020, a trend that’s continued in the months since.

Having achieved this critical mass, it’s unlikely that we’ll see a complete reversal, even after the pandemic subsides. As a result, we will be dealing with a hybrid work environment, wherein some workers stay fully remote, others partially remote, and the rest on-premises.

For recruiters, the likelihood of hybrid arrangements becoming a reality leads to more questions, this time about the talent acquisition process itself.

 

What’s Next

Companies like Salesforce have already solved this by establishing set options for their workforce. In turn, recruiting teams have answers on-hand, with Salesforce expressly stating, “Our talent strategy is no longer bound by barriers like location, so we can broaden our search beyond traditional city centers and welcome untapped talent from new communities and geographies.”

The company explained this, saying that the world is different now and workers “need flexibility to be successful.” The subtext of this? To survive, companies need to attract the best talent. That was the case before the pandemic, and it remains the case now.

So how do we accomplish that under present circumstances? As Jan Tegze, author of Full Stack Recruiter, wrote, “The future is not fully remote, and it is not even hybrid; the future is flexible.”

That means, even if the answer to “Is this job remote forever?” isn’t readily available, recruiters can build a candidate-centric approach that demonstrates flexibility and illustrates what’s possible. Here’s how:

Adopt a matching mentality:

Successful hiring requires nuance that goes far beyond the reckless “butts in chairs” thinking we’ve seen in the past. Recruiting isn’t about backfilling a req. It’s about aligning the right person with the right job. It might be for the job they applied for or for a different position in another department.

We need to get recruiting to a place that when we say we’ll keep a resume on file for future openings, we mean it.

Source from all directions:

Likewise, to make matching second nature, recruiters think outside the apply flow. One study indicated that 64 percent of workers were looking for new job opportunities or would consider moving jobs if approved by another company.

With regard to the latter, most companies are already sitting on a gold mine of talent in their ATS or in their own employee ranks, and these candidates are ripe for rediscovery. Or maybe we want to find someone similar. Either way, we should use the information at hand to our advantage.

Be the advocate:

With technology able to automate and streamline key functions, particularly around sourcing and matching candidates, recruiters gain back hours in their day. This is where it becomes possible to assume a consultative role and advocate on behalf of the candidate or the company.

If candidate A is the absolute perfect person for position Y but won’t budge on remote work, go all the way to the top. Find a way to make the relationship work for both sides.

 

Forever is a very long time, and while no one wants to be disingenuous during the recruiting process, sometimes there are no easy answers to hard questions. For others, we need to rethink the question entirely, without sacrificing sleep schedules.

Metrics That Matter Now

When Deloitte released its 2020 Global Human Capital Trends report, the world looked much different. We were just entering into life under pandemic conditions, and most companies were chugging along, unaware of what was to come.

From its research, Deloitte shared that the majority of companies were collecting workforce information around three areas – headcount, hiring, and turnover; salary costs; and workforce composition.

The issue with that, Deloitte said, was that employer brand, new workforce initiatives, and the status of reskilling would be the areas considered “critical to an organization’s success in the future of work.” Then that future showed up, and many companies simply didn’t know what to do.

Part of the challenge comes from how organizations use metrics, with the vast majority taking a descriptive approach rather than prescriptive. As a result, there’s a gap between the available data and how HR and talent acquisition teams use this information.

With the expectation of a hiring surge on the horizon, we need to bridge this gap and move the process forward sooner rather than later.

 

How We Got Here

People-related functions have been talking about which metrics matter for upwards of a decade. First, all anyone could talk about was the promise of Big Data, about the sheer volume of information we would have access to and what it would mean for innovation and productivity.

Then, we started hearing about predictive analytics, seen as the next generation of the Big Data revolution. This is around the time artificial intelligence and machine learning entered into the conversation, sparking ideas about new applications of information.

Today, we’ve got a much clearer sense of what’s possible – now we need to put that knowledge into action.

Back in 2016, an article in Harvard Business Review explained, “Being intelligent about which signals to draw from big data requires care, and best practices can be case-specific.” That’s the piece we’re still working to figure out, and going back to Deloitte, the disconnect stems mainly from what’s collected versus what’s used.

To the extent that 52 percent of companies – that’s right, more than half – say they lack the information needed to understand the workforce.

