The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring
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The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring How small and mid-sized businesses can locate, screen, and hire top talent while saving time and money
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Transcript of The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring
The Ultimate Guide to Tech HiringHow small and mid-sized businesses can locate, screen, and hire top talent while saving time and money
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 1
Contents
Introduction Current Staffing Challenges ..............................................3
What You’ll Find in This eBook .........................................4
Creating a Winning Recruiting Team Culture Keys to Understanding Company Culture .........................6
Keeping Track of the Company Pulse ...............................7
The Tech Hiring Challenges of SMBs Your Value Proposition: The Key for Effective Candidate Communications ........10
Tips for Defining Your Value Proposition .........................11
On Getting Creative ........................................................12
Final Considerations for SMBs Seeking Tech Talent ....................................................................13
Hiring for MobileKey Considerations for Mobile Hiring .............................15
Tips for Finding the Right Fit (and Culture Fit) with Mobile Talent ...............................16
Tech Hiring for Non-Tech CompaniesLeading With Culture ......................................................18
Create the Experience ....................................................19
Show Them the Future ....................................................20
Conclusion The Future of Tech Recruiting ........................................22
AppendixCreating Your Company Mission Statement....................25
Defining Your Value Proposition ......................................26
Salary Worksheet for Start-Ups and SMBs .....................27
About Gild
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 3
Small and mid-sized business owners, regardless of industry, are all facing the same challenge in today’s hiring environment:
How do we find the right talent to build our business into everything its destined to become?
How do we know? Well, this is the leading concern that our sales team hears from prospective customers every day. We’re living in amazing times that are rich with innovation and ideas have more places to incubate and grow than ever in history. But the skill level of the general workforce and the needs to today’s forward-thinking employer create a gap—and one we’re here to help you navigate in the most e!cient manner possible.
Our goal with this guide its to help small and mid-sized businesses locate, screen, and hire the best technical talent possible. We’re here to demystify the process and help close that gap so that your business can move (perhaps leap) forward with the talent they need on board.
Current Staf!ng Challenges
Every company begins somewhere…but when you begin, you’re missing a few things. Brand recognition is at an all-time low. Benefits for your new team members might be slim and your compensation structure and upside potential for talent that takes a risk on your vision aren’t necessarily well defined. It’s also often di!cult to clearly enumerate who you are, why you’re di"erent, and why candidates should hear what you have to say when a bigger behemoth might be knocking at their doors.
Tech companies face a special set of challenges. Most specialty areas have a limited number of talented candidates in the workforce yet new positions are coming online each day. Recruiting sta"s can find it di!cult to keep up with ever-changing technology trends, so identifying and evaluating talent becomes even more di!cult.
So how do you win? We take the challenges to heart and search for solutions that both save and build your company’s bottom line.
“We’re here to demystify the tech talent hiring process.”
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 4
What You’ll Find in This eBook
The next four installments in this eBook will walk your company through the following topics and help you get from where your hiring needs are to where they need to be, with tools for finding the right talent for each need and challenge.
Part 1: Creating a Winning Recruiting Team Culture
Part 2: The Tech Hiring Challenges of SMBs
Part 3: A Guide to Hiring Mobile Talent
Part 4: Tech Hiring for Non-Tech Companies
The ultimate goal for this guide is to o"er growing companies across a myriad of industries better tools. The more e!ciently you can locate and hire the tech talent your business needs to grow and thrive, the more revenue you can allocate to serving your customers. And that, we feel, is always the best use of revenue. It’s also going to always be the best (and most respectful) use of everyone’s time, no matter how they’re involved in the recruiting process.
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 6
As we mentioned at the beginning of this series, every industry faces both shared and unique challenges when trying to identify and then hire the best tech talent. Solutions, however, begin with your recruiting team. Successful hiring begins with a full understanding of your company culture by those charged with finding and presenting talent. After all, how can you grow in the right direction if everyone’s following a di"erent path?
