If you ask any recruiter or HR professional working with the
Data, AI or Cloud space, they will tell you that sending tests to prospective
employees is absolutely the correct way of sifting through the candidates to
find the best possible interviewees.
If you ask Data, AI or Cloud professionals, however, most
will tell you that these tests are at best an irritant and at worst completely
irrelevant.
So who is right?
Whilst it is understandable that those who are in a position
to choose who goes through to the next round would want to cover all bases and
the most efficient way they see is to send out the test. Sometimes this is a
little disingenuous and it ultimately feels, to candidates at least, that it is
just an attempt by the hiring manager to save themselves resources.
Many seasoned Data Scientists, et al. take issue with the
first stage of the process being the receipt of a test, before they have even
spoken to a human being. They complete a form to apply for the job and then
they receive a test via email. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that
being asked to take more time out of your busy day to complete the test after
having taken the time out of their busy day to complete the job application
feels like an imposition.
As we have pointed out previously, Data, AI and Cloud
personnel are in huge demand. There are not enough qualified individuals to
fill those roles. On one side, that makes the tests make sense but on the other
side, why antagonise your prospects by demanding a 3+ hour test from them?
Yes, there are newbies who apply for senior roles but a cursory
reading of a CV will tell you about their level so this shouldn’t really be an
issue.
Treating the skilled ones as if they should be thankful for
the opportunity to complete the test really is not the best idea. If the first
impression a candidate has of the company is the feeling that it is trying to
cut corners and not put full effort into finding the best new hire, then why
should they bother with such a company?
It feels like it is this that is the real issue, not the having
to complete a test itself.
Those opposed to the tests fall into two camps:
The test is a way to sift through multiple
candidates quickly and with a minimum of work, which has the effect of
inferring that there is either a glut of candidates vying for the same role or
the company has dedicated minimal resources in the search for the candidate.
The Data, AI & Cloud professionals deem the
tests pointless as they are either too easy or the test itself is not relevant
to the type of work they will be doing. Indeed, this is an interesting point as
there is still, within the industry, a misunderstanding of the roles being
advertised by the organisations.
Indeed, when these candidates are given tests that do not
challenge them, they often either recreate the test, complete the test with
hidden messages within the code critiquing the test itself and suggesting ways
to improve it. Suffice it to say, they rarely get the job, which smacks of
unprofessionalism on the part of the company sending the test. If the candidate
is being asked to complete a test and they are literally telling you how to
improve the test, is that not a sign of expertise that you would want within
your business? Instead, an organisation is likely to view that coder as
unprofessional and go for the candidate who completed the test and possibly
didn’t see the flaws in it. Are you looking for the best?
If you absolutely must send out a test, it should always be
after the prospect has spoken to a human being. This is not about sifting
through a list to find the few who are not disagreeable. This is about finding
the best. This is also about selling the company to these prospects who, if
they are skilled, will be offered a lot of other roles. It is also about
respect. If someone completes a test, you should always tell them the result.
At the end of the day, your company needs to have expertise within the hiring side so that it is not just a scattergun approach to filling the role. Finding the great CVs, reaching out and selling the company to them, understanding what kinds of tests are necessary, all of this is needed to ensure the best people are found and finessed into the job.
Curious about how Zenshin Talent can help your organisation? Contact us today for a no-strings conversation about your needs and our experience.
Inclusive and diverse workplaces don’t just happen overnight.
By rights, they should, but they don’t. The hold of ‘this is the way we have
always done things’ is a strong one and it will take a bit of effort to change
things.
If you wish for your workplace to reflect the world we live
in now, representation and equality have to be baked into your hiring policies.
Whether the diversity is religious or racial, around sexuality or gender, or whether
your employees have disabilities or are neurodivergent, what is required is an
open mind and an appreciation that every person is different and may having differing
life experiences and viewpoints.
Experience and knowledge vary from person to person and can lend
a diversity of skills which will benefit the company in the long term. These
acquired attributes, and the need to find them in prospective candidates, will
drive future growth and adaptability.
Innovation will speed up and business decisions will become less
theoretical. A more inclusive workplace results in greater work satisfaction
and higher staff retention. And all it takes is a little work to start off with.
Unpaid internships create a situation whereby only those from
higher socioeconomic backgrounds can afford to partake in such an invaluable
opportunity. Targeting internships at those from lower socioeconomic
backgrounds and those from diverse backgrounds helps the next generation get a leg
up and also helps you discover them before your rivals do.
