The Mindset Of Tech Talent With Scott Dobroski of Indeed

William Tincup: [00:00:00] This is William Tincup, and you are listening to the Recruiting Daily podcast. Today, we have Scott on from Indeed, and our topic today is the mindset of tech talent. Who better to actually explain what’s going on with tech talent than the good folks at Indeed? Scott, would you Introduce both yourself and introduce Indeed, or especially what you do

Scott Dobroski: at Indeed.

Sure. Hey William, always great to see you. My name is Scott Dobroski.. I sit as a leader on our [00:01:00] corporate communications team here at Indeed, but I say that with a little hesitation because I wear many hats at Indeed. It is not just telling Indeed’s story to… employers, job seekers, and other audiences.

But really, it is deeply understanding what makes job seekers tick? What are they searching for today? What do they want in jobs? Along with employers, what are the pain points? What are they really feeling talking to them, understanding them? Continually to ask them what is new, different challenging and then, of course all these external data points is paired with working very closely with our hiring lab, which looks at real time insights into the labor market.

So that is another data point. And then, of course, Hey, we are an employer with over 12, 000 employees as well, so we understand ourselves the challenges employers are going through and it’s very similar the challenges employers are facing, we face as a business and employer ourselves. Those three [00:02:00] areas merge into my role.

That that,

William Tincup: Again. It would be nice if you just did internal communications. However, I actually liked that you have your fingers in a lot of different areas because it makes the job a little bit more enjoyable. Plus you can see perspectives, you can see things from different vistas. So actually, even though I’m sure it’s not easy the job and the people that Work with and respond to and all that stuff.

I’m sure it’s not an easy job, but I do the fact that it’s multidimensional.

Scott Dobroski: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. No, I always think no job is easy either. It is a job. It’s called work, but as we try to help others I do feel fortunate. I just so happen to like my job. So

William Tincup: Let’s stay there then.

That’s let’s stay there. All right. If we were to have this podcast pre pandemic, let’s just go back to the good old days of December 19th, which weren’t that good by the way. But let’s go back to the good old days. And we were to say the mindset of tech talent then [00:03:00] versus the mindset of tech talent.

Now, what are just some of the observations? Y’all sit on massive amounts of data we can get into data and any data that you have is great, but just your observations of how tech talent behave then and behaves now, some of the things that were important then may be important now, just the similar similarities and differences.

Scott Dobroski: Great, and there definitely are similarities and some clear differences. And by the way, everything I share here is backed by data, really looking at our labor market insights survey data and other research and patterns we see. Having said that, what is similar? Is today’s tech talent like before the pandemic, is still very much in the driver’s seat?

Believe it or not. Even though tech job postings are down anywhere from 35% to 55% year over year and the fact that there have been layoffs in the news tech talent is still wanted by every employer. That’s really because every company [00:04:00] today is essentially a tech company. If you think about everyone having an online presence monetizing, making business making money doing business online, even retail companies, real estate companies, bars and restaurants, they still need tech talent.

Tech talent is still in the driver’s seat. That remains. Similar pre pandemic, post pandemic. What tech talent really values and what a couple of things they value, not everything, a couple of the leading factors still remain. That includes tech talent really wanting to work on interesting technology where they can have big impact.

So you’ll see tech workers really wanting to work on technology, things that are changing the world, that are helping people, and really can have scale as well. Another part of tech talent that remains is high and handsome compensation packages. No doubt about it, tech talent still demands high compensation packages.

They know they can be paid highly, and if they’re not, they can go [00:05:00] across the street to somewhere else. And remember, compensation packages can include base pay, plus, other forms of compensation, bonuses, etc. Now, what’s different? is we see a clear difference in, in two things, primarily the value and the importance of flexible work is significantly different now to tech talent than it was pre pandemic.

This is a leading factor that we found in our job postings tech behaviors, the types of jobs that are applying to. And in our survey data as well. So again, I say this to really stress it’s a combination of data points and behaviors that we see. Virtually all tech talent want flexible working spaces.

That really means being able to work where they want when they want, or where they want to work. What I’m talking about is within certain parameters, right? That doesn’t mean you get to take off for two weeks, go to Bermuda, travel the world. No, you still have a job to do, but can you do it from different places instead of having to come in five days a week?

