Tech employers speed up their recruitment process - Viewpoint Viewpoint careers advice blog

Tech employers speed up their recruitment process - Viewpoint As competition for certain roles reaches record levels, some employers, particularly in the world of tech, are shortening their recruitment processes in order to ensure the best talent doesn’t get snapped up by rival businesses. To give you an example, under this new regime, candidates could undertake multiple interviews with co-workers, senior management and the HR/talent team, sit aptitude and technical tests, receive feedback and be offered a conditional role, all in just one day. Companies including MYOB, Zendesk and SEEK already use such a scaled-down recruitment process for certain positions and this approach brings advantages to both the employer and the candidate. The benefits are far reaching From the employer’s perspective, the opportunities for counter offers to be made are reduced (and the best candidates are likely to have multiple job offers in the pipeline), which in turn reduces candidate dropout rates and increases acceptance rates. This optimised recruitment process also allows the company to better promote its employer brand to candidates as all the communication and the constituent parts of the recruitment process happen on one day. For the candidate, if they are unsuccessful then they are no longer left in limbo. As a result, they can focus their recruitment efforts on other roles immediately and will not miss out on other opportunities which might be better suited to them. On the flipside, if they are successful, the candidate can move forward more quickly with this new and exciting chapter in their career. Lastly, a more succinct process should also bring down costs for both parties: for the employer through improving time to hire and for the candidate by eliminating additional travel to second or third interviews. How can candidates adapt to this recruitment process? Preparing for the day This style of recruitment is undoubtedly intensive. The candidate will of course have to thoroughly prepare and conduct research on the organisation and the role, as with any interview process, but, a broader approach is required. The candidate will receive a full schedule for the interview day from their recruiter, including details of all interviewers and their job titles. When presented with this rundown, I recommend preparing a list of potential questions for each interview and remember to change the context of each practice answer to match the area of expertise of each interviewer. For example, is an interviewer a superior or on the same level as the role being interviewed for? Or, are they in a different department? Try to provide consistent answers throughout the day, but just vary the emphasis depending on who you are speaking to. Be prepared to receive feedback on the day In all likelihood, you will receive feedback on whether or not your application has been successful on the day, so be prepared for this. Try to anticipate for both a successful and an unsuccessful outcome, so you can effectively evaluate and effectively plan your next steps. If you are successful, what do you need to know to make an informed decision when accepting the role (or not)? Are you willing to negotiate if you don’t get the offer you want? If you are not successful, what do you need to know to make sure you get a more positive result in any future interviews? Stay focused and deliver a consistent performance throughout On the day itself, it’s important to retain focus. Each part of the process is a standalone experience for your interviewer, so make sure each meeting has a strong start and end. And, as an aside, make sure you go armed with some snacks and a drink to help push you through the day. Which roles are suited to this approach? Any areas experiencing a skills shortage are perfectly suited to this reduced recruitment process, including full stack software development, mobile development, DevOps, security and other such niche digital roles. And, as digitisation continues to transform business, the emerging skills and roles required for businesses to remain competitive will be in high demand. For example, specialists in areas such as big data analytics, the cloud, enterprise architecture and security will be few and far between. So, if you are currently searching for roles in any of these areas, you may well come across this more succinct hiring process in the future. In summary, the pace of the recruitment industry is incredibly quick for such roles and the recruitment process needs to match this pace to get the best people for the job. But remember that while using this style of interview improves the speed to hire and the quality of the hire, it’s not for the faint hearted and both employers and candidates must prepare accordingly to succeed. Is legacy technology impacting your ability to attract and retain top talent? Forget about the robots â€" four practical ways to stay relevant Hybrid skills now needed in Projects Business Change Full stack development: what does it mean for your career? Why IT contractors are the engine room of digitalisation