 

Where We Go

Before we get to the practical use of metrics, we need to think about intention. For the sake of recruiting, certain metrics are evergreen: application completion rate, time to hire (a.k.a. time to fill), cost per hire, quality of hire, and the like.

These provide a baseline for organizations of all sizes across industries that we can look at through both a descriptive and prescriptive lens. On the one hand, knowing the basics enables us to keep tabs on budget and make sure critical roles get filled first. On the other hand, over time, these metrics offer insight across different hiring landscapes, from freezes to surges.

However, as Gartner pointed out in its 2019 report, “The Decisive Candidate,” we are living in a digital age and cannot rely solely on analog methods. We need to evolve and advance our thinking, because as Gartner put it, “Digitalization has dramatically changed how candidates experience the labor market. They now have access to more information, easier applications, and more options than ever before.”

That means recruiters and hiring managers need to look beyond the obvious for a deeper understanding of factors like fit and interest.

 

What to Measure

In addition to the evergreen metrics, look at the following rates:

Time to apply 

We’ve talked before about the importance of mobile in the candidate experience, and with adoption rates steadily increasing, time to apply becomes all the more critical.

How long it takes for candidates to get through the process directly corresponds with who gets hired, the quality of that hire, and how quickly they’re able to start. Look at this across application channels, paying particular attention to mobile to ensure full optimization.  

Applicant to hire

Likewise, we need to know how many applicants are hired – not just candidates. The difference being that applicants are those who applied. Candidates are those who applied and got screened.

Too many applicants indicate that something is happening at the top of the funnel that needs fixing. It could be the copy in job descriptions and advertisements or maybe the sourcing channels at play. Tweak accordingly.

Sourcing channel effectiveness

To ensure successful outcomes, it’s important to know that sourcing efforts are working. That means understanding each stream (even internal mobility and employee referrals) on a finer level – by demographic, by day, by hour.

Not only can this result in significant time and cost savings, but it can also help track for any potential bias baked into the process from the start.

Time to interview (and interview acceptance!) 

Interviews are time-consuming for everyone involved. At the same time, they represent a critical point in the candidate journey that cannot be overlooked. How quickly are applicants becoming candidates and candidates becoming interviewees? How many are accepting the offer to interview?

As competition ramps up, organizations will need to move fast to ensure top talent stays engaged.  

Offer acceptance 

How many offers were made versus how many were accepted? If candidates aren’t interested in working for an organization, something is happening further down the funnel. That might mean revisiting the employee value proposition, compensation and benefits, working conditions.

Ideally, everything should align from start to finish to attract candidates and keep them eager to join the team.

 

A final note: these metrics matter now, and they matter most when we proactively use this data to guide decision-making and improve recruiting strategies from end to end. The more we know, the better our outcomes become.  

Work From Home and the Impact on Parenting

While there’s evidence to indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic is becoming more manageable, we’re likely years away from fully understanding its impact. Scholars will spend years, if not decades working through first-hand accounts, medical documentation, news stories, and more to unpack what the world collectively experienced.

Work From Home and the Impact on Parenting

But even though the introduction of vaccines is causing a renewed sense of hope and optimism, we’re not out of the woods yet – and parents will probably be the first to tell you that. Though the last year and then some have been trying for most folks, parents faced the unenviable task of balancing priorities without much in terms of support.

Organizations that previously provided perks like childcare and on-site fitness facilities shuttered. Daycares and schools bounced from remote to in-person and back again. Colleges required the careful orchestration of on-campus living, off-campus learning, and continual testing to try and keep students safe.

Caught somewhere in the middle of this were the parents, just trying to keep going.    

For some, the work-life integration act turned flaming tightrope walk proved to be too much. And in turn, a considerable number of parents, particularly women, left the workforce entirely.

However, this devastating loss shined a light on deep-seated issues affecting working parents – and what some companies have done to support these employees.

 

Parent-Friendly Programming

When COVID started spreading and lockdowns took effect worldwide, the CEO of MURAL, a digital workspace for visual collaboration, reached out to Head of Culture and Collaboration Laïla von Alvensleben and asked what the company could do for employees juggling work and homeschooling their children.

Recognizing the need to keep kids both entertained and educated, MURAL moved quickly to develop a homeschool program as an extracurricular activity. The program delivered weekly resources focused on specific themes to keep children engaged and offer parents some of the structure missing from their routines.

