Month: March 2024
Finding the Perfect Candidates: Top 20 Ways
Finding the perfect candidates can be time-consuming. However, knowing the various search methods can simplify the recruitment process and help to find real professionals who will ideally suit the company’s requirements.This article by recruiters will look at the top 20 ways to find the perfect candidates, helping you find the best employees for your business.
How to make a Portrait of a candidate
The concept of a “candidate portrait” is an image of an ideal employee conceived by a recruiter. This term is associated with a similar term marketers use – a portrait of a buyer or client. With its help, companies determine their target audience and develop a sales strategy. This tool helps HR specialists focus on finding the right employee. The process uses industry research data, statistics, trends of recent years and unofficial information.
It is not enough to pay attention only to the candidate’s resume, experience, and competencies. To bring out the elements of a candidate’s portrait, you need to feel the team’s values and spirit.
One of the significant advantages of a well-designed candidate portrait is the opportunity to look at the vacancy through the eyes of a potential applicant. This allows you to understand the candidate’s desires accurately, determine where to find him and establish contact with him.
The process of drawing up a portrait of a candidate can be presented step by step:
Step 1. Data collection
Fact-checking will help with this. Abandon patterns and assumptions and pay attention to the facts. Analyzing the facts will make it possible to create a successful portrait of the candidate. It is necessary to explore examples of successful hiring of specialists who have already been hired and are working successfully and to study their resumes.
Step 2. Determining the qualities of the candidate
At this stage, you need to ask colleagues about the qualities of successfully employed specialists and find out which leads to successful hiring.
You can also ask professionals already in the required position about what qualities help them in their work.
Based on these data, it is possible to deduce the general qualities of the candidate.
Step 3. Final portrait modelling
When finalising a candidate’s portrait, remember that you are making up a portrait, not a job description. Do not overestimate the requirements because the candidate must be a real person and not a figment of fantasy. If the requirements are too high, the search may not be successful.
Why is this necessary?
Every recruiter has a portrait of the ideal candidate in his or her head. The right choice would be to transfer this portrait to paper. Put your ideas in writing, systematise and expand them, set minimum and maximum requirements—so the process of finding the perfect candidate will become clearer and easier.
What exactly creating a portrait of a candidate will help you with:
- Create job texts that are understandable to candidates and employers.
- Close vacancies for brands.
- Work with passive candidates.
- Keep statistics on successful candidate search and recruitment.
You can create an “itinerary” for yourself to find a suitable candidate, in which you list the requirements for the candidate and how to find him. You can write to the checklist:
- Soft skills of the candidate. List the desired personal characteristics.
- The candidate’s hard skills. List the required set of professional skills.
- What motivation a candidate should have. What attracts him to work with your company?
- The range of search for suitable candidates: where to look, through whom you can get the candidate’s contacts.
Define the requirements for the candidate
Before starting the search for a candidate, you need to make a list of his requirements. It’s like a marketing sales funnel when narrowing the search for customers. This way, it is possible to focus on candidates who meet the specified requirements.
How can adequate requirements be determined? We hope that our tips will help you:
- Specify what tasks are assigned to the employee.
- Analyse what tasks successful employees already working in a similar position are solving.
- Get acquainted with job descriptions, professional standards, and qualification requirements if you don’t quite understand what a particular candidate should know and be able to do.
What to include in the requirements for the candidate
Usually, the requirements for candidates include:
- Competencies.
- Work experience.
- Qualities that are necessary for successful work in the company.
- Depending on the company and the vacancy, among the requirements may be a certain education or an area of economics in which experience is needed.
Requirements for the gender and age of candidates are considered discriminatory and can lead to negativity from potential candidates and interest from regulatory authorities.
Search sources
There are many sources of searching for the ideal candidate. There is no need to focus only on specific sources and be afraid to try new ways to find candidates. Let’s look at the top 20 possible sources for finding ideal candidates.
1.A career website or a section on the website with vacancies
Career websites and job sections on company websites allow you to promote a company among candidates as an employer.
It is recommended that candidates transition from the vacancy announcement to the company’s career website. Also, some candidates turn directly to the websites of the companies they are interested in and look for a section with vacancies there.