Keys to Understanding Company Culture
When you’re a young company, you’re always up against the Big Guys in the race to hire tech talent. So how do you put yourself in the same league as these towering giants? It all starts with a clear understanding—and communication of—your company culture.
When on the hunt for tech talent in today’s competitive market, here are the five things you need to have sussed-out in advance of reaching out to your dream candidates:
• Company Mission: If you can’t tell candidates who you are, what you do, why you’re different, and why this matters to both your target audience AND to them as a prospective employee–get this spelled out. Your bigger competition has this down pat. See Appendix: Creating Your Company Mission Statement
• Comparison to the Competition: You’d better know what the competition is offering in terms of compensation, marketplace relevance, and culture. The question will come up, so why not be prepared to answer what some companies consider a tough question. For you, it can be easy!
• Value Proposition: How much do you know about your candidate? Today’s tight tech market demands that you be able to relate your career offering directly to a candidate’s personal needs, likes, and goals. See Appendix: Defining Your Value Proposition
Ask Jon: Advice from Gild’s Senior Recruiter
How can companies best (and tactfully) compare their business to the competition and o!er value points?
• Explain the difference between competitive companies and your company.
• Explain what your company does vs. competitors.
• Find something unique about your company and what it’s doing, emphasize that, and make it clear and a differentiation.
• Find things that will get people excited about what they’re going to be able to contribute to their new company culture.
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 7
• Comp Plan and Benefits: No matter your company size, you should be able to clearly enumerate what you’re offering. The recruiting process is a tough time to figure out that what you need costs more than you’ve budgeted or that you don’t measure-up to your competition’s offerings. See Appendix: Salary Worksheets for Start-Ups and SMBs
• The “What’s Next” Conversation: Be prepared for the next conversation with your candidates. PDFs and press coverage that you can send along, bios of the folks he or she will be interviewing with, and more. How will you keep the candidate’s interest after the initial conversation?
Keeping Track of the Company Pulse
Once those in charge of hiring have the above sorted out, you’re in position to move forward with more successful hiring conversations. How do you keep those conversations on-track? We recommend a few techniques for making sure that everyone in decision-making roles is kept apprise of hiring needs and processes:
• Scheduled Updates: Make sure those who are sourcing candidates are checking in with those doing the interviewing and making the hiring decisions on a regular basis. If not weekly, then bi-weekly.
• Challenges: Are you having difficulty filling a role? Are candidates not measuring up? Ask these questions often and face challenges head-on and with candor. This translates to less time wasted and better candidates in the future.
• New Hire Check-Ins: Maybe there’s something that your new hires can contribute to the hiring process. Why not check in with new talent at the 1- month and 3-month points for what they feel you could add (or subtract) from their hiring process based on their experiences with their new company.
When it comes to hiring, it doesn’t matter who in your company is in charge of the task. What matters is your ability to communicate—and on multiple topics and levels.
Ask Jon: How can my company improve results with our recruiting e!orts, shortening timelines and reducing hiring expenditures?
When your hiring timelines seem extended, I recommend regrouping with your hiring manager and team. This way, the entire team can talk through the challenges you’ve faced and then figure out the best way to move forward.
Is the role you’re looking to fill one that can be filled or do expectations need to be adjusted? If you’re finding that it’s difficult to identify an appropriate pool of candidates using your internal resources, your company might want to consider an outside company to assist with the search.
Whatever problems you’re facing in bringing candidates in and making the hire, it generally goes back to expectations and bandwidth.
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 8
Ask Jon: What are the key components of a powerful value proposition for SMBs?
SMBs have to sell candidates the opportunity. For example, you might offer that your company offers the right candidate the chance to get involved in multiple aspects of the company beyond a specific job title.
In smaller companies, employees get involved in a lot of different activities. In bigger companies, candidates get hired to fill a particular role and they need to do that job and do it well. That can get boring after a while, however. The biggest challenge for employees in bigger companies is that someone has to leave in order to move up. At a SMB, oftentimes all a team member needs to do is raise his hand. Make this a part of your messaging to candidates during the recruitment process.
