Zdeňka Krejčíková is a recruiter, mentor and holder of the title Recruiter of the Year 2018. For several years she has been professionally engaged mainly in the field of IT Recruitment, in the field of which she is a proficient player. For this reason, we decided to ask Zdeněk a few questions concerning the field of IT recruitment.
Coronavirus has mixed up the job market quite a bit. Did the pandemic affect the IT sector as well?
The pandemic has caused it not only to IT Recruitment to move to the online environment. And he's not coming back. Companies had to react quickly to this change and learn to operate remotely.
There is still the same hunger for IT professionals. There is a shortage of them, and recruiters need to be able to attract and sell the company's name.
The lack of IT professionals has been an eternal theme of recent years. Does the lack of them relate only to senior positions or even junior ones?
In my experience only seniors.
For me, Junior is a person who starts with IT. These are, for example, students who are at the beginning of college, participants IT courses or people who have devised some minor IT project of their own. And they're looking for the first job to take on.
For these people, it is ideal to create trainee programs. Getting juniors is not difficult. More and more people want to go into IT and are willing to change their current careers because of this.
A classic question that many companies would like to know the answer to. How to attract programmers to the company? What is the greatest benefit to them? Is it money?
That's very individual. In any case, it is easier to attract a programmer to an interview if you mention several important points in the interview or in the job advertisement — for example, the interest of the project, the detailed description of the technologies, education, salary, flexibility. It is also important to mention what kind of team works in the company.
It is increasingly important to have someone active in the corporate team who participates in podcasts, meetups, etc. People want to work with inspiring people who are heard of and who are seen. And this is the way.
You need to support your corporate influencers. We're already oversaturated with ads that proclaim a product or service is cool and the best. Today it is worth going down the path of enrichment. Podcasts, Instagram, LinkedIn. Employer branding is essential.
What in your experience is not a benefit for programmers, even though the company feels that a new colleague in the team will definitely benefit from this type of benefit?
Based on discussions with programmers on LinkedIn, I found out that benefits are not benefit programs that aim to exchange earned points for certain products or services.
Benefit is also not the choice of hardware, it is considered standard. Five weeks of vacation or corporate breakfast are also standard for IT professionals.
What attracts programmers to companies on the contrary: extra vacation, exercises, training during working hours, etc. In short, anything that reduces the programmer's working hours.
Pro IT In general, the amount of financial remuneration of the employee is very important. Plus the opportunity to work on the ID.
How is it with women in IT? Is their number increasing? Do different rules apply to their recruitment than to men? Do they hear about things other than men?
The number of women in IT is growing steadily. Women generally increase the efficiency of work teams. It is good when there are not only men in the work collective, but when it is mixed.
Recruiting women into IT is a very good move. Even in terms of juniors. Women are loyal employees. Especially when they see that the company will count on them even when parenting. It motivates them to join the company. This is true not only in IT, but in all fields. Being able to work as a parent is a great benefit.
To answer the question, flexibility is the most important thing for women. And as for what female programmers hear most about, that's a lot like what attracts men.
The pandemic has also had a knock-on effect on IT recruitment.
Is it advantageous for the company to establish contact with the programmer some time ahead of time? Even before the IT company actually fills the position? If so, how to do it? How to build a relationship with a potential future employee? What means and platforms to use to do this?
One of the key qualities of a recruiter is communication. Recruiters should also offer applicants something extra. It's not enough to sit down on LinkedIn and spam others that you need to fill a given position. I recommend communicating with your target audience through interesting posts, where you ask about their opinions, find out their positions on various issues and keep reminding them.
What factors increase the likelihood that a programmer on LinkedIn will be able to reach out and invite him to a personal interview?
It will help if you include information about technology, salary, flexibility, education, project focus and team composition in the address (ideally you mention a familiar person).
Roughly 80% of programmers also first look at the profile of the recruiter who writes to them. The profile of the HR manager is the business card of the company. Even according to this, IT professionals evaluate whether they write off or not.
Is it still worth posting job ads on job portals to fill IT positions nowadays? What is your experience with new platforms like recruiting on social networks outside of LinkedIn?
I have a good experience with startupjobs.cz. That's where good candidates come to us. Sometimes a good person will also sign up for an advertisement on LinkedIn, which everyone from the company can place on their profile for free. When all employees in a company open a position on LinkedIn, there is a high probability that someone will be found.
As for other social networks for reaching candidates, for example, Facebook advertising does not work so much on the Czech market. There's some potential on Twitter, but it's always better to write a post IT specialist than a recruiter.
Neither Tik Tok nor instagram works for me to find candidates. It wants to find out where IT professionals spend their time and work there.
Recruiting women into IT is a very good move.
What type of tender is most suitable for the recruitment of IT professionals and why?
For me, definitely a personal interview with the technical part. Programmers don't want to program any homework, but they count on trying during the interview. I recommend discussing the first round so that the candidate really talks to the people he will work with. In the next round, it is good for the candidate to see his team, his place of work and the environment of the company he will (occasionally) go to — IT professionals They usually want to work remotely.
It is necessary to ask at the beginning what programmers expect from work and why they change jobs. Then it is advisable to recall this in the offer they receive from you.
The selection of programmers must be efficient and fast. It's not out of place to think. In our company, we offer candidates offers even directly at the interview, if we are sure that the person meets our expectations.
Assessment centers for seniors certainly do not, but we do them with trainees. For them, we need to find out how they behave in the team, whether they have logical reasoning, etc. And that's what mass selection is cool for.