Partnering with bilingual content creators, MURAL stood up the program in one week, with options for children of different ages. von Alvensleben commented,

“The parents were really grateful. That’s the first word that comes to mind. And they were excited too. I think it helped parents feel a little less overwhelmed while they were juggling so many other things and so many changes.”

 

Communication Expectations

Doist, the company behind the productivity app, Todoist, and communication app, Twist, has been remote for over a decade, shared Brenna Loury, Head of Marketing. As such, she explained, Doist has perfected a set of tools and workflows that support remote work and built a culture based around asynchronous communication.

Loury said, “We’ve been operating under this type of methodology forever. That gives our team members, no matter their circumstances, the flexibility to never feel like they have to respond immediately. We’ve always had a company policy that you should respond within 24 hours, but even that’s pretty loose.”

She continued, “Building a team culture around asynchronous communication is really the best practice that companies should aim for. That way, you’re giving parents the opportunity to act like parents, allowing them to work odd hours and when they have a moment free. Then they’re not feeling this immense pressure to respond in real-time.”

 

Autonomy for All

Over the last year, we’ve heard endless talk about resilience, agility, flexibility, adaptability, and the like. But it isn’t easy to find the time to build these out when you’re one person just trying to get through the day. That’s why much of this conversation goes back to what employers can do for their workforce.

In the case of MURAL and Doist, both organizations empower parents through autonomy.

Beyond the homeschool offering, MURAL also created content about identifying the symptoms of burnout and introduced an Employee Assistance Program to connect employees with the support they need when they need it. von Alvensleben said, “We wanted to help managers understand how to identify burnout in a preventative way. We also opened this up to other employees just to help them understand their own wellbeing, both mental and physical.”

As a remote-first company, Doist spent much of the last year reinforcing its commitment to autonomy.

Loury noted, “I think it’s a huge mentality shift for a lot of people. But I think the sooner companies adopt this mentality, the faster the parents on their team will be able to work more efficiently. This isn’t just for parents but for the wellbeing and productivity of everybody on the team.”

She offered, “Instead of these crazy tactics of monitoring if people are at their desk or having people check-in at certain hours of the day, you should optimize their workflows to see, did this person commit to what they said they were going to commit to? Are they reaching their deadlines?

It’s pretty clear when that’s not happening and when that becomes a pattern of behavior. We’re talking about a lot of big mentality and cultural shifts. I recognize that that doesn’t necessarily happen overnight, but companies can take baby steps in this direction and ultimately convert their culture to a culture of trust.”

 

Recruiting at Scale Part 1 – High-Growth Companies

Spend enough time reading about talent acquisition, and you start to recognize common patterns and themes. One that stands out almost immediately is the over-generalization of recruiting as if practically all hiring organizations were of the same size and scope.

Sure, you might run into a specialized topic now and again, digging into the challenges of engaging tech talent or launching a diversity recruiting initiative. But by and large, most content looks at talent acquisition from a similar vantage point, one that can’t possibly apply to every company.

Implementing a successful recruiting strategy takes more than following a few best practices. It requires a custom approach developed expressly for the organization it supports – and those of us in the space ought to acknowledge that collectively.

So, let’s look at the unique challenges recruiting teams face as they seek to source, attract, and hire candidates at scale – starting with high-growth companies.

 

Why high growth?

You’re probably wondering why we’re kicking off with high growth, and the answer is simple. The world is beginning to emerge from a period of forced slowdown, sheltering in place, and examining our previous way of thinking.

As Deloitte put it, “uncertainty calls for innovation,” explaining, “Faced with unexpected events, organizations need to innovate. Just as important, they need to be able to innovate quickly, now and in the future.”

Though that future is still around the corner, preparations are underway, and recent economic indicators point to the beginning of a hiring surge, one where growing organizations, both the nascent and the more established, will be looking to recruit top talent – and quickly.

Of course, there are variables to account for in this scenario, with the balance between filling short-term needs against long-term workforce development being chief among them. Innovation in certain sectors breeds fierce competition between organizations, particularly tech, where a talent shortage and skills gap abounds, and in-demand candidates sometimes receive multiple outreach messages a day.

Periods of rapid growth are often unpredictable, tied to the whims of the markets, funding rounds, M&A activity, and the like. Though many recruiters offer specializations, few build careers around high-growth experience, making these circumstances feel circuitous.