What are some creative ways my company can keep a candidate engaged beyond the initial point of contact?
Make sure you give top-tier candidates weekly or bimonthly updates on your hiring timeline. As your top candidates might be interviewing with multiple companies, this helps them stay abreast of where your company fits in their job search. Also, I recommend that hiring managers/recruiters check in with all key candidates weekly and ask them if anything has changed in their situation. The key is to let them know you haven’t forgotten about them. This also separates your company from others with your superior level of communication.
What are the key criteria that all recruiters and hiring personnel should be collecting/uncovering on candidates during the recruitment process?
“I always like to find out what a candidate’s top 3 drivers are behind their job search. I need to know why they’re looking and dig deeper into those whys. Some people are
just evaluating their options. Others are interested in making a move or need to make a move. You need to understand a candidate’s motivators up front.
Top drivers for most candidates are usually money, growth, or “I don’t like my Boss.” Some people aren’t adept or willing when it comes to articulating why they’re leaving. In those instances, it’s a recruiting or hiring professional’s job to dig deeper to get to the real motivations. Real motivations help us make better placements and ones that last. Like culture.
You need to understand what kind of culture a candidate craves. Where is the candidate coming from culture-wise and what would they like to feel in their work environment each day?
And be sure to ask about standard employment things such as work eligibility and visas. If there’s travel, ask if they’re comfortable with the percentage of travel. If there are any special expectations around the role, you need to clearly delineate those expectations up front.
The final aspect you’ll want to delineate is expected compensation. Everyone has a price and their flexibility. When you can clear compensation up early on, you’ll be in a better position to match candidate, culture, and appropriate compensation.
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 10
When we opened this guide, we reviewed some of the challenges facing any company with tech hiring needs. The truth of today’s market is there exists a greater demand for tech talent than training can keep up with. This means companies of all sizes are competing to acquire the best of the best, and from a smaller pool of talent.
One of the key challenges facing the SMB market stems from this exact quandary: how do we compete for talent with bigger companies with bigger names? The linchpin boils down to two critical factors:
• Understanding your value proposition, and
• Getting creative.
We know—those are both nebulous ideas. Let’s get specific and equip you with the tools you need to go up against the behemoths and have the best chance possible to attract the attention of key tech talent to move your company forward.
Your Value Proposition: The Key for Effective Candidate Communications
Recruiting is a unique combination of sales, marketing, and human resources. When your company can e"ectively combine those three disciplines, you’re headed on the road to better recruiting success.
When companies are in growth phases, however, your marketing messages are of the utmost importance. It goes beyond marketing messages for your customers – it has to extend to your target candidates, too. Let’s review your value proposition and the points your recruiting team – whomever in your company that might be – must have down-pat to make your recruiting e"orts as e"ective as possible:
• Your Value Proposition: No matter if you’re bigger or smaller than any company perceived as “competition,” how you stack up in comparison has to roll off the tongue. It has to come through in every job posting, interview, impression a candidate received during a tour of your offices.
Case Study: Tackk with Robert Hatta, COO
Using Company Core Values and Culture to Attract Talent
When we talk about culture at Tackk we talk about the values we hold ourselves accountable to as a company. Our company core values are the yardstick by which we measure our success. They’re the behaviors and skills we seek in all new hires, and existing staff. Our core values and culture are tools we use to establish fit and tell candidates who we are a company.
We treat each employee like an owner of the company. We empower our employees and expect them to think like an owner. We also have as few formal processes as possible. Our vacation policy is a great example. There is no set number of days of vacation for our employees.
continued on p. 11
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 11
Some factors to consider as you build your value proposition:
• Company Culture: How does yours compare and outshine the other options, even among bigger companies?
• Quality of Life: Granted, the startup and SMB space isn’t particularly the ideal place for a 9-to-5er to call his or her career home. But what do you offer that makes the lives of your employees better?
