What Is Wrong The Hiring Policies?

The most inherent problem with IT companies is the hiring process, and with it begins the downfall for most of them.

Recruiters miss out on these basic points.

1.) Transparency on financial interests & conflicts.

Very few candidates realize how much they are worth to a recruiter if they just happen to respond to that InMail. They also don’t realize that a contingency recruiter might get paid different rates by different clients and thus be incentive oriented to not disclose all prospective opportunities upfront, or to sell one opportunity harder than the other.

2.) Transparency on clients & the opportunity.

A surprisingly large number of agency & contingency recruiters claim to work with companies that have never made a hire through them.

Saying “I work with clients like AirBnB (or whatever)” usually means that they remove your contact information from your resume, and cold-email it to the Internal Recruiter or Hiring Manager there.

Likewise, a huge number of recruitment emails are unnecessarily vague on details about the company, the salary, the location, the team. It’s only after investing 30-minutes on a phone call that you learn that the “Senior iOS Engineer” position is actually a 6-month contract consulting for 3-person web design shop in Oracle, Bangalore.

The result? The good opportunities get tossed out with the bad, because the time cost of pursuing every lead is so massive.

3.) Intent filtering & centralization.

 Most source explorers play a guess & check game.

– I guess that this person might be open to new opportunities.

– I send them an inMail/Email/Private Message to check whether or not my guess is correct.

80% of the time you don’t even get a response, and when you do, most of the time the answer is “not interested right now”.

 Thus, a massive amount of time, effort & manpower is spent simply uncovering people who might potentially have the skills for a particular position and are potentially interested in interviewing or at least learning more about an opportunity.

 Even once all that hard work is done, the most common outcome is that they don’t get hired

Let’s say you’re the technical co-founder of a new startup that has had some traction, and there’s a backlog of work piling up. Fortunately, you’ve raised enough money to hire a few engineers. Because you’re probably the sole technical person, you are probably working on recruiting engineers full-time.  This is a bit troublesome you because it’s probably not what you think you’re best at. However, you’re probably doing a pretty good job because:

 1) You’re really good at selling the vision of the company because you’re so vested in it

 2) You have the technical chops and intuition to evaluate people based on some set of internal heuristics you’ve acquired through experience.

 Eventually, things are going well, your startup gets some more funding, and you decide you want to go back to doing what you think is real work. You hire an in-house recruiter to deal with your hiring pipeline full-time.

 This is where things start going south. Because recruiters are, generally speaking, not technical, instead of relying on some internal barometer for competence, they have to rely on some set of quickly identifiable attributes that function as a proxy for aptitude.

 So, what is the solution?

 How can you save your company the hiring costs?

 How can you save your company from hiring the wrong people?

 How can you optimise your hiring and concentrate on the core issues?

Contract Hiring is the answer.

Contract employment offers a variety of benefits for both employers and independent contractors. To receive the full benefits of hiring contract labor, businesses must study the guidelines for the definition of a contract worker set forth by the Internal Revenue Service to avoid paying extra taxes and other fines.

Money Saving

The hiring process, training and benefits associated with hiring full time employees can cost well into the thousands of dollars. Many small businesses do not have the resources to go through this process when in need of workers for a critical but finite project.

Specialized or Seasonal Help

Companies needing a specialized skill set for a finite or indefinite project may not wish to take the time to train new or current employees. They can hire contract laborers already experienced in the necessary competencies. These independent contractors can get the project off and running, supervise permanent employees who possess only the minimal skills necessary, set up project plans and fulfill all project needs in an expedited manner.

Employer Satisfaction

One of the main benefits, next to cost savings, for hiring contract labor involves the ease of separation. If an independent contractor does not fit in well with the company culture or is not performing to the satisfaction of the employer, the hiring manager can terminate the relationship with little or no paperwork.

Benefits to Contractors

Independent contractors make their own hours, decide when to work and who to work for. They do not depend on the success of a single business to produce income and meet their financial responsibilities.

Hiring is important.

Take the smarter way!

The Uberisation Of Work Force

Pune-based Persistent Systems recently took a step away from the industry practices by including several freelancers and consultants in a team that worked on a short-term project, a trending new idea that’s steadily gaining popularity in the global technology services space.