To ensure that only suitable candidates come to you, we recommend that you pay attention to the content and design of a career website or a section with vacancies on the company’s website. On such a site, the candidate should have the opportunity to:
- To feel the corporate culture of the company and its values.
- Understand the prospects of working in this company.
- Learn about the history of the company and its leaders.
On a career website, you can implement a representation of your HR brand and organise its SEO promotion so that when searching through a browser, your career website appears on the first page of the search results.
2.Posting vacancies on social networks
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Telegram, Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki, and other available social networks provide a good response. Each social network has job search communities where you can post your vacancies and wait for feedback from candidates.
3.Direct access to candidates
Sometimes, it is optimal to reach out to the environment of a suitable candidate on social networks or write directly to the candidate. A direct question can lead to the correct answer for the recruit. It is possible that the candidate himself is not engaged in job monitoring, but you can make him a tempting offer through his entourage or directly.
4.E-mail marketing (mass mailing)
This way of finding the perfect candidate is suitable when you have a large base, and you know your target audience. For broader coverage, you can partner with a company with a similar target audience and make mailings using each other’s databases.
In such a newsletter, you can informally describe the pros and cons of your vacancy. The benefit of mailing lists is the ability to collect statistics, optimise the mailing list and improve its effectiveness.
5.Be active on your social media pages and messengers
Publishing interesting posts on behalf of the brand, benefits, and analytics helps to convey to subscribers that the company is expanding and is open to cooperation. Describing the projects and cases of your employees will help to involve people. If the company becomes interesting and more understandable for candidates, they will want to come even for less money.
6.Contextual advertising
Contextual advertising refers to advertising on the Internet when an ad is displayed in accordance with the context of a page on the Internet: content, audience, place, and time. Contextual advertising is configured according to these parameters so that when candidates search for their broad queries in the browser, the ad appears in the output.
7.Targeted advertising
Targeting is the definition of a target audience for a particular ad and launching it to that audience. The targeted advertising settings indicate the target audience’s characteristics for a particular vacancy. Unlike contextual advertising for targeting on social networks, we do not choose pages for displaying vacancies but the attributes of those users of social networks who will see this ad. Social networks themselves offer sets of user characteristics to launch targeted advertising.
8.Old resumes
There are probably a lot of old resumes in the archives. You can contact, call and write to messengers with these people. They can recommend someone even if they are not looking for a job.
9. Employee recommendations
Already hired employees can be financially rewarded for the recommendations of successfully hired candidates after they have passed the probation period. You can also seek recommendations from former candidates who are already employed and with whom contact has been established.
10. Recruiting at specialised and other events
The search for candidates for specific positions can be successful at events of various professional communities and business events. Such events are usually attended by specialists who want professional development, are looking for professional connections among colleagues, and have new opportunities to apply their skills. That is, such professionals may be interested in career development not only in the company where they are employed.
11.Professional and near-professional thematic forums
Professional forums on social networks, messengers, and professional websites often exist. There, you can even track the activity and competencies of the participants, including their ability to express their thoughts and be convinced of their rightness. Thanks to contextual advertising, forums of the right specialists are not challenging to find.
12.Blogs of experts and opinion leaders
Company employees’ blogs on social networks may be suitable for messages to potential candidates who are not actively looking for a new job. In addition, you can arrange with bloggers with a suitable target audience to publish an appropriate convention to increase loyalty to the company and search for suitable candidates.
13.Contact a recruitment agency
Choose a reputable agency that will find you the perfect candidate. A genuinely professional agency will help you create a job description, conduct an interview, and conduct a high-quality selection of candidates.
14. Freelance exchanges
When your tasks for a candidate do not involve permanent employment, you can hire a freelancer. Exchanges usually look for specialists who can work remotely and have a suitable portfolio.
When hiring a freelancer through the exchange, you can save time and money on hiring an employee and paying for labour. However, there is a risk of attracting an unreliable contractor who abandons the project halfway or refuses to complete it.
15. Labour exchange
Belarusian employers must submit information about vacancies to the labour exchange within 5 days. This is how the Republican Job Bank is formed. Candidates can contact the employer using the contact information indicated in the vacancy announcement.
Also, the Republican Bank of Vacancies has a database of specialists who are registered there as unemployed. The recruiter may contact such people. They may be interested in your offer.