• Benefits: Understand prior to the recruiting process where you stand on employee benefits. Smaller and growing companies often feel they can’t compete in this arena, but we’ll address important comparison points and help you get creative when push comes to shove.
Tips for De!ning Your Value Proposition
Personality: If your company were a “who” – how would you describe that person? Every company has a personality. Attracting the best talent – the talent that’s going to combine their talents with your culture and create long-term success – begins with having a firm hold on your company’s personality. That personality will then pave the way for you to clearly define your company’s goals, values, and visions in a way that brings the right talent knocking. Want some examples of companies with clearly defined personalities? Have a look at Salesforce and Medium—one well-established technology icon and a startup brought to you by one of the founders of Twitter that’s hiring like mad. Di"erent goals, di"erent customers, and very di"erent ways of attracting talent through their distinct personalities.
• Culture and Quality of Life: Skip the bait-and-switch. There are plenty of companies that advertise that they have dog-friendly office days (until a pup makes a mistake in the wrong place) and on-site snowboard rentals. Be up front and honest about what you’re looking for in an employee, from office apparel expectations to hours and days of the week. Guaranteed, there’s talent that will fit your requests and expectations – and be sure you’re willing to bend a bit for the right candidate. Great company cultures are also about give and take.
Case Study: Tackkcontinued from page 10
We also share our value proposition with candidates. We’re an ideal company for candidates who want to be part of a high growth, wealth-generating company. We’re building the next great Internet company and changing a part of the world. This value proposition is our basis for differentiation, along with our core values and culture.
Hiring is always a two-way street. We use our culture and values to attract candidates who feel our value proposition, core values, and culture resonate with them.
Robert Hatta is the COO at Tackk (tackk.com). Tackk is a simple new format that allows anyone to instantly create, publish and share content on the web.
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 12
On Getting Creative
Some companies can’t a"ord to bring in benefits like group health care out of the gate. Most won’t be able to o"er an Apple-tastic benefits package, inclusive of health club reimbursement and an array of other wow-my-business-can’t-compete-with those-benefits benefits. So how do you rally and o"er a benefits package that is compelling and competitive without blowing your bottom line just for the sake of your much-needed tech talent? You get creative. Here are some benefits that smaller companies are o"ering that separate them from the big boys (and in the best way possible) when the tangle for talent is on.
• Commuter Benefits: reimbursement for train/bus/parking/tollways
• Culture Plays: have a group of homebrewers? Companies have been known to sponsor Home Brew Fridays and inter-company competitions. There’s a 56-person web development and design shop in Boulder, CO that takes the whole company to brunch every Friday. Do you encourage individual projects? Make it known (since your developers are going to be on GitHub anyways). Think of what you have that makes the lives of your employees better.
• Flexible Hours: Especially in the quest for top development talent, flexible hours could make or break your dream hire. When talent knows they can work when they’re in the groove – or even from home if needs must – you might just win out over a bigger company and bigger paycheck.
• Equity: If talent is willing to take a chance on your company while its growing, an equity play isn’t out of the question. When they know that they’ll be well rewarded for the company’s success financially (albeit, in a delayed fashion), equity can bring top talent over to your side even if another big player is in consideration. Imagine being the developer who got in on Microsoft at $10!
Case Study: Inductive Automation with Albert Cayabyab, Human Resources Manager
Each individual candidate has a different personality, so I try to just listen to what they’re looking for in both a position and a company. Sometimes candidates ask about company culture, sometimes benefits, or location. A lot of developer candidates are attracted to a company’s innovation and want to be part of the next big thing.
