Tech Talent – Resource Center https://resources.eteki.com eTeki-Technical Screening for Quality IT Hires Thu, 07 Jul 2022 10:01:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 What To Do About Your SERIOUS Tech Talent Problem https://resources.eteki.com/what-to-do-about-your-serious-tech-talent-problem/ Wed, 16 Jun 2021 17:06:55 +0000 https://resources.eteki.com/?p=210577 The post What To Do About Your SERIOUS Tech Talent Problem appeared first on Resource Center.

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Those of us who dealt with operations management – in my case, years of helping manufacturing and process engineers improve automation production, have dealt with what’s simply known as a gating item.

A gating item is when everything you want to get done is essentially being metered by one of the steps in the process chain. And if that’s too theoretical then let’s bring it to everyday occurrences.

Think about what a traffic light does to cars moving. Think about what an airplane door does to boarding and leaving the plane.

Think about … you get it. Gating items are naturally everywhere and are very important to understand in your own world when you are trying to get better, faster outcomes.

Click here to read the full article originally published on LinkedIn

Hans-Bukow-CEO-Co-Founder-at-eTeki

Hans Bukow, CEO & Co-Founder at eTeki

Hans Bukow brings 25+ years experience in founding and leading innovative venture backed enterprise software and Web companies. Hans is recognized for co-creating $3B+ software centric technology categories: Manufacturing Execution Software (MES), Professional Project Work Marketplaces-Exchanges, and Vendor Management Systems (VMS). His significant successes include FASTech (#22 Inc500) now Applied Materials Global Services, WorldPlay which sold to AOL and became Games Channel with EA, and eWork Exchange’s cloned company eWork Group (EU-Nordics) that post IPO was valued at nearly $2B – see (EWRK:SS). Hans was last CEO and largest shareholder of Provade VMS which sold to SmartERP in 2018. Hans speaks four languages and 3 citizenships and is thought leader on the work from anywhere global future-of-work – eworking.

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]]> An under-utilized approach in hiring technical talent https://resources.eteki.com/utilized-approach-hiring-technical-talent/ Fri, 22 Dec 2017 15:28:38 +0000 https://www.eteki.com/?p=2431 The post An under-utilized approach in hiring technical talent appeared first on Resource Center.

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The “skills gap”
One of the biggest flaws in the hiring technical talent is the soft skills issue.
What does that mean?

Well, most companies tend to hire for competence — which is logical on face, but competence is short-sighted. Especially with the rise of the tech stack and disruption, business models change (the buzzword is “pivot”) a lot.

You may end up hiring someone with 17 specific skills that you wanted, but two years later, those skills may not reflect the business model you’re currently pursuing.

Second problem of all this: when you hire managers based off competence solely, often times you create a “brilliant jerk” issue. It’s a man or woman who’s very competent in a specific skill set, but they have limited communication skills. This is tied to why employee engagement stats have been in decline for decades.

Reed Hastings has even noted this:
An under-utilized approach in hiring technical talent
Effective leadership and team-building these days require soft skills, i.e. concepts like effective communication, giving/receiving feedback, empathy, compassion for colleagues, and the like.

But all those elements are hard to track on spreadsheets and subsequently analyze. If we want hiring to be more data-driven and scientific, how can we hire for soft skills? That’s the challenge.

One approach to hiring for soft skills
First, let’s quickly frame the challenge: because most hiring technical talent processes can be low-context with a lot of generic interviews, it’s hard to assess if someone is, say, “a good communicator.” If you ask them, do you think most candidates would say “No, I am not?”
Probably not.
So what now?

First Round Review held a conference for CTOs recently and put together some of their best advice. This stands out:

Institute role plays in your interview process. For every engineering manager role, have the candidate sit with a member of the engineering team and play out a scenario 1:1. It can be about a technical process, a debate about prioritization or giving feedback with both criticism and praise. It’s an effective way to test softer skills and replicate what you’ll get in a ‘real’ situation. Of course, using your engineers’ time like this may seem expensive, but it’s more costly to bring on an engineering leader who doesn’t jive with your team. Plus, after doing it for a few years, you’ll find it becomes a rite of passage and engineers like participating in them.

My advice. Get a clear understanding of the candidate’s depth of experience, level of competency and problem-solving capabilities simultaneously using behavioral based technical interview methods.
Boom.

90,000 reasons this matters
You’re about to dedicate $90,000+ to this person a year. You can’t get this hire wrong. Real-time, real-world situations depend on performing in the technical and soft skill areas of job. Shape your interview process to reflect this reality.

