Technology Recruiting Challenges

Strategic and operational Information Technology talent is in high demand and represents a major recruiting, staffing and executive search challenge for startups and small to mid-size growth companies, in particular. The challenges are many but most prominently include:

Time

Searches for C-Suite executives like CTOs, CiSOs and CFOs can take six months and more depending on the location and industry of the company conducting the search. The same is true for sales and marketing professionals like CROs, CMOs and CSOs who have a depth of experience in technology.

That period of time can seem like an eternity to a bootstrapped organization that has limited funds and is pressed to quickly get a product or service into the market.

Fit

Highly qualified technology executives and professionals can pick and choose their preferred industry (e.g. cryptocurrency, AI, SaaS), location and stage the company (e.g. startup, VC/PE-backed) is in. Traditional motivations of compensation and benefits are less influential than what space the company is in, who its founders are and a myriad of other considerations such as company diversity, the markets the company is trying to serve, and if its products and services are considered helpful or altruistic.

Technology recruiters must be able to both position and market the company effectively and match the motivations of prospects.

Compensation, Benefits, Perks

Compensation still matters but how compensation is structured is growing in complexity with shifting expectations. For startups and early-stage companies, bringing on senior executives may come with the expectation of significant equity stakes (e.g. 1%-5%+).  Some executives and professionals may want the option to work from multiple locations remotely.

Shrewd technology recruiters understand that something that seems small may be much more important than base pay and bonus to on-demand technology executives and professionals.

Technology Recruiting Services

For those companies in need of technology recruiting services, there are different options ranging from fully outsourced, turn-key project management to simple sourcing of posting and promoting job openings.

Recruiting Project Planning

More strategic in nature, skilled recruiters can do much of the upfront thinking and planning for bringing on new employees. This would include:

• Collaborating with clients to identify hiring needs and requirements
• Establish plans to agree on process, steps and communication methods
• Create job descriptions
• Sourcing – post and promote job openings
• Identify qualified candidates- passive and active
• Recruiting
• Applicant Screening
• Interviewing
• Job offering
• Hiring

Network Recruiting

Effective recruiters have a list of people and organizations they can leverage nationwide. They may be people they are pursuing or have pursued and placed in the past, and/or it may be a custom database of contacts. The strength of this network recruiting to promote positions and find people outside of job boards and posting platforms is one of the key differentiators between average recruiters and highly effective recruiters.

Recruiting Project Management

A full project management solution includes a full spectrum of services that begin . This would include all the logistics around scheduling interviews. It would also include creation of offer letters, background checks and completing the actual hiring of the executive or professional. In addition, a recruiting company can even manage the first day of work and onboarding for new employees.

Weekly Pipeline and Status Reports

For those companies pressed to hire quickly, a recruiter should provide a dashboard of how recruiting efforts are proceeding. This would include a weekly pipeline and status report on interviews, prospects in process, screening, offers and everything in the recruiting sequence.

Job Posting & Applicant Tracking

Recruiters will use multiple services, job boards and applications to post jobs and opportunities for free. Because of the broad nature of these services, a company may get a heavy volume of prospects that need to be filtered for appropriateness for the position. Recruiters serve a valuable administrative and organizational function to sift and sort candidates.

Recruiting Process

Every search is highly personalized to the clients need and unique, but the following is an example of what a search process may look like:

Identify Hiring Need (Week 1-2)

• Meet to generate a prioritized list of job
  requirements including special qualifications,
  characteristics, experience and compensation
• Understand the history of the role
• Understand clients or vendors that would be off limits to recruit from.

Plan

• Agree to the hiring process, steps, and
  communication channels to be used. The plan
  should include criteria for initial candidate
  screening, and interview teams
• Create a job description (Hiring Manager)
• The agreed-upon job requirements form the
  basis for the job description
• Post and promote job openings (We use our
  extensive network to post and promote each
  opening)
• Begin sourcing and reaching out.

Recruiting (Week 2-3)

• We invest in recruiting tools that allow us to go out and find the right candidate for your position.
• The tools we use will vary by search.
• We will search down and communicate with candidates that are appropriate for the role and begin discussing the client opportunity with them.

Applicant Screening/Phone Interview

• The Recruiter will review all résumés/CVs and cover letters based on the criteria established in the planning step.
• Unqualified candidates’ applications are withdrawn from the applicant pool.
• Qualified candidates are informed of next steps beginning with a screening interview with Recruiter.
• Recruiter to submit to client.
• Client to deliver feedback to us – Feedback is a very important part of the search process and it will give us an opportunity to continuously tweak what we are searching for.

Interviews and Decisions (Week 3-4)

• In-person Interviews
• Phone screen with member of the team or hiring manager for a second round
• Additional meetings with Hiring manager and team interview. On-site or Google Hangouts
• Applicant talent assessment
• Hiring manager to assign one or more assessment/development test
• Decision
• Background check
• Job offer
• Onboarding

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