Are You Attracting and Retaining Top IT Talent? Take Our Quiz and Find Out
We are all aware of the low unemployment rate of IT professionals and the challenges companies face to find the IT talent they need. HR teams everywhere are having to ask themselves tough questions in order to evaluate if their hiring process is effective at attracting technical talent. As the market shifts, it’s important to regularly re-evaluate your processes and not leave it to guesswork. Answer these five questions to discover if your company is positioning itself to embrace the HR innovation necessary to retain and recruit top IT talent.
Question #1:
You are brainstorming ways to attract highly skilled IT professionals to your organization and the topic of dress code comes up. What dress code policy is most likely to attract top talent while maintaining your organizations professional reputation?
a.) A nonnegotiable business professional dress code to reflect the professionalism of the company.
b.) Most days employees will need to dress professionally but teams can earn a business casual Friday.
c.) Unless employees are meeting with clients, they can wear business casual clothing.
d.) As long as they are productive (and not with clients), our team can work in t-shirts and jeans.
Answer: c. Dress code is often an overlooked but influential component of working conditions. TechRepublic indicates that a casual dress code has become a deciding factor when tech professionals are considering comparable positions. A strict dress code can deter candidates from taking a job or contribute to your team members leaving for a more casual environment. That said, top talent will respect that there’s a time and place to put their best foot forward and embrace dressing professionally when it’s appropriate.
Question #2:
You are getting ready to kick off a new technology project and are planning on hiring an IT consultant. When you’re preparing the scope of contract duration, which offer appeals more to an IT consultant?
a.) A long-term contract with a fixed end date.
b.) A short-term contract with the option to extend.
Answer: a. IT consultants want their contract positions to provide them with job security. According to Monster, the average consulting assignment can last six months or more. Even if a short-term IT contract could last longer than the initial projected timeframe, the uncertainty of the extension makes the longer fixed contract more attractive to candidates
Question #3:
More recently, your business has lost more candidates to competing offers. Which of the following practices are likely impacting your ability to hire top talent?
a.) Waiting two weeks to review applicants before scheduling interviews.
b.) Requiring multiple decision makers to sign off on candidates which extends the process by 10 days.
c.) Expecting candidates to complete a repetitive and time-consuming application before they’re contacted for an initial interview.
d.) Not giving candidates feedback within a 48-hour timeframe.
Answer: All of the above hiring practices negatively impact an organization’s ability to hire top talent. SIA finds that 46 percent of candidates will have pursued competing opportunities if the hiring process lasts longer than two weeks. Successful companies are willing to accelerate their hiring process, scheduling appointments with exceptional candidates immediately and extending an offer before competitors do.
Question #4:
You are being asked to develop an official telecommuting policy for your organization. What arrangement is most likely to attract top talent?
a.) Employees need to always be on-site.
b.) Employees can work remotely on special occasions, but they need to regularly interact with team members face to face.
c.) Employees can work remotely regularly, but it needs to account for less than half of their work week.
d.) Employees can spend half of their time or more telecommuting. As long as they are productive, it does not matter where they work.
Answer: d. Data from the Dice 2018 Tech Salary Report finds that 60 percent of tech professionals want to work from home for at least half of their time (but currently only 20 percent do). Positions ranging from developers and engineers to systems administrators and business analysts can work remotely through remote access tools and cloud based collaboration platforms. Even senior level information technology professionals, who can increasingly manage their team from anywhere, will find this benefit attractive. If your employees are not part of the 20 percent of tech professionals able to telecommute around half of the time, consider being an early adopter of this policy to standout amongst the competition.
Question #5:
A candidate is considering a few different offers all at once. Which benefits will be most influential in his or her decision? Rate options on a scale of 1-4 with 1 being most influential and 4 being the least influential out of the options below.
a.) Benefits that relate to a healthy work-life balance.
b.) Free snacks around the office.
c.) Student loan assistance.
d.) Solid health, dental and vision insurance.
Answer: 1-d, 2-a, 3-c, 4-b. While the awe inducing office spaces of Silicon Valley can impress candidates, quirky benefits are only icing on the cake. What IT professionals want most are benefits that will support their ability to lead healthy and balanced lives outside of work. An HBR survey found that for 88 percent of job seekers, this meant providing a solid health insurance package for them and their families. Benefits that helped employees achieve a healthy work-life balance, such as flexible hours (88 percent) and more vacation time (80 percent) also topped the list. While benefits like student loan assistance (48 percent) and an office full of snacks (32 percent) were present on the list, they were not as influential within a job seekers decision making process.
Question #6:
You have successfully hired a top tech professional, but in under one year, that person has left your company for a position elsewhere. What is the most likely reason they changed companies?
a.) Better work conditions.
b.) More responsibility.
c.) Higher compensation.
d.) A shorter commute.
Answer: c. Increased compensation is still one of the strongest motivators for tech professionals. The Dice 2018 Tech Salary Report found that of the tech professionals who anticipated changing jobs this year, 63 percent would do so for higher compensation. Staying current with compensation trends helps to prevent that issue.
Staying Current with HR Innovation
With the job market close to full employment, companies that succeed in their hiring and retention strategies will pursue these innovative HR practices and continue to keep their eye on the horizon for changing trends. Though it can be difficult to anticipate which HR trends will be most persuasive when IT professionals are considering offers, working with an IT staffing partner can provide an inside perspective into the types of benefits and conditions that motivate top technical talent to accept job offers.
At Resource 1, we are passionate about technical and HR innovation and position ourselves to deliver superior staff augmentation services that evolve with the market. Moreover, we pride ourselves in providing businesses with tangible results to overcome the challenges of finding and retaining top talent.
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