It’s not hard to design situations like the one above. We help companies do this every day. It’s called “interviews as a service,” and you can outsource it — that’s what we do — so that your internal team isn’t tied up doing interviews vetting the skill sets of unqualified candidates while technical projects miss deadlines and exceed budgets.

The caveat
Obviously, for a highly technical role, you want to make sure the technical skills are there along with the soft skills. Technical skills will predict more of a day-to-day, task-to-task success — but soft skills will mean they can work better within teams, across silos, with different styles of managers, etc. Remember that many companies are still in a spot where not every manager fully understands the scope of the IT department’s role.

It takes effective soft skills on your engineering side to manage out what can often become frustrating relationships. So while you need technical skills first, you absolutely need to make sure your tech hires can communicate, work with different styles of people, problem solve with people who may not understand tech vocabulary at all, and the like.

Some other benefits of hiring for soft skills too
If you test for soft skills, and those hires eventually get promoted to lead teams, you’re getting better managers. Better managers almost invariably mean less turnover, which saves you money. Remember: people quit bosses, not usually companies. Better managers also means teams stay together longer, increasing the power of friends at work, and — provided you can avoid groupthink — likely making the team itself more effective.

Bottom line: if we think everything now is “data-driven,” then we need a more formalized process for testing soft skills and collecting data therein.

13 Technical Interview Failures
Bala Nemani

Bala Nemani
Founder of eTeki and IT Solutions Executive with a passion for getting “candidate to role” fit right 100% of the time.

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]]> 8 Pre- & Post-Hire Strategies For Overcoming the Tech Skills Gap https://resources.eteki.com/8-pre-post-hire-strategies-for-overcoming-the-tech-skills-gap/ Thu, 04 May 2017 11:30:19 +0000 https://www.eteki.com/?p=1747 The post 8 Pre- & Post-Hire Strategies For Overcoming the Tech Skills Gap appeared first on Resource Center.

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8 Pre- & Post-Hire Strategies For Overcoming the Tech Skills Gap
You’ve surely heard about the tech skills gap. It’s been one of the biggest concerns in recruiting and hiring for years—especially with technology being at the forefront of business success today. According to Jobvite’s 2016 Recruiter Nation Survey, 65% of recruiters say a lack of skilled candidates is the largest obstacle to hiring.

But what, as an employer, can you do to overcome the tech skills gap? In this post, we take a look at eight pre- and post-hire strategies that will help you acquire and retain the high-quality tech talent you need.

PRE-HIRE STRATEGIES

  1. ALWAYS Be Recruiting

Don’t wait until positions open to start recruiting. That leaves you scrambling to find candidates.

Instead, always be sourcing and recruiting. Doing so will help keep your candidate pipeline stocked, which increases the quality of hire and reduces time to hire.

Make sure that your efforts take into account forecasts of your business’ likely talent needs in the middle and long terms. It’ll help you better source and hire quality candidates for those needs when they arise.

  1. Broaden Your Sourcing and Recruiting

Despite the skills gap, there is enough tech talent out there. You just can’t expect the talent to find you. Instead, you need to find talent. To find it in sufficient quantities, avoid limiting your candidate pool by narrowing down your sourcing and recruiting unnecessarily.

Two recommendations are particularly noteworthy here:

  • Practice passive candidate recruiting as a focused strategy—Some of the best candidates aren’t actively seeking new jobs but will be open to other opportunities. According to another Jobvite survey, 51% or workers are satisfied with their current job, yet open to a new one. Employers that do a strong job of acquiring passive tech candidates can have a significant talent advantage over their competitors, which is why we suggest passive candidate recruiting as a focused strategy.
  • Recruiting outside your region—Some regions are richer in tech talent than others, so it makes sense to take advantage of them if you’re not able to satisfy your tech talent needs locally. Consider offering remote work, which makes your opportunities more attractive to candidates who don’t want to relocate. Or consider taking advantage of foreign tech talent, perhaps through the H-1B visa program (the Trump administration has indicated that it plans to give preference to awarding visas to higher-skilled, higher-paid workers, like those with master’s degrees).
  1. Use Freelancers

If your tech talent needs are low or fluctuate, freelancers—whom you can hire on an hourly or project basis—can help meet your IT needs. Many organizations use freelancers from sites such as Upwork, a global freelancing platform where businesses and freelancers connect and collaborate remotely.