Whether its via your website, your marketing collateral or during
interviews, it is always important to convey a sense of diversity and
understanding. Your branding should reflect how the business as a whole views
diversity and the values that candidates should come to expect.
Swiftly becoming a trend is the idea of ‘blind recruitment’.
Some companies require the candidate to submit a photo of themselves but we
feel that that is quite unnecessary. Blind recruitment takes it a step further,
so that the candidate’s name, address and educational record are not to be
viewed by hiring managers. This weeds out any unintentional bias in the recruitment
process.
Job adverts should also be double-checked for signs of any
bias sneaking in. If we look back into the not-so-distant past, specs have been
written with language that brings to mind whether the job is viewed as
masculine or not. There may have been unnecessary requirements of education
which could be viewed as exclusionary. Whatever the past mistakes, we must make
sure not to continue to make those same mistakes into the future.
Where the candidates are sourced from can help. Job boards
have been used previously as the go-to place to find candidates, especially for
contingency recruitment firms. Spreading the net wider can help deepen the
experience well. Utilising your workforce’s networks can also help.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to a change of
mindset which leads to a change of work culture. It isn’t difficult but it can
require some soul searching. Does the colour of someone’s skin matter really,
when, after getting to the heart of what your organisation values, they are a
match in those terms? Many companies are shooting themselves in the foot when
not tackling long-held assumptions head-on.
There are recruitment partners who can point you in the right direction, if needed, and the results will help ensure a strong future for your company.
Curious about how Zenshin Talent can help your organisation? Contact us today for a no-strings conversation about your needs and our experience.
Just as a plant needs certain things to flourish (water,
good soil, sunlight), so does a team. Likening a team within a company to a
plant may seem ridiculous, but both need optimal conditions in order to thrive
and, when a team fails to achieve, it is because one or more of these are
missing.
A change of mindset is required within organisations that
labour under the misapprehension that all you need to do is find the candidates
with the right resumes, put them together and wait for the magic to happen.
Specific goals are required in order to measure performance.
What is measurable and realistic? Without goals set, some team members can feel
lost, or slack off unnoticed. Without goals set, the team can feel
directionless, shifting from one priority to the other, unsure which takes
precedent. These goals do not have to be set in stone, unyielding in time, but
should be clearly defined.
Similar, but not the same, is the idea of a common purpose.
Whilst goals are measurable, a purpose is more abstract, coming directly from
the philosophy of the business. Sometimes companies are scared or intimidated
by teams working within something misunderstood, such as data. Understanding
how the team fits into the business as a whole is important for the business
and the team. These things must be understood before demoralisation sets in.
In addition to the ‘why’ things are done there must also be
a focus on the ‘how’ too. Without this understanding, the team can find itself
going down blind alleys. The expertise of the team must be listened to and
taken onboard by management. A path must be agreed upon. Autonomy can be a
sticking point and if that conversation is had at the start, it can solve a lot
of problems before they have developed.
This leads to accountability. People tend to believe that
the majority of people like to avoid accountability, but this is not true. What
employees like to avoid is punitive measures that are visited upon them because
they made a mistake. If the organisation is one that understand that mistakes
happen and it is all about how the mistake is fixed and what lessons are
learned, that creates a working environment where members of a team are happy
to be accountable.
You will be interviewing candidates who may have been
promised the earth before and let down. Going into new roles they will want to
be reassured that the resources they expect will be provided. These need to be
delivered in a timely fashion in order for them to deliver the agreed-upon
results.
Reassuring the candidates that the team will be prioritised
and the resources, be it hardware, software or personnel, goes a long way.
Keeping promised means you will keep your staff.
Empowerment is paramount if the team works across many
departments and is very much in demand. Teams can become inundated with
requests to work on numerous different projects and they must have the power to
turn those projects down if they have competing priorities. Being a great team
brings with it expectations that you can solve everyone’s problems and with
that comes the issue of being spread too thin, which leads to disappointment
and reputational damage.
This all comes down to one word: trust. You must trust yourself to build a great team. You must trust the team. The team must trust you. The business must trust that the team knows what it is doing. Without trust, things fall apart quickly. If you are unsure about how to proceed after reading this, you should know that there are specialist recruitment partners you can trust to help build that team and power your company into the future.