16.Educational institutions
Students are often interested in working for internships and gaining the necessary experience. They are energetic, interested in new things, and not demanding the amount of remuneration. When a company wants to grow staff “for itself,” it makes sense to cooperate with educational institutions. To do this, you need to be interested in career events held by academic institutions, present your company there, invite interested students for internships, and ask for teacher recommendations.
17.Use chatbots to communicate with candidates
The advantage of chatbots is that they can be placed on almost any online platform. At the same time, communication with the candidate begins immediately – you do not need to wait for the recruiter to answer the call or return from a coffee break. The chatbot asks the same questions as the recruiter, but the company saves resources because it does not need to involve a live specialist.
18.Make a video about hiring / Create a website or a recruiting page
An excellent solution for attracting candidates is videos created by company employees for social networks. The company can manage with minimal investments to shoot and promote video content containing the employer’s message. Such videos involve employees and create a positive company image for candidates.
Creating a recruiting website for companies that require a lot of staff makes sense. The company’s values and corporate culture are visualised on the site, and vacancies are posted.
A properly completed company website usually contains information about the company’s executives, areas of work, mission, and values. The recruitment page on such a site allows candidates who want to work in this particular company to fill out an application for a vacancy without going to the job aggregator site.
19.Encourage the return of former employees
Of course, you need to consider the circumstances of the employee’s departure. In general, the company receives several advantages when returning former employees:
- There is no need to spend resources on adapting such an employee.
- The effectiveness of such an employee will usually be high from the beginning.
- As a rule, the company and the employee have a certain level of trust, so it is clear what tasks can be assigned to the employee.
- The return of former employees contributes to a positive image of the company in the employment market.
20.Don’t be afraid of new formats
You can try a creative approach to finding candidates. A video with a survey of employees about their love for their work, which makes it clear that the company’s employees are not among the overwhelming number of employees who do not like their work, can show the peculiarities of the corporate culture in the company and even go viral.
Creating a resume bank for candidates who, for various reasons, did not apply for vacancies after the interview and maintaining contact with these candidates will increase their loyalty. You can send them job offers so they are the first to find out about possible employment in your company. This will help employ candidates interested in working in your company.
OUR EXPERIENCE
Choosing the right recruitment agency is vital in an effective recruitment process. Recruitment.by having successful experience hiring professionals and top management for companies in various industries and specialisations. Our company has an excellent reputation and stable partnerships.
We guarantee that if the candidate we select fails to complete the probation period or leaves during this period, we will provide a replacement at no additional cost.
We have extensive contacts and experience in recruitment and will help you find the ideal candidates who fully meet your needs. Our database includes more than 1,500 candidates who are ready to consider new offers.
We’re Here to Help
If you contact us by the email we guarantee that you will receive a feedback from us within 2 (two) hours on any business day and within 6 (six) hours on any other day (holidays etc.).
Burnout of Employees
Professional burnout is a serious problem for both employees and companies. Burnout can affect a person’s physical and mental health, as well as their professional abilities. In this article, we will look at the causes and signs of professional burnout, how to prevent it and what to do.
What is professional burnout
Professional burnout is a state of exhaustion caused by prolonged stress and overload at work. Burnout can be attributed to the protective reaction of the human psyche to traumatic events. Burnout is most often caused by internal corporate processes, and burnout at work can be a consequence of prolonged stress caused by various reasons unrelated to work.
According to the definition of the World Health Organization, burnout is a syndrome that occurs as a result of chronic stress at work, which a person cannot cope with. This syndrome is even included in the ICD – the International Classification of Diseases.
It would be a mistake to take up work with triple strength, feeling signs of burnout. It often leads to a state of even greater depression and a sense of hopelessness. This is how a person gets trapped in a routine and loses the strength and energy to find a way out of a vicious circle. The level of the stress hormone cortisol is increasing in the body, a person feels exhausted, but constant anxiety does not allow them to take a break and allow themselves to rest.
What types of professional burnout are divided into
There are several types of professional burnout, depending on the reasons why this happened:
- It appears when an employee risks his health and personal life for working results. This type of burnout is associated with overload.