 

Building the foundation

The anticipation, anxiety, and excitement of rapidly scaling companies illustrates why it’s nearly impossible to lump recruiting into one big bucket that also includes slow and steady enterprise environments.

The distinction is palpable – and recruiting should reflect that across the talent lifecycle. Here are three key considerations to help guide your strategy:

State of the state

Before doing anything else, you need to know where you are today and where the organization is going, at least in the near term. This isn’t limited to recruiting either, but the company as a whole. What’s the plan? Are you in the lead-up to a funding round? IPO? Are you in the early stages of building out a new product line?

These are important questions to ask and answer, as identifying current and future state is a surefire way to uncover the gaps – in people, process, and product – an essential first step.

Set your base

Once you know where the gaps are, it becomes possible to find solutions. That might mean deciding exactly how many hires to make in a given timeframe or what technologies to implement to support the journey.

Given the nature of high-growth companies, it’s likely you’ll be hiring as you go, so look to shore up your critical infrastructure first. If you need to add recruiters to the team, find them first. If there’s tech already in place, make sure it’s fully optimized and ready for primetime.

Stay flexible

While recruiting might be your current focus, eventually, you’ll need to develop and maintain these hires as employees. Ventana Research analyst Steve Goldberg reminds us that “Configurability in HR tech is more than adapting a tool to support desired HR processes.

It’s also about adapting it to support HCM business goals.” Never take your eye off what’s to come. While an ATS might be your top priority, reskilling and upskilling, learning and development, and performance management all factor in at some point – so choose accordingly.

To navigate change, you need to be ready for anything, a lesson many of us learned first-hand over the last year, so it comes as no surprise that we’re poised for additional disruption.

If high- or hyper-growth appears on the horizon, look for strategies and solutions that will be configurable and easy to unpack amidst the ensuing chaos, enabling your organization to move quickly and stay nimble as you scale.

 

Go Beyond LinkedIn with the Updated Free People Search Tool

Every recruiter hits a point in their career where they go, “I love how I can search millions of people on LinkedIn. But there has to be a better way!” Free Simple People Search Tool is the answer.

It’s simple. It’s fast. And it’s absolutely free. Now that’s a combo you’re bound to fall in love with at first sight!

But that’s not all. Since we last covered this tool back in 2019, it’s come a long way. The latest version has everything we loved about this nifty piece of software, only now it’s many times bigger and better.

Let us elaborate. Where you could only start your search with LinkedIn profiles, you can take things to the next level by starting at any of the following websites:

  • Twitter
  • GitHub
  • Dribble
  • And of course, LinkedIn!

You get a simple but incredibly powerful search bar to find profiles on any of those four platforms. The official x-ray search guide will help you create boolean search queries that will—to take a phrase from the Irish—impress the bejesus out of your colleagues.

Have you tried searching people up on Dribble? Trust us, few things are harder than finding profiles on that platform. But with People Search Tool, it’s more enjoyable than a cool summer breeze.

In short, if you want to x-ray search the profiles on social media but don’t want to pay a hefty premium for the official search tools, you’re going to love the Free People Search Tool.

It’s infinitely better than the unreliable art of Google-Fu when it comes to manually searching profiles online!

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Starts With The Way You Hire

As 2020 came to a close, employers and HR recruiters, employees and job seekers alike learned a lot. Amidst the uncertainty caused by COVID-19 and the virtualization of whole industries, we witnessed longstanding gaps in employment simmer to the surface.

We have collectively begun to take notice of the untapped talent in individuals and even whole communities, including many that have been arguably, routinely left behind.

In a heightened effort to combat social injustice, ensuring Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in the workplace has today become more than a priority; finding equitable pathways to prosperity in ensuring a return to full employment has become a focal point for the Biden Administration.

However, what will “full employment” look like post-COVID-19? How will we look to remove bias in the recruitment process now and in the future, finally addressing the social issues that are present in the current workforce recruitment system?

Embracing best practices in diversity, equity and inclusion can attract top talent to a company. Conversely, not doing so could lead to a loss of opportunities, both with customers and in attracting the best service providers, negatively impacting a company’s overarching brand.

DEI is about ensuring fair treatment, access, and equal opportunity; acknowledging certain advantages and barriers in certain parts of society that have existed and then righting the ship and making the commitment to address those imbalances.

