Joel Libava(Guest Post)
Today, companies without good information technology talent can fall behind because they’re not staying ahead of trends. In order to rake in success, companies need to be where the users are and create channels to improve communication and services. However, it may be hard for some businesses to hire top-notch developers, data scientists, engineers and other information technology-related employees when they don’t “speak the language”.
So, how does a non-tech business acquire exceptional technology talent?
First, as a business, you need to do your research and know exactly what you’re looking for. Once you’ve set a clear goal, you’ll be able to ask the right questions and get recommendations from other industry experts. You should also keep in mind that a bachelor’s degree in computer science does not guarantee a talented hire. Therefore, instead of being too strict on the education requirement, focus more on what an employee can do for your company. Here, we’ll show you how to find the best tech talents for your franchise.
Ways To Fill Information Technology Jobs For Franchisors
Today’s job landscape has evolved so much. Almost everything can be done with a single click of a button—even a more complicated task like recruitment. But that’s not all. Here are several ways you can go about when onboarding a tech professional.
Traditional Hiring
Traditional hiring consists of the general process of collecting data from resumes, filtering the best candidates based on that information, and conducting interviews. The good thing about it is that most recruiters are familiar with this process, but it doesn’t necessarily work for tech talent if you’re not a technology expert yourself. Aspirants could trick the HR team and this could cause several financial damages for your franchise.
The best way to improve this system is to run technical tests and get some guidance from a tech expert in the field. This way, you’ll be able to see if they’re actually able to work on what you’re looking for.
Internship
An internship is another great way to procure technolgy talent. However, this step comes after the previous one. You still need to collect resumes and conduct interviews to select your interns. This way, aspirants will be more relaxed and comfortable, and you’ll be able to see them tackling real-life issues.
An internship will give you incredible insights into their way of working, habits, and communication skills—which are a huge deal in any franchise organization. Besides, aspirants will show more effort because they’re getting paid for an internship. The only drawback for companies, however, would be the cost factor. They’ll have to continuously pay interns for a certain period of time until they find the right match.
Run Information Technology Events and Conferences
Conferences and meetups are a great way to hire tech talent. Techies usually enjoy going to these types of events because they can interact with others in their field, discuss ideas, and learn about new solutions. You could either sponsor a meetup or organize one yourself where you can assemble influential tech professionals and aspirants in one place.
Conferences are also great because they’re dynamic, educational, and aspirants get to learn more and perhaps even upskill themselves. You can consider this an investment to find the best talent for your franchise.
Hire Freelancers
This is a quicker way to gauge an aspirant’s talent without spending too much money as you would with interns. Hiring aspirants on a freelance basis will shed light on how they actually work and whether or not they’re able to hit the company’s expectations. If you succeeded in finding the right candidate, the expenses would be less than with regular hiring or internship and the outcomes will be better.
Things to Consider When Hiring Information Technology Talent
As a business, it is understandable that you would want to employ great hires for less. However, there are certain things that you should never discount when looking for the next addition to your company. They include building a profile for the technology professionals you’re looking for.
This is a crucial first step toward finding the right match for your needs. Knowing the type of talent that you need is very important. However, if you come from a non-tech background, you may not know anything about tech skills so it’d be hard to identify what kind of talent you need.
To create this profile, you need to find the help of a tech colleague or expert. Tell them what your goal is and the outcomes you aspire to have. If what you want is to create a mobile app, maybe you can find someone who is excellent at programming languages like Swift or JavaScript. If what you want is a web app or software, you may want someone who knows how to use Python. If you’d like to work with a cloud system, you could find someone who knows how to work with AWS or Microsoft Azure.
No Essays!
Please don’t test them with generic essays.
That’s because most recruiters who aren’t tech professionals usually find generic tests online and apply them to interviews. Although this may give you some sort of measurement into their skills, it wouldn’t be able to cater to your specific needs. Therefore, don’t rush to create the tests on your own. If you feel like you need an expert in the field to help, try to find someone who is and they can help you find the best ways to test those aspirants. If you create a more personalized test with challenges that your employees will actually work on in your franchise, you’ll be able to accurately see whether they’re a good fit or not.
Career Education
You shouldn’t that rigid about career education.
For instance, maybe your perfect fit comes from someone who doesn’t even have a college degree, but know exactly how to achieve your business goals. These days, big corporations like Google or Amazon are ditching these requirements for something more flexible, focusing more on the outcomes that aspirants could offer instead of their education or experience.
Remember, there are coding bootcamp graduates or self-learning developers that know how to work in the tech field because their practice experience is more elevated from those with a college degree.
To conclude, you don’t need need to be an industry expert to fill information technology positions at franchise headquarters. You just need to know exactly what you’re looking for, get some help from tech professionals, and ask the right questions. If traditional hiring is not for you, try other alternatives that make the process more dynamic. Remember to be a little more flexible with specific requirements and focus more on what new hires can do to bring your franchise business to a greater height.
(Artur Meyster is the CTO of Career Karma (YC W19), an online marketplace that matches career switchers with coding bootcamps. He is also the host of the Breaking Into Startups podcast, which features people with non-traditional backgrounds who broke into tech.)
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