So when [00:06:00] we see some of these really big tech companies laying down these mandates or requests of employers or of employees It’ll be very interesting in the coming months to see how the data may shift in terms of tech talent possibly leaving or looking elsewhere. And then the second thing I’d say that’s different with tech talent is we actually see the majority of them right now wanting to work for the big enterprise companies as opposed to startups.

So pre pandemic it was pretty much evenly split. Sometimes we saw fluctuations as well, but startups were very alluring very enticing, because there’s that, that Silicon Valley dream that’s now shifted, you don’t have to be in Silicon Valley and the dream is tough right now, because VC money IPOs it’s shaky out there it’s not solid, let’s say, and Working at a larger employer where there’s a little bit more stability, where they know that they are needed, where they know they can receive high pay, and generally speaking, where there’s flexible work, right now we [00:07:00] see more of them wanting to work at the big enterprise companies.

So those are the really two differences pre pandemic versus post.

William Tincup: Let’s unpack that a bunch. One is the shift in the tech talent that was being hired pre pandemic to everything that we’ve seen in AI. Especially with chat, GPT and things like that. It seems like there’s an uptick in any, anyone technology wise that understands AI.

So I wonder, okay we’re down in postings and we’re down, but are we switching out like, okay, maybe we’re not hiring Java developers as, as much as we were, but we’re hiring AI, do you see. Do you perceive that, we’re still obviously tech talent. We’re in scarcity.

We’re always going to be in scarcity because everything is, everything in our world is run by software. So we’re always going to have some type of deficit. Do you see some of the, it’s just companies are making a cognitive decision to [00:08:00] move towards more I say newer but folks that actually understand AI as opposed to people that may maybe understand other types of technology.

Scott Dobroski: I love that question because actually the answer is yes. So we know, for example software development job postings compared to a year ago are down 56%. IT operations help desk job postings are down 37% from a year ago. So that’s just an indicator of the array of tech jobs that are down.

However, when we have our hiring lab team look at… AI related jobs and postings, they are up triple digits over a year ago. Now it’s a much smaller pool. I don’t have the exact number today of the sheer volume, but it’s a much smaller pool, but it is up triple digits. And I’m characterizing it as triple digits because it fluctuates month to month because it’s still a lower number, but [00:09:00] it’s on the rise.

It’s increasing. Here at Indeed, for example we have 300 people working on different AI type of roles and competencies and tasks both for Helping job seekers and employers. So what our customers and people who use us receive, but also there’s a mix of people who are working on internal infrastructures.

And the goal is actually to make everyone’s job easier in a number of years from marketing people to legal folks, to people teams, to the data tech teams as well. So we know that other companies are doing the same thing. So what’s really interesting is that the AI roles they’re being hired for. It’s a combination of one, to help your business externally, how people use you, your goods and services and products you deliver, but also they’re working on what is the infrastructure and how do I equip every single person in the company to use AI to augment their job in the future.

William Tincup: I think [00:10:00] that’s just going to be a part of our future, especially our immediate futures. Anyone that knows anything about AI, which of course, The, AI is moving so fast, it’s hard to find people that have degrees or even have substantive experience using AI. We’re going to have to figure out ways to harvest talent, build talent people are going to have to get real creative really quick.

Scott Dobroski: Real creative, real quick. And, it’s a combination of, so much the tech skills themselves. Machine learning, deep learning, data science, and also ethics. People don’t know this always, but we have a dedicated guy named Trey Causey. He’s our director, head of AI ethics.

Because, remember, we believe artificial intelligence is actually not artificial. It’s actually built on what humans build in the first place. The ethics of it, and for lack of better Terms using AI for good, not evil is very much a factor in this and we [00:11:00] hope all employers and companies are taking this into account.

I think we know from real world examples, I do think most are and most have good intentions, but some may not be paying as much attention to it as they

William Tincup: should. But you have to have a ombudsman that’s monitoring what’s going on. To make sure, and then I think buyers are eventually going to get to a point of asking for, just like taxes, they’re going to ask for audited kind of report hey, have you had your, have you had your AI, have you had it audited either internally, that’s fine, but have you had it audited externally et cetera those are things that are going, that are, they’re in our future for sure.