  1. Outsource Your IT

Another option, especially for those with limited tech talent needs, is to use companies that specialize in providing IT services. One advantage of this approach is these companies are under pressure to meet your expectations, which we recommend clearly laying out in writing before entering an agreement.

  1. Assess for the Skills and Experience You Need

No matter the job role, you want to make a quality hire. But the tech skills gap means that making quality IT hiring decisions is especially important.
Why? First, it’s more likely that a given candidate doesn’t have the skills and experience you need, so you’re at higher risk of making a bad hire. Second, if you do make a bad hire, you either end up existing with a poor employee, which frustrates other members of your IT staff, or you have to reopen the position, which is likely to take some time to fill.

To increase your chances of making quality hires, you want to ensure that candidates have the skills and experience necessary to succeed at a given role. The best way to do so is through an effective technical interviewing process. Whether hiring for a full-time worker, H-1B talent or a freelancer, consider using freelance interviewers with relevant technical expertise for efficient, quality results.

  1. Invest in Your Future Workforce

This includes actions such as sponsoring high school or college STEM programs and providing mentoring to future tech workers. Sponsoring programs contributes to more students become more interested in STEM jobs, and maybe even in your company. Mentoring, meanwhile, helps develop relationships that can contribute to future tech talent to want to work for your company. You might even consider paying for some students’ degree programs, perhaps using a model similar to Walgreens’ Professional Educational Assistance Program, which offers $2,500 annual scholarships to pharmacy school in exchange for graduates working for them.

While investing in your future workforce doesn’t address your current tech talent needs, it can help with your mid- and long-term needs.

POST-HIRE STRATEGIES

  1. Encourage Skills Development

When your employees develop valuable skills, it generates a strong return for your organization. In the case of tech talent, when your IT workers learn new programming languages that help them with their jobs, that can mean you don’t have to hire people who know those programming languages. As a result, we encourage offering:

  • On-site training programs
  • Remote learning opportunities (such as online classes)
  • Allowing IT pros to do side projects that help their development

If dedicated training and learning programs aren’t feasible, at least consider building in time into your tech workers’ schedules for self-guided professional development. Whether dedicated or informal, it’s important to monitor training and learning to measure results and make improvements.

  1. Focusing on Employee Retention

An employee you retain is an employee you don’t have to replace. So do everything you can to retain your quality tech employees. Effecting training and learning programs are part of this, as career advancement opportunities are one of the top employee retention drivers, according to Willis Towers Watson’s 2016 Global Talent Management Rewards, and Global Workforce Studies report. According to the survey, the top retention drivers are:

  1. Base pay/salary
  2. Career advancement opportunities
  3. Physical work environment
  4. Job security
  5. Ability to manage work-related stress
  6. Relationship with supervisor/manager
  7. Trust/confidence in senior leadership

SUMMARY
Using a combination of effective pre-hire and post-hire strategies can help you overcome the tech skills gap. While finding quality IT talent will likely remain challenging, those organizations that do the best job of executing the strategies above will do the best job of meeting this crucial challenge.

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]]> The Hottest Tech Job Information in Financial Services & Banking https://resources.eteki.com/hottest-tech-job-information-financial-services-banking/ Thu, 23 Mar 2017 17:47:24 +0000 https://www.eteki.com/?p=1432 The post The Hottest Tech Job Information in Financial Services & Banking appeared first on Resource Center.

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The financial industry is probably the tech industry’s biggest competitor for tech talent today. To be competitive, banks and financial service providers need state-of-the-art, properly maintained technologies—such as customer apps—as well as tight data security and cyber security. To meet these needs, they need great tech talent and a lot of it.

In fact, more than 15 percent (15.5%) of the jobs on the high-tech recruitment website Dice are related to financial services and banking.

Let’s take a closer look at data from Dice to learn about the hottest tech jobs in these industries—what they are, where they are, and whether they’re being offered via recruiters or direct hire. Since not every tech job is posted on Dice, this is by no means a scientifically rigorous study. The results, however, are interesting and worth noting.

Total Tech Jobs
At the time of our analysis, there were 78,784 tech jobs listed on Dice. Searches indicate that 10,145 (12.9%) are related to financial services and 2,057 (2.6%) are related to banking.

Top Tech Jobs
Two notable conclusions are apparent from the Dice data about tech jobs in financial services and banking.