The recruitment technology of today needs to reflect this mission from the onset, from the job candidate experience to finally, the hire.

We think of a candidate experience as a series of interactions between a job seeker and a hiring organization during the recruiting process. These interactions, irrespective of the outcome, can be a positive or negative experience and either way, will have lasting impressions.

In the age of social media, negative experiences can cost companies future candidates as news of unprofessional conduct of some hiring managers and recruiters travels fast on social media.

Before learning a person’s name, their education or ethnicity, the first thing a recruiter should see through today’s DEI-oriented technology should be whether or not an individual has the specific, prerequisite skills needed to fill a role.

This change in the way we use today’s HR removes unconscious bias in deciding which talent ultimately comes to work for the enterprise.

 

That Feeling of Abandonment

Many job applicants have experienced the feeling of abandonment. Often recruiters and hiring managers simply stop contacting the jobseeker in the middle of the recruiting process; their follow-up emails are not acknowledged.

After the jobseeker’s final interview, in many cases, no one gets back to them to report the outcome. Many report that they were not taken seriously, or that their interview was much shorter than the allocated time, with recruiters potentially failing to ask the most highly relevant questions.

There are perhaps unacknowledged factors at play here that contribute to a candidate’s negative experience. A DEI program, if implemented effectively, should cover all stages of employment; from the first screening interview all the way to the job offer and/or rejection letter.

 

Changing Dynamics of Recruiting

Boston Consulting Group found that 75% of employees who rated their organizations the most diverse felt that their organizations were also outperforming their competitors, nearly twice that of employees who rated their organizations as the least diverse.

The principles of DEI touch every facet of every organization, whether it’s the way employees interact or who is represented in upper management; and yet, the American Marketing Association suggests that the true work often begins with the hiring process.

Many of today’s Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are not designed for today’s and tomorrow’s labor market.

Why is this the case? Because they rely on resume databases and antiquated keyword search technology. The problem is that this assumes that a job title on a resume equates to a qualified candidate. Employers or HR Recruiters potentially short-list candidates without the right skills to perform the job or they sometimes filter out a company’s potentially best-qualified candidate.

This then impacts the interview process and the overall job candidate experience.

It is critical for organizations to address their own weaknesses; to remain versatile in the adoption of recruitment technologies that offer a clearer picture of where talent lies within.

Moreover, these technologies are critical in ensuring that when searching for their next employee, no able candidates are left behind, and that their experience is positive as a true test of the currency they bring to an organization – their skills.

In 2021, skills matter.

We must bring the job market up-to-speed, and inclusive in its approach to hiring. All candidates should be treated equally with not just respect, but also with professionalism.

DEI should be present during the entire hiring process.

 

The Economic Victims of COVID: Perception vs. Truth

There have been quite a few provocative perception phenomena in recent years.

A visual example is #TheDress, and an audio example is Yanny vs. Laurel―both wrecked the internet.

The dress was seen as white and gold by 57% in a study devoted to this visual illusion. But it was actually black and blue. So those who saw the true colors could stick out their tongues and sing, Na-na-na-boo boo!

Laurel was heard by more than half of over 500,000 respondents to a Twitter poll. (And, this die-hard Yanny girl begrudgingly admits they were right.)

Auditory and visual illusions are fun for the whole family as they drive home the lesson that reality is different depending on how we perceive it.

Despite the scientific explanations for why we see and hear things differently, the bottom line is that sometimes we get it wrong. It doesn’t matter that your brain is screaming white and gold; the true colors of that darn dress are black and blue.

This can be true of our perceptions of facts and situations as well. We sometimes see things as they are, and sometimes…not so much.

What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.

―C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew

A study by Zety just came out called, The Inequality Virus: COVID’s Impact on Jobs & the Economy, which shows the variety in the way people viewed the pandemic’s detrimental effects on American’s state of unemployment and economic equality, and juxtaposed that with the facts.

The results show splits analogous to the dress and Yanny vs. Laurel.

Views on the Covid-Induced Recession

We all know the pandemic has wreaked havoc on many industries. Every state was impacted significantly.

It stands to reason that the steep increase in U.S. unemployment was positively correlated with the rise of the pandemic…or does it?

Here’s the opinion of 41% of the respondents in the Zety study:

Perception: Those job losses during the pandemic were due to poor job performance―not the pandemic itself.

