In recent years, technology has evolved to be such a firm, prominent aspect of lives that some of the biggest, richest companies in the world are technology-based firms. A technology company is an organization that performs its basic business functions in the field of technology, i.e., it manufactures, develops and sells technological devices, software and services. Over the course of the past few years, technology companies have gone on to attain leadership of the market, especially in lieu of the smartphone revolution and increased demands for digital products, services and software. Companies such as Microsoft, Facebook, Apple Inc., Google and Amazon are famous for their extensive reach and whopping levels of revenue. But it’s not just conglomerates, small and medium-sized companies are flourishing as well, establishing their offices all over the world, making the technology sector one of the most promising sectors of employment and investment.
Recruitment in Technology Firms
The recruitment process in technology firms is a long and difficult one. It starts with assessing the current status quo and recognizing the staffing requirements of the organization. Then, it involves finding a large pool of suitable candidates, inciting them to apply for the corresponding vacancies and thoroughly sorting through the large pool of candidates to find the ones suited best for the work required. In many cases, the buck doesn’t stop there – many organisations conduct training programs for new recruits.
As has been established, the technology sector is an ever expanding one, and even more so in the context of the regular innovations and developments achieved in the field. This constant change in paradigm, coupled with an ever-increasing number of users, warrants constant growth in any company. The research and development branch of any company assumes prime importance in lieu of these reasons. This implies that any technology company worth its salt needs to constantly employ more people and expand its human resource department so as to meet the needs and demands of a growing market.
Challenges In The Recruitment Process
The recruiting process for the technology sector has been touted as recruiters to be one of the toughest. Human resource management veterans and recruiters have said that a multitude of problems arise while conducting the process. The more prominent ones among these problems are outlined below:
- Failure to attract top candidates: Any company looking to optimize its output and revenue would want to employ the absolute finest candidates. Most HR managers put the best of their efforts towards recruiting highly-qualified candidates from the finest educational institutes. However, these candidates enjoy the privilege of multiple offers and often end up choosing other companies owing to better salaries, facilities or sometimes, due to a company taking too long to respond. A company’s inability to carve a separate niche for itself in front of prospective employees harms its hiring prospects.
- Lack of understanding: Another problem plaguing the process is a lack of understanding between the parties involved. This is especially common in cases where the recruitment process involves hiring managers and recruiters. Any misunderstanding or lack of correspondence between them adversely affects the hiring chances of the firm. On another note, if the recruiters lack understanding of the field they are looking to recruit talent for, chances of bad hiring are substantially higher.
- Inability to match quality with speed: Companies complain that one of the biggest drawbacks of the entire hiring process is that it fails to efficiently collaborate the speed of the process with the quality of the candidates. Any company looking to optimize its process would be looking to hire the best quality of candidates possible in as short a timeframe as possible. This is owing to the fact that the hiring process is long and tedious, as chalked out above, taking up a substantial amount of time and resources and marred by strenuous rounds of administrative duties. However, hiring a suitable, well-qualified candidate often takes up a longer period of time. Hence, companies often have to make the uncomfortable choice between a longer, costly process to find a talented candidate and a shorter, effective process that would come up with a candidate relatively less-talented.
- Lack of talent in the candidate pool: In contrast to the issue of having to deal with over-qualified candidates, firms often face the problem of a severe lack in talent in their prospective candidate pool. Candidates for a particular job profile or field might be lacking if the position or field requires a highly-specific skill set or specialized knowledge. In this case, vacancies become tough to fill up. Moreover, candidates show tendencies of not being able to stand up to the standards outlined by the skills and experience mentioned in their CV, a problem that takes serious manifestations upon the company performance if the hiring process does not include enough selection tests. In addition to this, there is the added pressure of ensuring that a talent’s skills and personality both match and efficiently delve into the existing work culture. A glitch on this issue might again affect company process as the skills of a new talent has little use if the skills do not align efficiently with the skills and culture of the existing employees.
- The Millennial Issue: With the passage of time, the old generation is gradually retiring which implies that most of the current workforce and nearly all of the future workforce of any company is going to belong to the new generation – the millennials, largely, and Generation Z, in small amounts as far as internships are concerned. The new, young generations work substantially differently from their predecessors, throwing new challenges at recruiters. The two generations’ affinity for technology has been a boon to recruiters as they adapt quickly to any changes in systems as compared to the older generation. However, the new generations demand a more flexible working atmosphere, working on constant communication, regular feedback and the blurring of hierarchies in the workplace. Moreover, millennials have a marked tendency of fluidity in their employment decisions, jumping from job to job in their goal to learn something new, building a network and build their profile. As a matter of fact, millennials are prone to changing their entire careers at times. These tendencies among the younger generation are some of the biggest problems faced by companies as it leads to an atmosphere of inconsistency that reflects poorly on the company’s profile as a prospective employer.
Conclusion
To say that these are the only problems faced by companies would be an understatement. Technology companies face multitudes of obstacles in their process of hiring suitable candidates and are constantly involved in brainstorming solutions to them. Some tried-and-tested solutions include presenting an attractive employee prospectus, highlighting the pros of working in one’s company and the conducive environment. Millennials can be pacified by introducing flexible working rules or by engaging senior members of the firm in the mentorship of the young ones, giving them a reason to stay. While none of these methods provide a sure-shot solution to any of the issues, they are the first steps to allaying as many issues as possible in a process that is as difficult as it is significant. Firm heads and HR departments from all over the world frequently come up with new and unique solutions to the challenges they face.