  1. Business analyst and project manager roles have the most listings and are more than twice as much in demand for employers in financial services and banking than they are for employers in general. Business analysts and project managers serve as interpreters between the business function and IT, allowing them to communicate effectively.
  2. Financial services providers and banks are seeking tech talent for a wide variety of roles. Even with having a higher demand for business analysts and project managers than employees in general, these roles only make up 2.8% of financial services job listings and 3.4% of bank job listings.

Top Jobs in Financial Services

  1. Business Analyst/Project Manager
  2. Java Developer
  3. Software Engineer
  4. SAP Success Factors Consultant
  5. Data Analyst
  6. Senior Java Developer
  7. Cyber Security

Top Jobs in Banking

  1. Business Analyst/Project Manager
  2. Java Developer
  3. Application Programmer
  4. Digital Sales Effectiveness Manager
  5. Senior Java Developer
  6. Application Support Analyst
  7. IT Project Manager

Top Jobs Overall

  1. Business Analyst/Project Manager
  2. Software Engineer
  3. Java Developer
  4. Project Manager
  5. Business Analyst
  6. Network Engineer
  7. Web Developer

Top Tech Job Locations
If you’re looking for a tech job in banking, head to New York City. To show just how far and away Big Apple is the leading job location, the data for the top job locations includes both the percent of jobs for the top two locations.

Top Job Locations in Financial Services

  1. New York City, NY (18.1%)
  2. Chicago, IL (5.2%)
  3. San Francisco, CA
  4. Charlotte, NC
  5. Jersey City, NJ
  6. Atlanta, GA
  7. Dallas, TX

Top Job Locations in Banking

  1. New York City, NY (27.5%)
  2. San Francisco, CA (7.8%)
  3. Charlotte, NC
  4. Jersey City, NJ
  5. Weehawken, NJ
  6. Chicago, IL
  7. Tampa, FL

Top Overall Job Locations

  1. New York City, NY (9.1%)
  2. Chicago, IL (3.8%)
  3. Atlanta, GA
  4. San Francisco, CA
  5. Washington, DC
  6. Dallas, TX
  7. Charlotte, NC

Top Job Sources
On Dice, tech jobs in banking and finance, as well as tech jobs overall, are more likely to be posted by outside recruiters rather than hiring companies.

Tech Job Sources for Financial Services
Recruiter 67.6%
Direct Hire 28.7%

Tech Job Sources for Banking
Recruiter 73.2%
Direct Hire 23.8%

Tech Job Sources Overall
Recruiter 70.6%
Direct Hire 16.8%

Moving Forward
With the financial services and banking tech boom showing no sign of waning, companies in these industries will continue to have a high demand for tech talent. Those that are best able to hire the right tech talent in sufficient quantities will have a major competitive advantage.

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]]> Beyond the ATM: 4 Critical Talent Trends Driven By Banking and Financial Technology https://resources.eteki.com/beyond-atm-4-critical-talent-trends-driven-banking-financial-technology-2/ Thu, 02 Feb 2017 15:01:52 +0000 https://www.eteki.com/?p=1283 The post Beyond the ATM: 4 Critical Talent Trends Driven By Banking and Financial Technology appeared first on Resource Center.

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Artificial intelligence. Machine learning. Digital currencies, Fintech. Mobile and online apps.
Thanks to technology, the banking and finance industries are almost unrecognizable from 20, 10 or even five years ago, when business was done via brick and mortar and handshakes. With the impact of some of these technological developments just beginning to be felt, much more change is coming.

All of this change has a tremendous impact on talent needs and priorities. In this post, we examine four critical talent trends for banking and financial institutions that are being driven by technology.

  1. High Demand for Tech and Tech-Savvy Job Roles

The rapidly growing need for IT professionals is the top talent development in the banking and financial industries. These industries are now clearly tech companies’ biggest competitors for tech talent.

It’s easy to see why. Someone needs to build and maintain all of this hot banking and finance technology. Plus, as Geoff Fawcett of recruiting provider Hays points out, companies have a greater need for risk control, especially in regard to cyber security—and that means “information technology engineers and security officers will be, once again, very much in demand in 2017.”