Back to the three things that I think that I think are really interesting about the tech talent right now is there’s still challenge junkies. That nothing’s changed for me when I hired my first HTML developer in the nineties, there was a chat, there were challenge junkies.

I don’t see that, that much has changed. The challenges are. Obviously much more substantial than hand coding, HTML [00:12:00] premium comp and remote. If you were to guess, if you were to look at the look across things, how would you prioritize for those for tech talent? And I’m sure each individual does that themselves.

I get that, but what’s more important if a company is trying to recruit this talent. Is it better that they have a great story about the challenge, the, the challenge that they’re going to be overtaken and maybe pay isn’t as important as the challenge and maybe remote isn’t as important as the pay.

Again, I just put those in an artificial kind of order. But what do you think tech talent, what do you think? Is it something that at a stage in their career, they came more about one than the other? Or with the pandemic, and they got used to working from Montana, maybe they prioritize remote over all the other stuff?

What’s your general feel for that?

Scott Dobroski: Again, based off of the data, behaviors, survey data, past survey data, research as well.[00:13:00] And again, this is generalizing, but across the board, still to lure in and attract tech talent. It is a huge coup if you can wave in front of them interesting work with meaningful real world impact.

Impact to change lives, impact to make lives or business easier, faster, simpler. That is still a huge benefit to lure in tech talent is how they’re going to be on the forefront of changing the world or changing lives. So we still see that across the board. That’s interesting. If we do age breakouts, that does matter more to the 18 to 34 year old group though, than the 35 to 55 year

William Tincup: old.

Yeah, they’re jaded by that time, Scott. They don’t care. Let’s be honest. At that time, they don’t want to change the world. They know the world’s not going to change, but you know what? No, just kidding. It’s what’s really interesting is it’s still a challenge, but it’s a challenge for good.

Scott Dobroski: It is. [00:14:00] That’s where they’re coming into it. It certainly is. The challenge is for good, and it is actually, I, I think we think very noble wanting to change the world, using the technology for good, being aware of the vulnerabilities, the risks that are definitely under the microscope now unlike 10, 15 years ago, and rightfully so in many cases, and working on all of this to again, change the world.

It’s a different mentality, but even before technology, if we’re going to go way back into the 90s and 80s, you had often people become, Two of the top jobs, and we saw this in data, I want to be a doctor. I want to be a lawyer. Everyone that was very noble. Why? You want to change the world. You want to help in some way.

And while those are still very noble occupations, and also tough to fill roles, the technology roles have taken on a similar, though different, but similar mentality. I can change the world. I can help people. And there’s a lot of admiration for that. I would say second, though, just to answer [00:15:00] your question, the compensation package does probably rate a little bit higher than the flexible working environment.

William Tincup: That’s interesting. The, to me what I love is the order of those things. I want to change something for good, check. I want to get paid well, okay, if we’re doing so, great. And I’m flexible on work. I’d ultimately like to work the way I want to work. But if I have to, and then some companies are making really interesting ploys.

I’ve seen Celanese actually is doing this bit where it’s Wednesday, every Wednesday, everyone’s got to be in the office. But every Wednesday they don’t do work. So every Wednesday, what they do is they get together, they brainstorm, they talk to each other. It’s a lot of soft skill development.

That’s, it’s actually getting to know one another. And then the other four days, yeah go work. If you want to work here, right? You want to work in your office. Great. If you want to come in, you don’t do, but on Wednesdays, we get together because. We culturally, we [00:16:00] want to make sure that we bond and

Scott Dobroski: yeah,

William Tincup: It’s actually, I’ve talked to their global head of TA and it works like he can sell it, before really, especially right after the pandemic, it was really hard to sell anything office related.

Like I remember talking to a friend of mine who was with Uber and he’s I need synonyms for commute. Because I if that way his bit was, I, we get all the way down to the finish line and then I talk to them about one day, two days, this, that and the other, and it’s dead on arrival. I’m like first of all, you need to put that in the very front and just start there and then build your case afterwards of why that’s important.