Reality: The unemployment rate peaked in April 2020 to an unprecedented level of 14.8%―a percentage not seen since 1948, when data collection started for unemployment during the pandemic.

How’s that for skewed perception?

So, all you hotel and restaurant workers who lost your jobs in 2020: if only you’d worked harder serving all those non-existent customers, you’d probably still have that job. (The sound you hear is the drip-drip of the sarcasm.)

Participants’ perceptions of income gaps between various groups also yielded some head-scratching results as well.

Opinions on the Economic Toll on Women

Here’s where the perception/reality divide grew even wider in the study.

They inquired into the views of whether the pandemic will affect one sex more than the other financially.

Perception: Less than a quarter of respondents believed monetary inequalities between men and women would increase.

Reality: The increase in financial inequality is already apparent between men and women, and it seems the trend will continue.

The fact is that women typically work in the retail and hospitality industries. Which industries were hardest hit by COVID? Right, the same ones.  Nothing like losing your job to take a hit financially.

Another unfortunate reality is that fewer women could work from home during lockdowns due to the nature of their work. The Zety study also cites McKinsey & Company’s estimate that women’s jobs are 19% more at risk than men’s.

On the Future of Racial Economic Inequality

The respondents were asked if they believed that inequality would increase “between racial and ethnic groups.”  

Perception: Less than half believed that inequality would increase among racial groups.

Reality: According to the Economic Policy Institute’s analysis of unemployment in 2020:

…while unemployment rates fell for all groups over the third and fourth quarters, Hispanic unemployment remained 60% higher than white unemployment, while Black unemployment rose from 60% higher to 90% higher. Unemployment levels for Black and Hispanic Americans was greater than for whites.

Interestingly, more than half of the Republicans’ perception in the study was that the pandemic affected all races equally. Just 31% of Democrats thought that to be true.

Of course, our worldview is influenced by our political affiliations.

The financial consequences of COVID-19 are distributed unevenly and disproportionately affecting Black Americans. One devastating reason is that Black Americans’ mortality rates are more than twice the rate of whites.

The bottom line: the labor market is unsteady for Blacks and Hispanics when the economy is strong and precarious when it isn’t.

The Great Recession was a history lesson regarding how unemployment levels played out for various racial and ethnic groups. One of the lessons: Black and Hispanic households lost 48% and 36% of their wealth, whereas white households lost just 24%.

Unfortunately, the bottom line is that those facing economic insecurity will most likely be in a worse situation; those who were financially comfortable will have increased prosperity.

Wrapping Up

We all hear and see things differently based on a myriad of factors. Our views on inequality, in general, may or may not reflect the reality of the situation.

The study asked respondents a number of other questions, some showing a more unified vision in some areas, and perceptions that matched what reports conclude.

Seeing the black and blue dress as white and gold doesn’t mean you’re color blind. It just means there are unconscious factors at play―same with our perceptions that contradict current data and expert predictions.

 

Put Your Org-Charts on Steroids with the Chartloop 2021 Update

Chartloop is back with a brand new update for 2021. In case you’re out of the loop about what it does, Chartloop is a fantastic piece of software that autogenerates org-charts for any organization of your choice.

You know, those visual graphs that instantly show you who’s who in an organization. Navigating your way around gatekeepers is incredibly easier this way. Plus, you can focus on the people that matter instead of trying to make sense of the entire organization.

But let’s not get carried away with how great the tool is, as we’ve covered that before. Let’s unwrap everything this latest update has to offer.

 

1. Community Posts

Now you can tune in to what other Chartloop members are saying about the organizations you’re following. There’s a dedicated community section for each company.

You can take things one step further by making posts and leaving comments of your own. By connecting with other experts, you just might uncover an insight or two that may not be available to the rest of the internet.

 

2. Up-to-Date Charts

Do you know what time does to org-charts? It makes them outdated. New people come in. Others leave for better opportunities. Organizations never stop evolving.

With the auto-updates, you can now set Chartloop to redraw the charts from scratch at an interval of your choice. This way you’ll always be looking at what the organization looks like today, not last year!

 

3. Powerful Imports

Last, but surely not least, is the import feature. A lot of time you find individuals that Chartloop couldn’t locate on its own. Maybe you’re a black belt at tracking down members of an organization.

The good news is that you can now put all those people in a CSV file and upload it to Chartloop. Their system automatically turns the whole thing into a new chart or updates the one you already have on there.