We fully expect this need for IT talent to continue to grow. Global investment in the financial technology sector increased 67% from the first quarter in 2015 to the first quarter in 2016, according to Accenture. There’s tremendous room for growth in areas like digital currencies, given that most of the world still deals with cash, checks and plastic. Plus, traditional banks are exploring incubators. And fintech companies are trying to use tech to differentiate themselves. We could go on…

In addition to IT talent, another talent need we expect to see grow is for lower- to mid-level talent who are as comfortable with technology as they are with financial clients. The reason: we expect more and more banking and financial services like H&R Block’s model for doing taxes, in which tech tools drive the process and provide the recommendations. Of note here: because of what the tech tools will be doing, these professionals won’t necessarily need financial expertise—proficiency will be good enough.

  1. Less Demand for Some Traditional, Highly Trained Roles

The flip side of tech tools sparking growth in technologically proficient lower- to mid-level talent is they could decrease demand for certified financial planners and other highly trained financial professionals. While this could take some time, the more tech tools drive investment/finance decisions, it could mean the less need there will be for those with high levels of financial expertise.

However, technology doesn’t always eliminate jobs; sometimes it changes them. Take bank tellers. Despite the proliferation of online banking and ATMs, employment of tellers is projected to only drop a modest 8% by 2024, according to the Department of Labor. And teller employment was on the rise until recently. As an interesting article by the American Enterprise Institute points out, bank tellers’ jobs, instead of being largely eliminated by technology, have instead become more marketing oriented.

  1. Focus on Tech Hiring

As technology becomes more and more important for business success, having a strong IT team will become a critical business priority. This means banks and financial institutions will need to focus on hiring measures such as:

  • Quality of hire. With all the uncertainty occurring due to technology and global events, having stability in your tech team helps your business and technology be more agile. Stability begins with having high-quality talent, so hiring the right people is essential. This means candidates need to be screened carefully, with special attention paid to whether they have the technical skills and experience necessary to succeed in the roles they’re being hired for…
  • Time to hire. If your IT team goes understaffed too long, it will impact performance and innovation—and could reduce cyber security. As a result, strong talent sourcing and efficient hiring processes for IT roles become even higher priorities.
  1. Competition for Tech Talent

Financial institutions and banks are going to need more tech talent. Tech companies are going to need more tech talent. Other companies need more tech talent. Everybody needs more tech talent. Where’s it all going to come from?

It’s a huge question. After all, for 2016, 91% of companies anticipated some (56%) or a significant (35%) increase in competition for talent, according to a Mercer study. And no role is harder to hire for than tech. According to a recent CareerBuilder report, five of the top 10 jobs that companies can’t find enough qualified employees for are tech jobs.

The result of it all is, unless the tech talent shortage disappears somehow, those companies who are able to identify and hire the tech talent they need are going to have a major competitive advantage.

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]]> Talking Solution Stacks: A Better Answer for Tech Recruiting? https://resources.eteki.com/talking-solution-stacks-better-answer-tech-recruiting/ Wed, 04 Jan 2017 18:57:47 +0000 https://www.eteki.com/?p=1222 The post Talking Solution Stacks: A Better Answer for Tech Recruiting? appeared first on Resource Center.

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Tech hiring managers and recruiters face a big problem. They badly need effective tech talent, but they struggle to acquire it. According to an Indeed survey, 86% say they find it challenging to find and hire tech talent, with 36% saying they find it “very” challenging.

This raises a question: How can the HR tech industry help solve this problem? During a new edition of the Today’s Innovation Channel Podcast, titled “Do You Speak Geek? Meet eTeki,” eTeki Director of Operations Amanda Cole argued that solution stacks are a big part of the answer.
Cole joined host Peter Clayton for the podcast. They also discussed:

  • What eTeki does, and how our technical interview service works for clients
  • eTeki’s network of freelance tech interviewers, and how interviewers are vetted
  • Why job boards need to be looking at partnerships to stay relevant
  • Cole’s HR tech predictions for 2017

Solution Stacks: Good for Employers and Providers
What are solution stacks? Why do we believe they will improve employers’ tech recruiting success?

At their core, as Cole explained in the podcast, solution stacks are committed teams of businesses working together to help the same group of customers meet their business objectives. The businesses’ solutions are combined—or stacked—to become a unified solution.

That may be confusing, but becomes clear when we look at an actual example. In the case of finding and hiring tech talent, a solution stack could include a reference check provider, an employment background screening provider, a personality assessment provider, and a technical interview provider (eTeki). Instead of each provider just performing its small part of the screening process, they are layered together to provide a unified solution that provides all of an employer’s candidate screening, separating the contenders from the pretenders.