Curious about how Zenshin Talent can help your organisation? Contact us today for a no-strings conversation about your needs and our experience.
Running an inquisitive eye over the two types of candidates…
With the power pendulum swinging back from employers to
employees and candidates, the job market has caused many businesses to question
just what it is they are doing and what they want from their team.
One of the major sticking points is the difference between
junior talent and senior experts, and which ones will suit the needs of the
company or fit into the company’s future business plans. Taking on someone with
lots of potential yet little experience, or choosing a track record which is in
serious demand, can be one of the hardest choices in recruitment.
Dwindling supplies of top tier candidates, who are snapped
up almost instantly for well-paying roles has driven organisations to test the
waters of seeking out the untested and the university leavers.
Whether they are straight out of Uni, an apprentice, someone
from the workforce who has retrained or someone who is turning a hobby into a
career, they should never be discounted from these niche roles. Aside from
reasonable salary expectations and a willingness to develop, one of the main
reasons to seriously consider these candidates is that they are usually
extremely up-to-date in terms of the software they use. They may also be
looking for some kind of guarantee of progression within the company.
On the flipside, the experienced candidate will be able to
start working straight away, not needing much help. By this point in their
careers, the experienced candidates will know what they do and don’t want. They
will accept the offer or they will reject it. There will be very little
hesitation or dawdling. If your retention rate is important to you, you may
desire this type of candidate.
If you are looking for a quick impact, go with the
experienced prospect. If you desire a individual who intends to have a deeper
impact, then select a new talent. Where your business is, financially, can have
an impact on who you choose. It is a delicate balancing act because experienced
candidates will cost more in this climate, yet spending time on new blood can
cost more in time, which in turn, costs more in money in the long run.
With most companies, a balance should usually be found
between experience and junior talent. If you choose a new talent, you are
choosing someone who knows about the newest innovations and has energy, ideas
and passion. The experienced hand has been through this stage of their life and
are seeking something more stable where they can use the skills they have
gained to benefit your company.
Efficiency can only be achieved with the right mix and if
your company has little experience of onboarding junior talent or of creating
something like Data Team, you will need to bring in experience consultants or
dedicated specialist recruitment partners, who can utilise their years of
experience to help you get that mix right.
If the pandemic has shown us anything, it is that investment in the future has been neglected in favour of the hunger for short term gains. Now that organisations are waking up to that fact, one of the ways they are making up for it is by dedicating resources towards junior talent. Hiring them, yes, but also investing in their future in order to retain the talent. They will come to the business trained in a certain discipline with an aptitude with certain programs, but their skillset must be developed so that their soft skills are on point for the company’s future.
Curious about how Zenshin Talent can help your organisation? Contact us today for a no-strings conversation about your needs and our experience.
With recruiting budgets increasing and priorities shifting,
2022 looks set to be another wild ride.
Will the talent shortage continue? Will the demand continue
unabated? We thought we would look into the predicted trends for the year
ahead.
The drive to hire the very best during a time when all of
the obvious quality candidates have been snapped up, means that there is a
reassessment of what makes a prospect suitable. Qualifications that are
relevant but not necessarily degree level are now causing recruiters to
reprioritise what is really important. This may include years of experience and
the requisite soft skills, the latter being regarded as unimportant by most
recruiters in exchange for hard skills.
Diversity is also coming into focus as it has been found
that those who are underrepresented usually have great soft skills and the
diversity happens naturally when this is taken into account, so it is a win-win
for everyone to view recruiting like this. Add to that, the fact that those
without a degree are likely to remain with a company for a third longer than
those who do.
Diversity should always be an integral business strategy
component. DEI is important to job seekers and they expect to read about it on
job specs or hear about it during preliminary chats. Businesses should expect
to answer tough questions from candidates who are no longer accepting a little
bit of ill-thought out corporate text regarding this issue. They want to know
where the investment is going.
Of course, remote work or hybrid work are still going to be
a reality for a lot of workers in 2022. Amongst those seeking jobs, flexibility
is the emerging priority. More and more job ads are including the amount of
flexibility. With hybridity came fatigue, with workers struggling to adapt and
adaptation is now becoming a major focus. It has been a steep learning curve
and it will level off in the near future.
Data, AI, Cloud and IT demand will continue to be very much
in demand. Job vacancies are still rising and going unfilled. UK tech
investment was at £18bn during the middle of 2021 and that will remain.