But anyhow, with ese. I like the fact that it’s not, you come in and then you go to your cube or you go to your office or whatever, and no one talks to each other I could talk to you over zoom from the room next door, but it’s they’re purposely, I guess it’s with intentionality.[00:17:00]

That they’re saying, Hey, we have a culture. We had a culture before we had a culture during COVID and we have a culture now and we want to get to know each other and find out where our strengths and weaknesses and how we can help each other grow and skill development and all this other stuff. It’s like he can sell that.

And that’s what the, that’s our cover. That was our conversation is like, Hey, I can sell that because people still want some form of human interaction. But they want it on their terms.

Scott Dobroski: That is extremely fascinating. And what I think is so fascinating about it is that will not or may not work for every company.

So what we have heard from employers as well, from startups to midsize to large companies is you know what they’re struggling with post pandemic also is this idea of collaboration and community. So exactly what you’re talking about and this company is using. So it sounds like. They’ve really put in some intentional structure and a purpose and objectives.

Just to use those words, what’s the objective of Wednesday? It’s, it is [00:18:00] to build rapport, community, culture, and culture really matters pre pandemic. Company culture was a huge talking point, and we used to do, we still do studies on it, but that was a leading factor to join a company.

It’s shifted a little bit because the company culture ideal is different. Company culture still exists, and companies know they need to build it, foster it, nurture it, but it is more difficult over Zoom and in the virtual world. Some companies I’ve read about, I’ve seen, and I’ve talked with as well have tried certain days moments, where they come in for collaboration and community.

For some it’s working quite well, for some they’re just not nailing it, and then they go, what did we accomplish that day? And I think, and one of the pitfalls I hear often is, they’ll invite people in, and then you have a majority of those people who are spending at least four of their eight hours, on Zoom anyway in different conference rooms.

And so I point that out with a little chuckle because it’s it misses the [00:19:00] point, but what you haven’t solved for is maybe it’s that added stuff of asking people to clear their calendars, as simple as that, or putting a limit to Zooms, or creating some sort of structure but an open end of just come on in isn’t really serving the purpose of the collaboration community team building, or even You know, rally and cry that, that they’re hoping for.

So it’s still a puzzle to be figured out, I think. Yeah, and

William Tincup: you’re right. It’s a fingerprint. Each company is going to have to find a unique thing that works for them. And then again, it’s for everybody involved, all stakeholders. I noticed years ago when I had an ad agency that we were getting bogged down in meetings.

And I just noticed that everyone was just meeting exhausted, right? So first thing I did is, okay, couldn’t, there’s nothing over an hour, so 30 minutes. And in doing so, I also said, you can’t bring any electronics to the meeting, no phone, no laptop, just come to the meeting, whatever the bid is. Great. We’ll talk about it.

We’ll discuss it. We’ll write [00:20:00] something down and everyone will go. And then when that, it worked. To a point, but when I saw that starting to taper off and not being as effective, I started having standing meetings. So we just get together and stand for five minutes because no one wants to stand for more than about Seven minutes after that, people are looking for chairs.

And so we would just pull together and go, okay, top. What do we got to do today? What’s up? What are you? What’s holding you back? What’s holding you back? What’s holding you back? Okay great. Done. Done. Like it was a huddle,

Scott Dobroski: the standup, a huddle, the daily standups, our tech. I worked at Indeed’s sister company, Glassdoor, for over 10 years.

The tech teams would do a daily stand up, and that’s exactly what it was. You would stand up, 10 to 15 minutes, we’d see them every day, and they’d walk by. And actually, it served that purpose of a quick touch base to go over what was needed. And they loved it, and it also provided that quick…[00:21:00] FaceTime as

William Tincup: well.

Yeah, and again, what’s holding you back? What’s the barrier for you to be successful? Let’s focus on that. Yeah. And again, if someone feels like they have to commute into work to then do Zoom, I think we’ve failed. I know how

Scott Dobroski: I’d feel. That is a huge turnoff. That is a huge turnoff.

We see it in data. We hear it anecdotally from tech workers. And something actually interesting as part of this recent survey and research we conducted that actually we hadn’t talked about yet it’s not the majority of tech workers, but about 10% of them are actually working two full time jobs right now, so we didn’t see that pre pandemic, and there’s a couple leading theories hypotheses that we believe that’s happening.