“HR tech alliances are going to be essential (moving forward),” Cole said during the podcast. “Employers don’t need multiple vendors to manage. They don’t need many different billing schedules. (They) don’t need confusion about where to put what in the recruiting process.”

Meanwhile, HR tech alliances can deliver what employers do need: better solutions. In the case of a tech recruiting solution stack, employers will get faster and more accurate screening results—candidates not only will be delivered more quickly to hiring managers, but they also will be of higher quality.

Of course, alliances are also attractive to providers, as their offerings are more attractive because being part of a solution stack makes them more robust and efficient. Additionally, providers can share referrals and combine on marketing efforts, among other benefits.

Lose the Bad Hires and Make Everybody Happy
Ultimately, Cole explained, it’s critical for all employers—from startups to market leaders—to identify the right tech candidates the first time. Bad hires cost more than $10,000 per year and wipe out the gains of more than two superstar employees, according to Cornerstone OnDemand. Bad tech hires, meanwhile, almost surely are even costlier. Among the ramifications:

  • Technical problems contribute to products not being delivered properly or on time to customers
  • Software and other technologies not working properly for customers and internally
  • Lower morale on technical teams
  • Work backlogs

As Cole noted, companies today need to differentiate themselves with their technology, and they need strong IT and tech teams to make that happen. By stacking their solutions, HR tech providers can help HR and tech leaders get the talent they need.

“When the hiring manager is happy, we’re all happy,” she said. “When the HR director, the VP of HR are happy, we’re all happy.”
We believe that the right stack of screening solutions, including technical screening, will make everybody involved with tech recruiting happy.

The podcast is embedded above. 

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]]> Meet The Experts: Surendra Pepakayala https://resources.eteki.com/meet-experts-surendra-pepakayala/ Wed, 14 Dec 2016 17:40:36 +0000 https://www.eteki.com/?p=1187 The post Meet The Experts: Surendra Pepakayala appeared first on Resource Center.

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The success of eTeki thus far can be accredited to a collaborative effort of professional teams including advisors, marketing specialists, operations experts, development rockstars, and freelance technologists. One team in particular is very special and without them, eTeki wouldn’t be where it is today. These select individuals make up our Technology Advisory Panel. These panelists come from different technical backgrounds and are experts in their fields. Of those, we pulled one Tech Advisor aside to get to know him a little better. His name is Surendra Pepakayala. Surendra, with over 18 years of experience, serves on the panel and is also part of the core management team of eTeki. The technical connoisseur sat down with us to give his views on the industry, himself, and eTeki.

Tell us about your professional history, how you got started in IT, and how you ended up where you are today.
I first got a taste of computers during my freshman year at college. My first hands on lesson was a tutorial on ED and VI on a shared Unix system via a dumb terminal. Being an Electronics major, I had the opportunity to understand, play and program 8086/8088 and 80286 microprocessors in assembly language and developed algorithms in Pascal and C. Subsequently, I worked for the only IT company in India maintaining real-time computers from Siemens where I watched computers interface with mechanical devices. My master’s thesis focused on VLSI design (chip design) and I implemented the earliest JVM on silicon. I’ve since worked at startups in Silicon Valley, had a short stint at Microsoft, been involved in numerous tech mergers and acquisitions, founded a couple of tech companies, consulted for multinational companies in various areas including Software Development, SOA, Business Intelligence, Cloud, DevOps, IT Governance and Risk Mgmt, Program and Project Management.

What are your thoughts on the talent acquisition industry and how does eTeki fit into it?
Recruiting IT talent is a tricky business to say the least. The fortunes of an IT company rest with the talent they hire. It is due this reason, large IT companies have committed a lot of time, resources and money to put in place processes to hire the best talent. However, medium to small IT companies and staffing agencies don’t have the same leeway and rely on limited internal IT expertise to screen and hire talent. The processes around screening and interviewing potential hires is haphazard at best. For example, most times, the internal IT resources tasked to interview potential hires are either pressed for time or biased which results in a sub optimal experience for both parties involved. For the organization, this results in lost time and most times a lost opportunity to hire a good candidate. For the interviewee, this experience leaves a bad taste and aversion for the organization. The eTeki model would to a large extent mitigate if not eliminate such bad experiences. Unbiased, professional and objective interview by a third party ensures that both the organizations’ and interviewee interests are protected.