As far as our company culture goes, what I think is attractive here is that everyone at the company gets along. This is definitely a result of the hiring process. Our recruiters and hiring managers make sure that a candidate’s personality fits. Relatively we seek professionalism, dynamic energy, confidence, self-monitoring, and a passion to learn new technologies. We look for individuals that believe in customer care and want to contribute that core drive to help others toward the ultimate result of customer satisfaction.
continued on p. 13
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 13
Final Considerations for SMBs Seeking Tech Talent
When you’ve dialed-in your value proposition and figured out how creative you need to get with benefits, you have to evaluate the talent coming in the door. We’ll leave you with some final tips for attracting and assessing talent and then starting the interview process with the right candidates:
• Recruiting Focus: You need to have someone dedicated to the recruiting needs of your company. This is inarguable. You’ll speed up the process by connecting with a recruiter who’s networked into the community you need talent from within. This can shorten the time to not just viable candidates, but one who will combine their talents with your culture for that previously mentioned long-term success.
• Spending & Socializing: Don’t throw that job posting up on LinkedIn for $300/month if you’re not going to get out into the community to promote it. It’s a myth that if you post it, they will come. Great candidates come from great relationships – why not get out and start building some?
• Resume Red Flags: Beware of resumes and cover letters that would indicate a candidate is looking for a company culture bigger than you can offer. Focus on candidates who can thrive in a fast-paced, wear-many-hats kind of environment as opposed to those in search of the 9-to-5 lifestyle. Uphill culture battles are no place to begin a recruiting process!
So ask: who are you as a company? How can we use our who to attract the right whos into our culture? How can we o"er creative benefits to compete in di"erent ways with bigger companies? And finally, how can we focus our recruiting e"orts internally to built relationships with the best candidates?
When you take all of those questions and create your company’s unique answer set, you’re ready to go toe to toe with bigger companies and top talent. And you just might find yourself winning that top talent more often than not.
Case Study: Inductive Automationcontinued from page 12
It is all about business survival for the company, the customer, the automation industry and each and every employee. Just because you have the skill set doesn’t mean you’re the right hire. Everyone at the company is very mature and has a lot of integrity. Our employees won’t find anyone policing their time.
Our customer service is valued throughout the industry; we begin by listening, then acting on what we hear to reduce frustrations. We look to highlight our company culture up front and it’s paid dividends in our hiring practices. The right candidates find us and from there, we can make the best possible hires.
Albert Cayabyab is a Human Resources Manager at Inductive Automation (www.inductiveautomation.com). Inductive Automation is a supplier of web-based industrial automation software solutions.
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 15
When you’re an employer looking to expand your mobile development team, you might find yourself in unfamiliar territory. It’s an industry changing faster than training can keep up with, which creates a unique problem for both employers and developers.
Employers need top mobile development talent, yet are largely unfamiliar with the industry as a whole,
and
Developers are facing changing best practices, standards, and conventions, trying to keep up in a fast-paced industry they love being challenged by daily.
When we put those two scenarios together, we have two sides of one industry wanting one thing: to create powerful mobile content.
But where do you begin the hiring process?
Key Considerations for Mobile Hiring
The most successful employers in the mobile space commit to a learning-based culture. Since mobile technology and protocols are changing so rapidly, today’s great hire needs an environment where he or she can continue to thrive. When hiring, it’s not just about the candidate’s skill set of today. Rather, it’s about what could they learn (and be willing to learn) that will make their skill set even better tomorrow?
There’s also incredible benefit in letting your team teach the rest of the team. For larger, multi-developer teams, consider having monthly meetings where developers are paired up to learn a new skill from one another. When mobile developers better understand di"erent operating systems, design best practices, and other skill sets, they become and even stronger asset to the company as a whole. You’ll find everyone working together in a more cohesive fashion with each new skill set people add to their arsenal.
Companies looking to hire in the mobile space should consider these value-adds for attracting top mobile talent:
• Reimbursement for training courses
• Attendance at mobile technology conference
• Membership in professional organizations
• Potential reimbursements for membership-based sites that make collaboration with other mobile professionals possible.
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 16
Tips for Finding the Right Fit (and Culture Fit) with Mobile Talent
When you’re a company that doesn’t quite know where to begin in the race for mobile development talent, technical sta!ng agencies can be a key ally. You can create positions that are contract-to-hire. These situations allow both you and the candidate try on one another for size over a specified timeline.