It’s called the ‘gig economy’ or ‘Uberisation’ of workforce, where talent works on a demand-supply model, moving across projects and organisations as per the demand and their interest areas.

Talent on demand, the sharing economy, “Uberisation” of the workforce – call it what you will, but there is one thing everyone can agree on: the app-driven labor market is spreading like wildfire. Combining real-time data, mobile payments, instant gratification and dynamic pricing, this emerging model is still in it’s infancy but growing quickly.

Much of the growth in the freelancer workforce is due to the emergence of numerous technology platforms aimed at connecting employers with on-demand talent. Portals such as Elance and Toptal have millions of users around the world, and technologies such as Gigwalk and Twago have made freelance talent much easier to find and hire. A growing number of sites are offering freelancers for all types of services from grocery shopping to legal services and medical care. As a result, millions of new on-demand workers are now available. According to the Freelancers Union, the US alone has 53 million freelancers, and tens of millions more are spread out across the world.

Technology alone isn’t driving the growth of freelancers. Workers are also motivated to supplement the income of their full-time positions, and many simply enjoy the freedom of being a contractor. The traditional stigma of being a contractor is lessening as many choose to take on freelance assignments to gain new skills, work on interesting projects and advance their careers.

According to a freelancer’s union study:

• 80% of non-freelancers say they are willing to work outside of their primary jobs to make more money

• 65% said freelancing as a career path is more respected today than three years ago

• 36% of moonlighters who have a primary job – 5.1 million people – have thought about going completely independent.

So, how can your organisation adjust to the opportunities of the growing on-demand economy? First, the answer begins with adaptability. Consider flexible workers for roles you traditionally fill with permanent employees. Freelancers are no longer viewed as supplemental talent only; they may be the best-quality workers for your roles. Second, it’s also important to recognise that more companies are competing for their services. That means you will need to expand your employer brand strategies to directly target freelance workers.

Five tips for engaging and retaining freelance talent

• Make your brand stand out – Highly desirable freelance workers have options when it comes to their choice of employers. When developing your employer brand strategy, consider how it helps you attract the best freelancers.

• Leveraging freelancers as ambassadors – By encouraging freelancers to spread the word about your company, you can tap their extensive network for both contingent and permanent talent. Consider how you can add them to your ranks for company ambassadors.

• Maintain a talent community – Retain freelance talent and intellectual property by establishing a talent community for them. It’s easier to keep great talent than to go out and find it.

• Be a talent ambassador – Can permanent-hire requisitions submitted by managers be filled by freelancers? Work with business leaders to determine how alternative work arrangements can address their needs.

• Embrace a compliant approach – A growing number of regulatory bodies are cracking down on the mis-classification of contractors and freelancers. If you are not sure whether you are compliant, consult and expert for advice.

Why Staff Augmentation?

When you have a large project looming ahead, the last thing you need to do is worry about recruiting and hiring a team to work for you. Choosing staff augmentation services allows you to get the help you need on a scalable, per project basis and makes it easy to focus on the big picture and your business goals. Convenience, affordability, and efficiency are just a few of the reasons businesses of all sizes rely on augmented staffing to get things done; there are some surprising benefits to switching to an augmented staffing model.

The process of augmenting your existing staff with temporary professionals as per need basis is known as Staff Augmentation. The reason why staff augmentation is so common in the IT industry is beacause of the innumerable projects. While many companies do possess the expertise to handle all their demands, some may not have specific knowledge or expertise about a particular area. During such situations, companies are forced to augment their existing staff with new professionals on per project basis.

Sometimes organizations could also be short of resources to complete a given project on time. In such a scenario, hiring permanent staff might accomplish the task at hand, but you will have to end up paying them year round without assigning further tasks with them. There are many reasons why IT companies are looking more and more towards Staff Augmentation.

Here are 5 Major advantage of Staff Augmentation

1. Cost Effective:

Staff augmentation helps IT enterprises to cut costs at various levels. First, as already mentioned, you can pay augmentation workers only for the period of time they work. You don’t have to spend on recruiting, employee benefits, taxes and more. It also helps to reduce the cost of training new professionals as augmentation workers are selected because of their expertise in a particular area and require very little acclimatization training.