Since you have never been a thought leader in the past, what excites you about your leadership position in eTeki? What do you plan to do with eTeki?
IT interviews today are fraught with numerous shortcomings. To name a few (i) Lack of proper interviewing skills (behavioral and technical) and experience (ii) Mismatch between the interviewer’s’ understanding of the job description and questions asked during the interview (iii) Internal interviewer bias (iv) Lack of objective metrics to measure interviewees’ performance for a given job description. As a panelist with eTeki, I’ll have the opportunity to influence and the change the status quo. With help from other panelists, I hope to contribute to build an industry reference model for how technical interviews shall be conducted in a fair, objective and meaningful manner.

Due to your 18+ years of experience in the IT industry, you must’ve been through many interviews. What was your best interview, and what was your worst?
One of the best interviews I attended was a second round interview at Microsoft early in my career. The interviewer took the time to understand my background and tech exposure, helped me understand the position, team, product and technologies involved. Then he proceeded to outline a problem they had encountered. He walked me through each step while I tried to solve the problem and he added constraints and boundaries as we went along. To me, it felt more like a brainstorming session rather than an interview. We discussed about possible algorithms, design patterns and implementation details. Both sides won here because I got the job and Microsoft had one less problem to solve.

I’ve been to many interviews that I regret attending. One such interview occurred fairly recently for a freelance engagement. The interview happened in a small cubicle. The interviewer (a project manager) was pre-occupied with one of his projects. Without any intro and overview, he asked me to write an autocomplete feature using Ruby. Had he seen my resume, he would have known that Ruby isn’t one of skills. He then proceeded to get on a conference call right there. He didn’t bother to give me any writing material to solve the coding question. Needless to say, I thanked him for his time and left.

Tell us where you see eTeki going in the future.
I see eTeki changing the status quo in tech interviews and filling a void in the tech recruitment space. The eTeki marketplace is good step forward in this direction. As the platform matures and word spreads, I see eTeki diversifying into skill matching, resume screening, interview fraud detection and other value-added services not just for tech recruitment but also for other professions. Eventually, eTeki can become the one-stop shop for talent scouting, matching, screening and interviewing.

Surendra Pepakayala has over 18 years experience in implementing enterprise, web, cloud and DW/BI solutions, leading teams of 15-100 developers/software engineers, DBAs, architects, and project managers on project/product budgets ranging from $100K to $80M in revenue. His work spans startups, medium sized boutique consulting firms and multinational companies in Insurance, Telecom, Retail, Manufacturing and Education.
We are lucky to have him here with us and are very excited to see the successes his leadership will bring to eTeki.

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]]> Strong Tech Candidates Can Pick and Choose. How They’re Evaluating Your Company https://resources.eteki.com/strong-tech-candidates-can-pick-choose-theyre-evaluating-company/ Thu, 03 Nov 2016 11:54:55 +0000 https://www.eteki.com/?p=1093 The post Strong Tech Candidates Can Pick and Choose. How They’re Evaluating Your Company appeared first on Resource Center.

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It’s commonly accepted that competition for top tech talent is sky-high today. Examples of statistics that show this (there are so many) include:

  • The rate of tech job creation is growing at twice the average for all jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
  • By 2020, the BLS projects more than 1 million computer science-based jobs won’t have qualified college graduates to fill them.
  • 90% of executives in the C-suite report that recruiting IT talent is a top challenge for their companies, according to an Appirio study.

Add in that 90% of recruiters (an all-time high, according to an MRINetwork study) say we have a candidate-driven market overall, and it’s safe to say the candidate-driven market in tech is extreme.

As a result, strong tech candidates—the ones you actually want to hire—can afford to pick and choose extremely carefully. As an employer, this means that every offer, every communication, every interaction, every process, matters when it comes to landing the tech talent you need.

But there are some factors that are more important than others in candidates’ overall evaluation of your company, as revealed by the following data:

  1. According to a 2014 Glassdoor survey, the top five considerations for candidates before accepting a job offer are:
  • Salary/compensation
  • Career growth opportunities
  • Work-life balance
  • Location/commute
  • Company mission, vision, values
  1. According to a 2013 Corporate Responsibility Magazine/Allegis Group survey, 69% of job seekers would not take a job with a company that had a bad reputation, even if they were unemployed. Meanwhile, 84% would consider leaving their current jobs if offered another role with a company that had an excellent corporate reputation. And most in $75-100K salary range would only require a 1-10% salary increase to consider such a move.
  1. According to a 2015 Software Advice survey, job seekers say: the following are among the primary causes of negative candidate experiences:
  • Unclear application instructions—93% said it would significantly or somewhat worsen their candidate experience.
  • Long hiring process—83% said it would significantly or somewhat worsen their candidate experience.