Number one we know that 70% of tech workers are still getting multiple offers, so they might be working those jobs in staggered times, saying yes to one, and then simultaneously leaving a company, but [00:22:00] another theory, and there is some anecdotal evidence to this as well, is Some of them are trying out which is the better employer, 100%, working the two full time jobs figuring out which one do I like more, which one carries more interesting work, has more innovation, more collaboration.

William Tincup: They sold me a bag of goods that said they’re doing interesting work. Now that I’m onboarded, are they really doing that? It’s hedging. It’s essentially what it’s hedging their bets, which I would absolutely first of all, that’s just smart, quite frankly, because again, in the recruiting process, we’re going to tell them all the positive things.

Very rarely do we say, Hey, we are terrible at this. We suck at this. Our CEO is horrible at that. Very rarely do we tell them some of the negative things that go on in a company. We tell them all the positive things. So we’ll tell them everything they need to hear. And have been, this, there’s nothing new, this has been going on for a long time, but it would be nice to actually, so I can see them, I can see them actually hedging, taking two, three, four, as many as they can take on, just to see [00:23:00] which one of these lied less.

That’s correct.

Scott Dobroski: Correct. And of the 10% or so tech workers who are doing this, 90% 96% of them actually said that they are getting all of their work done at both companies. So it’s an interesting split that they’re doing to again, figure it out and been working when we saw this research here in layman’s terms, someone brought up, this analogy of it’s like when you’re single and you’re dating, you might be dating two different people, and then you not everyone, you veer off in many cases to one that’s a better fit.

We’re exclusive

William Tincup: now. That’s what we are. We’re exclusive now. We’re

Scott Dobroski: exclusive now, I’m only with you, and it might be forever, or it might be a few years. The

William Tincup: metaphor I’d probably use is roulette, but yeah, the daily one works just as well. I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you this, because I had one. I had this in my mind when we started talking about this topic is the steps in the interview, the process, the hiring process.

So this is probably a year [00:24:00] ago now, talking to an engineer friend of mine. And I was asked what’s the bid? What are you doing? What’s going on with recruiting? He said, listen, here’s the deal. My first question to a recruiter is how many steps in the process is there? Oh boy. And I said, do tell, he said this is the guy I went to business school with.

So I can actually ask him really tough questions. So I’m like, do tell, he goes, if they have more than five steps in their process, they don’t know what they’re doing. And I bail. Yeah. I don’t care. I don’t care what the project is. I don’t care how much they’re paying. I don’t care if it’s remote.

I don’t care about any of that other stuff. They’re telling, it’s a tell. So they’re telling me they don’t know what they’re doing by the number of steps in the recruiting process. And I found it, first of all, I didn’t believe him, A. B, I just found it fascinating. That’s, it is, there is some insight into it.

He’s right on some level, like if you have 12 steps in your recruiting process, something’s wrong. You’re not going to be as fast. You’re not going to get the talent. There’s, it is, there is, it’s indicative [00:25:00] of something being inefficient. I get that. Yeah,

Scott Dobroski: What

William Tincup: are you, seeing?

What’s, first of all, his case, we’ll just put it off to the side as just a data point, but what are you seeing with tech talent?

Scott Dobroski: What we see, again in our data, because we have hiring signals at Indeed, that’s what we call them, we have hiring signals we, the data, the research and our own, behavior, and as we hire as well, so I know this statement is not going to come to a shock to TA and HR professionals, but the biggest, one of the, one of the biggest barriers Is the hiring process taking too darn long, especially for tech workers, where more than 75, 70% are getting multiple offers.

The overall duration right now in the U. S. still stands at 15 weeks for the average worker to get hired. That’s over three months. Now, for tech talent, it is a little bit faster, and the majority of tech talent say they know they can get a job in, 10, 12 weeks sometimes eight weeks, but that’s still super long, when 80% of workers are saying they still apply to [00:26:00] companies and actually don’t even hear back.