Two key benefits to contract-to-hire scenarios are:
• Low Risk: If the candidate isn’t a fit at the end of the contract, you can move on to another contractor.
• Extended Timeline: Instead of making a permanent hiring decision, both your company and the candidate can get to know one another, and through a wide variety of situations.
Recruiters can also assist you with identifying candidates for contract-to-hire situations – it doesn’t have to be just sta!ng agencies. Sta!ng agencies will likely have a greater pool of ready-to-hire talent for projects with tights deadlines. Recruiters can be of greater assistance when the timeline for hiring is a bit more extended, as they can go through normal interviewing and screening processes with candidates they identify as potential fits.
Whichever way you choose to find and hire your company’s mobile talent, keep in mind today’s and tomorrow’s skill set. You don’t want these critical development assets to fall behind in their technical prowess, else you’ll find yourself recruiting once again for the person with the next best skill set of “today”.
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 18
When your primary line of business isn’t technical but you find a need to grow your tech sta", how can you compete for talent with the tech industry itself? It comes down to coupling everything we outlined about your brand’s value proposition and personality in Part 2 of this guide with one simple quality:
The ability to make a di!erence.
Top technical talent isn’t necessarily looking to be wooed by the biggest, best, or buzziest companies in the tech world. Your ideal candidate might be a select sector of tech talent that wants to use their skills to flat-out make companies—and lives—better.
Leading With Culture
It doesn’t matter what you create or the service your company provides. Non-technical companies have to lead their tech recruiting e"orts with a clear vision of company culture. If you don’t see it, neither will your ideal candidate. It’s that culture that’s going to set your opportunity apart from every other tech-related company that’s wooing them.
So what does it mean to lead with culture? Aside from making sure that your brand personality permeates every ounce of your recruiting messaging as we went over in Part 2, you have to be able embrace one simple fact:
Your company’s technology might not be changing the world like that of other companies. The right candidate, however, will be able to use his or her technical skills to change the company.
There seven key questions that you should ask your team that will help you highlight the cultural opportunities your company has to o"er top tech talent – and frankly, any new employee who joins your company (see sidebar). Those questions should get you o" to a good start with focusing on culture. Your next step is to combine the results (as relevant to your company, of course) above and create the hiring experience that puts your company culture at the front of your hiring e"orts.
Questions to ask your team that will help you highlight the cultural opportunities your company has to o!er top tech talent:
1. Who are the members of our current team who could be powerful brand ambassadors for future hires?
2. What are the things our employees consistently say that they love about working here?
3. What are the cool/interesting things about our surrounding community that would be attractive to future hires? (Attractions close by, etc.)
4. How does our current team get together outside of work hours? (Regular happy hours, sports teams, community events like nonprofit fundraisers)
5. What are the most compelling accomplishments our company has achieved in the past 6, 12, and 24 months?
6. What are our goals as a company for the next quarter and year?
7. How would our current employees describe working here?
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 19
Create the Experience
This is a lesson that tech companies can learn from as well:
What will your hiring experience look like from first impression to Day 1 on board?
To attract the leading tech talent to any company, we can’t emphasize enough how much the recruiting experience will matter. Here are some questions to get your brain working on your company’s unique recruiting path:
• Personality and Phrasing: What will be the leading phrases in your job posting and how will they shape the candidate’s experience before they walk in the door?
• Online Presence: Will you create an exclusive online presence for your company’s recruiting efforts? These can be valuable pieces of web real estate that give your candidates everything they need to know about your company, from, video job descriptions to recent press coverage and other information about company culture.
• The Guides: Who will guide your candidates through the interviewing and hiring process? This is a key time to define those roles, both internally and externally if you’re using an outside recruiting firm or recruiter. You have to believe in the company culture and opportunity in order to sell it. Everyone needs to be on the same page.
• Post-Hire: When you find the best candidate and bring him or her on board, how will you incentivize them? After all, you fell in love with their talents and personality. It only makes sense that you can show your appreciation if they can bring you more talent just like them.