- It appears when an employee feels underestimated and does not see opportunities for growth. This type of burnout can occur even when an employee is not overloaded.
- It appears when an employee, according to internal feelings, believes he is not coping with the assigned functions and feels uselessness and lack of competence, even when this is not the case.
What are the symptoms and stages of burnout
Symptoms of burnout
The symptoms of burnout faced by tired workers include:
- Lack of joy and satisfaction from work.
- Feelings of guilt and anxiety.
- Inability to focus on work tasks.
- Insomnia or drowsiness and a constant feeling of fatigue.
- There are physiological, emotional and behavioural symptoms of professional burnout. From the outside, one can only notice behavioural symptoms that manifest as a result of negative emotions and physiological ailments.
- Among the emotional symptoms of burnout, one can distinguish a decrease in self-esteem, motivation, satisfaction from life, negative thoughts, a feeling of being trapped, and a sense of loneliness.
- Among the physiological symptoms of burnout, there is often a change in appetite towards an uncontrolled increase or vice versa, refusal to eat, a feeling of various pains in the body, digestive disorders, and a tendency to frequent colds.
- Behavioural symptoms that are difficult to miss include:
- Unwillingness to communicate and work.
- Irritability.
- A tendency to postpone work until deadlines are over.
- The appearance or aggravation of bad habits.
- A decrease in employee efficiency.
Burnout stages
The stages of burnout vary according to the increase in the employee’s negativity towards work.
- The first stage of “Saving the world” is that the employee is full of energy, works without lunch breaks, often at the expense of weekends and night sleep, and eats randomly.
- The second stage is “Something is going wrong”: continuous work does not go unnoticed, health worries, but the desire to work is still strong, the employee shrugs off the symptoms of ill health.
- The third stage is “Tension increases”: there is a dispersion of attention and forgetfulness about work tasks. The old desire to “catch up and overtake” disappears. Deadlines are disrupted, conflicts with management and colleagues arise, and dissatisfaction with work accumulates.
- The fourth stage is “Waiting for the Big Bang”: health problems worsen, and sleep problems appear. Additionally, relationships with loved ones deteriorate, and there is a desire to be isolated. Work tasks are demotivating, and performance is reduced. An employee loses the meaning of work, but the “diagnosis” is often not yet apparent to him.
How to distinguish burnout from depression and fatigue
Fatigue and laziness still pass after resting and engaging in an exciting hobby. You will not be able to get out of the burnout state by willpower, or distract yourself from it by switching to something else, since there are no more forces left. Unlike fatigue, burnout symptoms do not go away after rest. A person himself may think that he is just lazy, thinking that something needs to be done, but laziness leads to anxiety.
The fact that you are not tired, but the presence of the following symptoms can determine burnout:
- Pessimism and increased anxiety.
- The feeling that everyone is unhappy with you, that you are guilty of something.
- Constant negative thoughts and memory impairment.
- Uncontrolled appetite or unwillingness to eat.
- Colds, fatigue.
- Lack of interest in what used to interest you.
- Being late for work and not wanting to do it.
- A decrease in enthusiasm for work and a fascination with mood stimulants.
It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between burnout and depression on your own since depression follows from burnout if you do not determine your condition in time. Symptoms of depression are often similar to symptoms of burnout. We recommend contacting a psychotherapist when you have thoughts of suicide, a pathological sense of guilt, a lack of faith in the future, and a feeling of extreme fatigue. You will not be able to cope with depression on your own.
Who can burn out
The peculiarity of burnout is that people who are highly motivated and involved in work from the beginning can burn out, lose interest in life, and work faster than others. Employees wholly absorbed in work devote as much time to it as possible. However, this can lead to overworking, inability to disconnect from work and a constant desire to work even in your spare time. The lack of rest begins to affect your well-being negatively, and when you realise this, it’s too late: the work has taken all your strength, and it has become difficult and unpleasant.
The causes of burnout may be the same, but they manifest themselves differently depending on the circumstances. Hyper-responsible and striving for perfection, people who always try to please and achieve high results are especially susceptible to this.
Employees who face constant criticism and pressure, contradictory instructions, and a lack of communication culture in the team and from management can burn out. An irregular work schedule with high responsibility and no switching options also leads to professional burnout.