Look, this is one reason why at Indeed, we are laser focused. As William and others, and we’re trying to… Share this more is why we’re laser focused on using technology, AI and machine learning to speed up the hiring process. In fact, we’re holding ourselves accountable, putting a goal to it to make hiring overall to cut the hiring time and duration.

To seven and a half weeks by the year 2030. So we’ve got a good six and a half plus years to, to do that. But it’s all through using technology to match match, match the right candidates with the right employers. And that does include tech talent. In fact, We see on our own platform when employers can post a job, yes, sponsor it, and then rely on AI, machine learning, and other technology to match instantly.

Do you know how much tech workers love hearing from an employer, or applying to a job, or making their resume available, and literally within hours, not days or weeks, they hear from someone [00:27:00] that says, I think you’re special, I can see all of your skills, can you interview with me tomorrow? Yeah. That is what happens.

And that’s what we’re trying to do at scale. So that’s the future. That’s what the data shows.

William Tincup: On the other end of the world, the hourly talent, one of the things I’m seeing in hourly talent, it’s, it comes down to the first person that responds to them. So they’ll apply to hourly talent. They’ll apply to, to AT& T and Pizza Hut, just all kinds of different jobs, everything at the mall, click apply.

And it’s the first, generally speaking right now, it’s the first person that responds to them. Absolutely . And so what’s, I don’t think, tech talent is different. I get it. ’cause you’re going to go deeper and you want to, you wanna sell, you want to you to understand the culture. There is, there’s other steps there.

Like they are, it’s two different talent pools. I get that. But again if you respond to ’em in seconds, minutes, hours, days. You have a better chance of actually being able to then have that conversation where you sell the challenge for good, the [00:28:00] pay, any type of flexibility, et cetera.

Scott Dobroski: The speed of hiring today is incredibly important to all talent, but especially tech talent. And remember, this shouldn’t be a surprise why speed matters. Here’s why. Because if you look at other parts of our world and how we live, everything is on demand. Everything is set up. Think about.

Amazon, and all the goods and services. You get everything you needed at Walgreens, or any consumer goods can show up at your doorstep tomorrow. Any food item you want, you can get it tomorrow. Booking a flight or travel, you can book it and stay at a hotel tomorrow. Really, the HR and hiring game… is one of the final industries that’s lagging these other parts of our lives.

So the speed is incredibly important. And again, we have all sorts of data points and claims like all big companies do, but we know if you can hire faster and get to them as you said, respond to them, acknowledge them, you can make a hire. 2x faster, sometimes even faster than [00:29:00] 2x if you can target them, reach out to them and say, I want to talk to you tomorrow and actually follow up.

That’s part of it too. Again, within hours, days but not this weeks or months that many companies are still doing.

William Tincup: It reminds me of this bit in the movie of Magnolia where Tom Cruise is in an interview and she said, what are what are you doing? And he’s I’m silently judging you.

And. That’s a real dark movie. So listeners, you don’t really have to go look that up, but it the bit is there. I think with tech talent, even more so than other types of talent, is there judging the technology that’s going on in the background? Because they, they know what’s going on in the background or that it’s not like it’s still a lot of heavy people oriented Oh I’ll have Jimmy’s going to schedule an interview and then, but like all of this human stuff, they know that you’re not automated, which means that They know that you have technology problems.

Scott Dobroski: [00:30:00] Exactly, especially with the tech talent, you are absolutely right. If you have a recruiter, then you bring in this hiring manager, then there’s some executive assistant, there’s a lot of people. All these manual tasks, that is a red flag to them that the technology is not there. In fact, a way to win over tech talent, you’re totally right.

is by impressing them with your technological advancements in the hiring process to show that you’re a tech innovator and leader. Otherwise, they can go across the street to someone else. And if you’re not getting back to them, even 24, 48 hours someone else is, or that just shows, again, that’s, it’s so manual.

It’s in the past. Again, that, that is what, when people say, what are you trying to do at Indeed, that is one of our top priorities, if not the top priority. It is to speed up and simplify the hiring process, and it is through matching, and automating it. All of these human processes and we’re making good headway, but it’s still going to take a long time.

William Tincup: Drops mic, walks off stage. Scott, thank you [00:31:00] so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Thanks for everyone listening. Until next time.