Whatever experiences you create for your candidates, consider giving it an internal test run. Guide current employees through the process to help you troubleshoot key misses in messaging and experience. They’ll help you make it better before you start bringing candidates in the door. Once the candidate is in the door, you can show them what their career might look like as part of your team.
Show Them the Future
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 20
While crucial for companies in any line of business, non-tech companies can truly shine in the race for top tech talent by demonstrating the impact their presence can create.
While working for a hot startup or one of the region’s leading tech companies might have its prestige, some candidates might be in pursuit of more. Not only are they looking for a di"erent breed of stability, they want to know that the hours they spend away from home, family, and things they loved doing will create an impact.
Impact can come in many forms. Use these to help shape your company’s potential to help the right candidate make an impact and change business along with lives:
• Critical product rollouts that will change the company’s position in its industry.
• Being a part of a company with a significant philanthropic commitment.
• The chance to contribute to a collaborative culture when previous positions might not have allowed.
• Helping the company meet key quarterly and annual goals internally.
Creating an impact can happen for di"erent candidates in di"erent ways. Be sure to discuss with current employees how they feel they’ve made an impact during their tenure with your company. These internal conversations can lead to powerful conversations with candidates down the line.
Ask Jon: As a non-tech company hiring tech talent, what do I need to do to be successful?
There’s a lot of competition for tech talent in today’s market. For a non-tech company to hire a top-tier technical candidate, you need:
• An exceptionally skilled recruiting team
• A strong pitch, and
• A competitive compensation package
In non-tech companies, it’s likely you’ll be hiring someone who will be working closely with a particular department or group. Who in that group will help you keep that candidate’s attention? Who in that group will help show the candidate the impact they’ll have when joining the company?
Developers generally place a large emphasis on community and openness. Everyone they touch in the company during the recruiting process has to be able to back these qualities up. Think about the experience from the moment the candidate walks in the door, meets with their future co-workers, and decides to sign on the dotted line. What is going to make that experience as exceptional as it can be? Shape your recruiting experience from there. For non-technical companies, it’s essential to capturing top-tier talent.
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 22
Conclusion: The Future of Tech Recruiting
Your company is out there every day, hoping to attract the talent that can turn visions, quarterly goals, and mission statements into realities. While technology is evolving faster than training can adapt, that doesn’t mean your company has to be at a disadvantage in the race to attract top tech talent for your mission.
Culture: It’s the leading quality that will separate your company from every other opportunity. In the battle for top tech talent, leading with culture is imperative and demonstrates HOW you’ll make your ideal candidate feel at home. It prevents time from being wasted with the wrong candidates. It lowers turnover. It speeds the timeline from job posting to day 1. A clearly defined and conveyed company culture is the most powerful asset your company can have as you seek out key tech hires.
Benefits: Not all benefits have to come in flavors of medical, dental, and retirement plans. Growing companies can (and must) get creative. From flexible work hours to company events that highlight the fun side of building growing companies, think about how you can sweeten the pot.
The Recruiting Experience: It’s a benefit of a clearly defined company culture. How will your recruiting experience look and – from the job listing until the perfect candidates begin to show up at your o!ce for in-person evaluations? This is what makes your company memorable in a sea of technical opportunities. And it’s not a one-and-done process. Always be on the lookout for ways to improve and streamline your company’s recruiting experience.
Regardless of industry, your company can compete against the behemoths for top tech talent. At Gild, we’re making the process of finding the top tech talent easier for companies like yours every day. That way, the key features for the hiring process we’ve outlined in this guide can be even more powerful for your recruiting practices. Imagine: better candidates, shorter recruiting timelines, and the ability to build a better team – and all because you took the time to sit down and really look at how your company shines in comparison to the competition.
“At Gild, we’re making the process of !nding the top tech talent easier for companies like yours every day.”
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 23
That’s what Gild helps facilitate every day for our clients. We hope this guide will play a key role in helping you achieve your company’s goals, and in the most e!cient manner possible.