Meanwhile, according to the same survey, candidates’ No. 1 suggested improvement to improving the application process experience is more communication.

When the first two elements above (compensation, benefits, growth opportunities, employer reputation, etc.) are relatively equal, which is common, the candidate experience becomes a major differentiator. Effective communication, efficiency and professionalism during interactions, well-performed interviews with relevant questions, all combined in a smooth process—help seal the deal.

With tech roles, a unique and important piece of the candidate experience is the technical interview experience. The technical interview experience actually helps answer many important questions for questions that are key in their overall evaluation of a company, and their decision on whether to accept an offer. Some examples include:

Am I a priority for this company? A quickly scheduled technical interview shows that the candidate is important to you. Side benefits: faster interviews show efficiency (your company gets things done) and help keep the hiring process brief.

Will fellow tech team members be of high quality? Having a seasoned technical interviewer asking challenging, relevant questions—along with intelligent follow-ups—reveals whether candidates have the necessary skills and experience to succeed. It’s a key indication to smart candidates that only qualified people get hired. In contrast, less-than-challenging technical interviews leave smart candidates unsure about the quality of your hires.

Is the company technologically up to date? Using quality technical interviewing tools (such as virtual code editors) shows that your company believes in using the right tools for the job. Not having such tools, meanwhile, not only creates communication frustration for candidates during technical interviews, it also can make candidates wonder what other technical tools your company lacks.

So when trying to make your company appealing to strong tech talent, pay special attention to the technical interviewing experience you provide. It can play an important part in candidates’ overall evaluation of your company. Get it right, and it will help you attract better talent. Get it wrong, and it could prevent you from acquiring the talent your business needs to succeed.

Related Posts: How-To Find the Best in Tech Across the Globe

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]]> Hiring Tech Talent – What Your Company Needs to Know https://resources.eteki.com/hiring-tech-talent-company-needs-know/ Thu, 24 Mar 2016 11:38:16 +0000 http://wp.eteki.com/?p=318 The post Hiring Tech Talent – What Your Company Needs to Know appeared first on Resource Center.

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Recruiting Tech talent is incredibly important today and is highly sought after by companies all across the country. Some of the most talented tech professionals will be contacted and recruited by companies looking for long-term employees, while other tech professionals will need to go above and beyond to find jobs within their specialties by taking on temporary contracts. Either way, it’s important to know how to find and hire the best tech talent out there.

Let’s discuss the 3 most important things companies need to know about recruiting tech talent:

1. Go Where Your Tech Candidates Are Located

One of the first things your company needs to know is that it should go to where your tech candidates are located in order to find the best ones for your open jobs. You should not be looking just anywhere for tech talent, because the most skilled pros will be hard to find. For example, consider the idea of trying to find a significant other who likes to shop. You wouldn’t look for him or her at a library, would you? Instead, you would look for your potential significant other at a mall or shopping center.

Therefore, make sure your company starts looking for tech candidates in all the right places, such as online forums, tech websites, and the unemployment line. You will also want to work closely with a skilled IT recruitment firm that can provide you with prescreened candidates who match your project needs. This can save your company time and money in the long run.

2. Referrals Need to be Part of Corporate Culture

An excellent way for recruiting tech talent is by incorporating referrals into the company’s culture. When this happens, you will find it very easy to bring in the most talented tech professionals in your industry. Referrals help your company shorten the time spent looking for candidates and help to bring in the top talent available, because you trust your employees who make those referrals. Make sure you reward your employees for making excellent referrals by providing them with a bonus. Some tech companies out there offer referral bonuses that hit $10,000.

When you ask your employees for referrals of tech talent, it lets them know how much you value their opinions. It also lets these employees choose who their co-workers will be and identify what types of skills are needed to build a strong team. Even though you trust your employees to make strong referrals, you still should perform applicant screening, including the normal interview process, prior to offering the candidate a job with your company.

3. Offer Challenging Projects to Employees

When your company assigns challenging projects to its employees, word will spread through the tech industry. Tech professionals, including developers, want to be challenged as much as possible when on the job. They do not want cushy projects that take only minutes to complete. They want to put their education and experience to good use when on the job. If they are being challenged and rewarded at work, they will spread the word when others ask about their employer.

As your company searches for tech talent, be sure to incorporate all 3 of these tips in order to attract the best within the industry.

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