At risk for burnout:
- Top management and heads of company departments due to multitasking and irregular employment.
- Employees whose functions are related to constant communication with people include doctors, teachers, psychologists, customer service specialists, and emergency services staff.
- Freelancers and remote workers often burn out due to the demands from management and clients to always be online or in touch, even after hours. Therefore, they cannot disconnect their thoughts from work tasks.
How not to burn out
You can prevent professional burnout if you learn how to set goals, plan, and act. The anticipation of positive results stimulates the production of the hormone dopamine in the body, which helps to avoid burnout. Actions aimed at achieving your goals increase self-esteem and self-worth.
If you feel that burnout is possible, make two lists:
- A list of activities you enjoy. Try to do at least some things on this list daily.
- A list of things that take away your strength. Try to delegate such cases or do them less often.
If you have already discovered burnout, take urgent measures to improve your condition:
1. Conversation with the supervisor
Try to formulate your problem and talk to your supervisor. You may be able to remove what causes burnout from your work.
2. Support
Close people can listen to your problems, contact them. When this is not possible, or you are not sure that your loved ones are ready to support you, contact a psychotherapist.
3. Physical activity
Get into the habit of going to the gym regularly or at least doing exercises. Physical activity helps to cope with stress, distracts from sad thoughts and leads to an excellent physical shape as a bonus.
4. Sleep
Try to fall asleep and wake up at the same time. This way, you will restore your well-being.
5. Mindfulness practices
Try to focus on your breathing, on your feelings and sensations, on what you are doing. Mindfulness practices help you be more open.
We’re Here to Help
If you contact us by the email we guarantee that you will receive a feedback from us within 2 (two) hours on any business day and within 6 (six) hours on any other day (holidays etc.).
How to Onboarding IT Specialists Remotely
The transition to remote work has become the norm for many companies, especially in the IT sector in Belarus. In remote work, ensuring the effective onboarding of specialists is essential for the formation of a productive work environment. Remote work provides unique opportunities but requires a particular approach to adapting to new employees.
Recruiters discusses the main features of onboarding remote employees of IT companies in this article , which will help integrate new employees into the team, support their professional development and increase overall productivity in remote work.
What is onboarding? Why is it important?
Onboarding can be described as staff adaptation, introduction to work tasks, familiarisation with the company structure, colleagues and management, setting up corporate access, support during the trial period, supervision, and mentoring. It is crucial for the triumphant entry of an employee into the team, their understanding of the project, their tasks, and the rules of communication with colleagues.
The lack of a corporate onboarding strategy and employees who are “guides” to the world of a new company leads to a decrease in the enthusiasm and effectiveness of specialists, especially at a remote location. A new employee may seem to have received a remote dream job but was left confused with a computer and a list of tasks, without understanding who to turn to, how and when. In such a situation, the employee’s enthusiasm quickly fades, and he usually changes his place of work or stops performing tasks. It slows the project, deadlines are violated, customers and management are dissatisfied, and the company’s reputation suffers. Of course, these are extremes, but there is a need to understand the importance of onboarding new employees to work on projects and successfully complete company tasks.
What is the difference between onboarding in the office and on the remote?
First, about the general thing: both on the remote and in the office, the onboarding goals are the same. In each case, the company needs to make sure that the employee understands the company’s rules, integrates into the team, and knows his responsibilities. However, onboarding a remote employee is a separate problem related to interaction and socialisation.
Technical problems
In the office, in case of problems with equipment, it’s possible to go to the admins. You can ask a colleague at the following table about where to go.
In the case of removal, the work schedules of different employees may differ, a new specialist, in the absence of technical information, will be nervous in case of problems, and the timing of work on the project may suffer.
It is crucial to provide employees with access to equipment before they start performing work tasks on schedule. If something goes wrong, there will be time to sort out the problems before the task is timed.
Communication issues
In the offices of the scrum master, managers solve the problem of social adaptation for a new team member by introducing him to colleagues and encouraging conversations during coffee breaks and other work events.
In remote conditions, a different strategy is needed. It is necessary to think over and create online channels for interacting with new employees and colleagues, organise the possibility of video calls and document exchange in group chats, and set up informal chats for one-on-one communication.