So there you have it. Chartloop is bigger and better than ever. Be sure to try it if you haven’t already!

Solutions to Fighting IT Developers Shortage

The recent years have shown scarcity and a lack of talented full-stack web development experts around the world. There are a number of reasons that led to this issue, including but not limited to the continuous growth of the demand for IT experts in various industries, the competition for seasoned programmers, as well as the lack of formal education that delivers the needed tech skills to the graduates.

In this article, we will discuss what has caused and continues to cause the IT developers shortage, as well as how to manage to entice the best talents in your company despite the recruitment challenges.

How Many Developers Are There in the World?

According to the Statista report, the IT expert population has grown from 23.0 million in 2018 to 23.9 million in 2019, and it is expected to hit up to 29 million of IT professionals by 2024.  

Statista

 

According to the State of European Tech 2020 report, there’s a large share of tech jobs that are hard to fill by European country per year, with Belgium and Germany having an even bigger percentage of tech vacancies to fill by October 2020 compared to October 2019. Notably that last year, the Netherlands reached a drastic 60% of the tech jobs with no IT expert to take on. This proves that in Europe, the IT talent shortage also poses a huge challenge.

State of European Tech 2020 report: 05.3 Talent Trends

 

Here’s also an interesting chart that shows the share of programmers with different years of experience per country:

Mobilunity

Why the IT Talent Shortage Remains a Problem?

While it may seem that despite the immense number of IT specialists, the demand for tech specialists is also increasing day by day? In fact, the need for highly skilled coders, especially full-stack developers, is skyrocketing. So, why with such a large number of developers, companies face the problem to fill the tech roles?

  • The demand for local programmers creates high competition in local IT markets. Nowadays, businesses in any industry need a website and most likely an app as well, so the need for specialists with relevant tech skills is not decreasing over time. However, the local IT market is limited, and not all companies are ready to consider beneficial outsourcing and staff augmentation option.
  • The lifespan of the technology used and the software developed is limited, while projects are getting more complex. Programming is not a task-based job anymore. The project does not get finished as soon as software is created, as there is a constant need for maintenance, monitoring, optimizing, upgrading, and improving. This, in turn, involves a larger number of IT experts needed.
  • COVID-19 only sped up the digitalization and forced all companies to go digital, which created an even higher demand for IT specialists that can create customized IT solutions.
  • There is a huge gap between experienced and entry-level specialists. It’s getting harder to hire an experienced full-stack engineer, and fewer companies want to invest in educating junior IT specialists, which leads to the growing IT talent shortage.

 

What Talent Companies Are Looking for When Hiring IT Experts?

This Indeed survey showed that for more than 80% of recruiters, it’s a daunting task to hire Senior programmers and full-stack engineers. Here’s why talent companies are struggling with filling tech vacancies:

  • Limited local IT talent pool (no relevant tech skills, industry knowledge, experience, etc.);
  • A demand for Senior-level programmers (with the IT market full of entry-level IT experts);
  • A demand for specific technologies and programming languages (which may not be widespread in a particular city/country);
  • No relevant educational background (some companies are looking for IT specialists with at least a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or similar field, not just 2-month IT course graduates);
  • Tight competition on the market (it gets harder and harder to recruit an experienced coder who’s job offer requirements grow with each received offer).

 

IT Talent Shortage Is Visible in All Tech Companies Around The Globe

To sum up, the IT talent shortage is not a one-country or one-industry problem, but a global issue that remains unaddressed. Businesses all over the world are still facing the same problem with finding highly skilled IT experts with the relevant tech knowledge, sufficient experience in the field, and salary rates that will fit the company’s budget.

At the same time, even the current growing number of IT specialists can’t keep up with the skyrocketing demand for highly experienced programmers, especially full-stack developers, as many experts don’t have the opportunity to gain the experience needed to meet the growing requirements.

Conclusion

Hiring seasoned IT experts and building dedicated full-stack development teams became a real challenge for most recruiters around the world. Finding the IT specialist that can fill the position perfectly is now requiring a vast amount of time, resources, and maybe even some luck.

That is why for companies in need of top-tier IT experts, it may be beneficial to consider outsourcing and staff augmentation as a solution to the local IT shortage issue and work with a reputable IT services provider that can assist in building a dedicated full stack development team shortly.