2. Increased Adaptability & Flexibility:

The scalability of your organization is greatly benefited by staff augmentation services. You can afford to take up projects of all sizes and never say no to your customers’ requirements. With Staff augmentation, you scale the size of your work force according to the demands. It also helps you to diversify your services and provide great quality solutions with the expertise gained from the temporary staff.

3. Better Control:

Compared to complete outsourcing, Staff Augmentation allows you to control your project at all times and perform regular monitoring. When you have outsourced your project completely, you will not be able to track the progress of your project and quality of your project is also completely dependent on the outsourced team. With staff augmentation, you can place the augmentation staff at any requirement to improve the efficiency of the project. It also helps to reduce the privacy and security risk which is common with normal outsourcing.

4. Counteract Attrition:

In many situations, the need for staff augmentation arises because of an unexpected attrition. Staff Augmentation allows enterprises to not get stagnated in crucial project management and delivery times. Recent statistics show, as the economy grows, up to 40% of IT employees are looking for quick job changes. Staff augmentation could be the perfect solution for both parties as companies could always be adequately staffed all times and professionals could put their skills and expertise to better use in a larger arena.

Choosing staff augmentation services over traditional hiring methods benefits your business in many ways, including:

• Access to experienced professionals ready to hit the ground running
• Cost effective alternative to recruiting, interviewing and hiring a regular employee
• Focus on the skills you need for a particular project — choosing an expert, not a generalist
• Fresh ideas and objectivity from a professional who is not engaged in office politics
• Flexibility when you need it most

And honestly, these are just a few of them.

The role of a Chief Technology Officer

In a world where, technological updates and inventions happens on a daily basis, the need is to quickly adapt on a regular basis. Lagging behind is not an option and most of the onus lies now on the CTO of a company to ensure that the workforce and resources are technologically sound. Hence, the job of a CTO becomes quite burdensome and the most important aspect of his job profile involves ensuring the workforce is knowledgeable and match the current industry standards.

According to Wikipedia

A chief technical officer or chief technology officer (abbreviated as CTO) is an executive position whose holder is focused on scientific and technical issues within an organization. Essentially, a CTO is responsible for the transformation of capital – be it monetary, intellectual, or political – into technology in furtherance of the company’s objectives.

The CTO is supposed to be:

A Big Thinker – The CTOs spend their time evaluating how technology can be used internally to developed new business models and business lines, and how to preempt competitor’s attempts to use technology to disrupt the markets.

Operations Manager – This pattern is usually found in dot.com and other technology-oriented companies where information technology is key ingredient in implementing business strategy. The CTO is responsible for determining how technology can be used to implement the business strategy.

Infrastructure Manager – In companies where the role of the CIO becomes too complex, the CTO takes on the responsibilities for infrastructure and IT operations: data center operations, network operations, application development and maintenance, security, and other line functions.
Technologist who meets client and organisational requirements – We see this model often in companies where technology is used to provide products and services to customers and partners; the CTO is the intermediary between clients and internal development and the main influencer in the development of the product portfolio.
Being adept to the above mentioned 4 points is only possible if the CTO is technically sound and constantly keeps shuffling and updating his workforce. And at times it becomes impossible to bring in changes due to time and financial constraints.

What is the solution?

How does a CTO keep up to the changing times?
One of the simple answers is consulting. On a broader perspective, implementing staff augmentation and contract hiring are methods that CTO widely use. They might seem unconventional but of late bot these methods have garnered amazing results.
On the other hand consulting provides in-depth technical knowledge in areas where expertise is required. Experts can also be hired on for providing technical finesse apart from just consulting them. This opens up all horizons and the CTO is able to handle his portfolios in a better manner.

If such services are not taken up, the CTO might:

• Lose out on clients who feel the firm is not technically capable.
• Lose out on projects which require immediate attention and capable staff.
• Lag behind in technical expertise.
• Not keep up with the changing times which might see the company’s downfall.

It is impossible to stay updated on all the topics for a CTO and to expect the HR to hire staff on a priority basis. Flexibility is the key word and consulting and hiring outsourcing is the way to go!

Give up on you pre-notioned beliefs, erase your fears and accept the change. Be Flexible!