About Gild
Tech recruiting has been begging for innovation. That’s why Gild is here. Gild brings meritocracy to tech hiring. Gild provides tech recruiting solutions that harness the power of data to liberate hiring teams from the challenges of finding developers.
To Learn More:
Email [email protected] Call: (800) 664 -2366 Visit: gild.com Read: gild.com/blog
The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 25
Creating Your Company Mission Statement
If you can’t explain what you do, why you’re di"erent, and why someone should care in 15 seconds or less, you really can’t expect them to want to do business with you (or want to work for you).
Here are three questions your company should be able to answer – all of them in 15 seconds or less:
What You Do—You’re not innovative. You’re not game-changing. How do you improve the lives and businesses of the people you want to give you money? (Yes, it really is that simple.)
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Why You’re Di!erent—Without bashing the competition, how do you standout in the sea of sameness out there? What sets you apart and makes it a no-brainer for someone who needs you (and doesn’t know it yet) to say, “I gotta have that”?
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Why They Should Care—Did you know that you have roughly 10 seconds to catch (and keep) someone’s attention on your website? You have to show your audience up front, and fast, why you’re something worth their time and attention.
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The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 26
De!ning Your Value Proposition
When your growing company needs to recruit talent to support its goals, you need to be able to clearly communicate three things:
WHY you do what you do – this will help you determine whose WHY matches your company’s.
WHO would be an ideal culture fit for your company – it goes beyond experience and into the person.
HOW you envision them in your environment – when you can place the candidate inside your company’s thought process prior to hire, it’s amazing!
To help you begin with WHY your company does what it does, why not stop by a powerful TEDx talk by Simon Sinek on the subject.
List your company’s WHY here:_________________________________________________
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Now, it’s time to move on to the WHO you want as a part of your company. But let’s begin with a backwards approach: who DOESN’T belong in your company? Make a list of personality types that won’t jive with your company’s current team and culture. _______________________________
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You’ve delineated the type of person you don’t want to attract with your job listings and interview process. It’s time to create the list of personality attributes you WANT to attract with your recruiting materials. _______________________________________________________________
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HOW will the person you’re recruiting contribute to your company? It’s time to explain to them the impact they can create if they join your company. ____________________________________
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The Ultimate Guide to Tech Hiring // 27
Salary Worksheet for Start-Ups and SMBs
Compensation Plan and Benefits: No matter your company size, you should be able to clearly enumerate what you’re o"ering. The recruiting process is a tough time to figure out that what you need costs more than you’ve budgeted or that you don’t measure-up to your competition’s o"erings.
1. Resources for salary expectations:
a) Salary.com/Salary Wizard.
b) Request W2 Information (Generally this is used when hiring sales people).
c) Gather Salary Expectations in the initial screen to confirm expectations and compare with other candidates in the process.
2. Other resources for determining what the talent you need costs in your market (as well as contract-to-hire-type alternatives).
a) Contract-to-Hire is a good option when you need to meet candidate expectations short-term.
b) Reach out to your network to understand what the market is paying in your location.
// 28
To Learn Moreemail [email protected] call (800) 664-2366 visit gild.com read gild.com/blog
Tech recruiting has been begging for innovation. That’s why Gild is here.
Bringing meritocracy to tech hiring, Gild’s recruiting solutions harness the power of data to liberate you from the challenges of finding developers.
About Gild Source
Gild Source can dramatically improve how you hire developers. Gild Source is an advanced recruiting platform that helps you solve the challenge of how to e"ectively recruit developers, by enabling you to easily find and target candidates you know are good.
Using patent-pending technology to analyze programmers’ actual code and professional contributions from open source communities and Q&A sites, Gild has profiled, scored, and ranked millions of developers. Gild’s scores and rankings provide you with an instant assessment of a developer’s skills and experience.
With Gild Source:
• Search for developers using multiple criteria like coding skills, title, or location
• Access comprehensive profiles of developers
• Email candidates directly
About Gild