Companies will, however, be ready for the uncertainty as opposed to the way
things were in 2020 and 2021. Long term planning is the name of the game now
and, as ever, it will be interesting to see where we are at the end of the
year.
Reskilling was something that was on few organisations’ radar
before the pandemic but it is now important due to factors such as power
swinging to the employees rather than the employers when it comes to the job
market, the need for more skills especially within IT, Data and digital realms
and the ethos of the new generations who want to stay with companies and make a
difference, seeing a focus on professional development as a step in the right
direction.
Companies benefit from lower turnover of staff, with those
who are committed and mobile within a company staying twice as long as those who
are not. This is a job for recruiters, whether internal or external recruitment
partners, and also HR, who need to find ways that make sense for internal
mobility.
Companies being genuine is something a lot of candidates are looking for. In response to the pandemic, candidates have reprioritised and are now no longer tolerating being seen as robots. In the past, businesses have been able to push this to the limit of acceptability and now there is pushback. Looking after an employees mental well-being was a hot button issue during the lockdowns and now we are out of lockdown, those employees are asking why they have tolerated this. Genuine care, attention and support show them that they are not just a number in a company.
Curious about how Zenshin Talent can help your organisation? Contact us today for a no-strings conversation about your needs and our experience.
One takes you back the way you came, the other takes you on to your future
The transition to a different way of doing things is always
a long and drawn-out affair. Recruitment has not changed in many decades and
yet, is anyone really satisfied with it? Is it free of headaches and false
starts and miscommunication and abandoned jobs?
Specialist Recruitment Partners are a relatively new
concept, born out of the need to guarantee results. As the job market becomes
more and more candidate-driven, generalist recruiters just skimming the job
boards for active job seekers is no longer the guarantee it once was.
Waking up and recognising the benefits of this type of
recruitment will place your company in a great position for the future. Change
is hard. Convincing people that the way they are doing things is not the best
way, even though nearly everyone else is doing it, is part of the challenge.
The generalist recruitment firm will assure you that they
have dedicated departments in the specialist area you need, such as data, AI,
Cloud, etc. but how true is that? Do they have external recruiters called up
just for that job? No matter what is going on, if you need a very niche
candidate, why would you not select a niche recruiter?
Recruitment Partners are a different breed. They are
dedicated to a client and delivering to that client what the client needs, no
matter how difficult. The atmosphere of mutual respect allows the best work to
be done.
Deadlines are important. Using their resources in the best
ways possible to deliver the best results. Finding those hidden gem candidates
is no easy task but, when allowed the freedom to adapt their search until they
find them, Recruitment Partners will hit their targets.
Are generalist recruiters willing to turn away with work to
get your job done? There will be exceptions, of course, as there are to every
rule, but the majority will not turn down work because, and they absolutely
have our sympathy here, they have no choice, always chasing the most stable of
the unstable work, the best bet in the gamble. Exclusivity is not their
priority.
The hesitance to adopt the newer way of doing things would
make sense if Recruitment Partners cost more than generalist recruiters but
they don’t really. The structure of payments is just different that is all.
Split into 3 staged payments that are released when each stage of the
recruitment is completed. It actually benefits the recruiter to perform these
tasks to the absolute best of their abilities. They have something at stake.
The unscrupulous recruiter who spends time seeking out
candidates only to then basically auction them off to the highest bidder,
unbeknownst to them? The organisations who are putting their trust in that type
of recruiter are left spinning in the wind, more time is ticking down,
desperation sets in. That kind of recruiter does not desire the scrutiny that
naturally comes with partnerships. They are not beholden to anyone and don’t
really want to be either. Specialist recruitment partners do not pitch the
prospective candidates to all and sundry, because they are dedicated to your
quest.
The candidates, who are so integral to the process, but who
get treated like a secondary thought by the unscrupulous recruiters must be
shown that they are valued. If they are approached by someone who tells them
that there are a number of opportunities available, they will not feel
targeted. They will not believe that they have been contacted because they are
special, but that a scattergun effect has been applied to find them and a
further scattergun approach is now being applied to which jobs are suitable.
This is alienating behaviour and does nothing to build trust.
Specialist Recruitment Partners are a way to break away from the short-term thinking that has left many companies in trouble during the pandemic. Making a change for the better has to start today.
Curious about how Zenshin Talent can help your organisation? Contact us today for a no-strings conversation about your needs and our experience.