Compliance issues
Implementation of corporate compliance (compliance with the rules) when working in the office has been worked out enough: employees are introduced to corporate policies. With regard to IT specialists, it is usually about meeting information security requirements, following the company’s values, and following the rules of communication with colleagues, managers, customers, and government agencies.
In a remote environment, controlling employees’ fulfilment of compliance requirements is much more difficult. Companies usually develop online reference books and video courses to familiarise themselves with the values. The submission form should allow new freedom-loving employees to learn the company’s basic rules. Video calls are periodically held to discuss compliance issues in a conversation format.
Social issues
When working in the office, such issues are solved easier since the employee turns to colleagues, the head, whom he knows.
When working remotely, you need to consider the scheme of online interaction of a new employee on social issues and inform him about who and how he can contact, in what form, and how quickly he will receive feedback. In the case of onboarding remote IT employees from different countries, you need to learn more about the differences in traditions and legislation not only from the employee but also from an independent expert.
Getting to know the team
In the office, a newcomer is usually introduced to the team. Then, he begins to perform his tasks with or without a mentor, talks during coffee breaks and learns more about the team’s role distribution and colleagues’ personalities.
In remoteness conditions, they organise a beginner’s acquaintance with the team on a video call. Part of the meeting is reserved for informal communication, where each employee tells himself what he considers possible and his role in the team, and the same is offered to the newcomer.
Paperwork issues
On the first day of work in the office, a beginner signs all documents related to his employment and compliance.
On a remote basis, a beginner will have to come to the office himself, or the company will have to arrange the transfer of physical documents for signing. For the employee to see, read the necessary documents, they organise the placement of documents in the confluence. If required, the employee can find a document that he saw on paper for a short time and read it.
Onboarding checklist
We recommend checking your onboarding system for remote IT employees using the checklist.
1. Create a 90-day employee adaptation roadmap.
In most cases, employees leave during the first 90 days of work. Therefore, 90 days of employee adaptation coincides with the maximum probation period under the law.
Start by developing a 90-day plan defining the goals, milestones, and critical steps that need to be completed in adapting to remote work. Of course, you can be flexible: shorten or extend the time depending on the specific role. The adaptation plan can be structured as follows:
- Week 1: orientation, introduction to the company and initial training.
- Weeks 2-4: In-depth training, virtual learning and goal setting.
- Weeks 5-8: Participation in company-wide training, regular checks and discussion of productivity feedback.
- Weeks 9-12: Increased autonomy, active participation in team projects and discussion of career growth.
2. Send a preliminary resource pack or a “welcome pack”.
A welcome package is a set of materials that contains valuable information and resources for a new team member. Depending on the content, it can be provided in print, physical, or digital form. The employee must receive it before the first working day to have enough time to familiarise himself with the material and resolve all issues.
We recommend that you include in the “welcome pack”:
- A welcome letter from the management.
- A booklet or presentation about the company’s mission, history, values and structure.
- A guide for employees describing the company’s internal processes, policies, and contacts on various issues.
- Access information.
- Branded accessories can be physical gifts.
3. Explain the communication channels
Explain to the employee in the welcome package or separately about the communication methods used in the company. Introduce him to the communication channels adopted by the company for different purposes and explain how to use them.
4. Plan the first day
On the first day with a new employee, explain what he should do, what and where to watch and read, with whom, in which messenger, at what time to communicate, and what to discuss. It is a good idea to arrange a video call at a convenient time for the employee to ensure that he is guided and to remind him that he is not alone. During the call, indicate to the employee his work for the day.
5. Arrange a virtual meeting “let’s get to know each other”
A few days after starting work, the employee already realises he is among colleagues, although remotely. At this time, it is better to organise an online team meeting so that everyone can introduce themselves and talk about themselves and their tasks on the project and in the company, and a new employee can do the same. Team members should be asked to create a supportive atmosphere.
6. Conduct training sessions
In the early days of a new company, any employee needs assistance with information. Training relevant to the employee’s role will help him better understand the company’s products and services. It can be a two-hour training session or several days, depending on the employee’s role and immersion in the tasks. You can even formally evaluate the employee’s training.
7. Carry out regular checks
The employee’s compliance with the adaptation guidelines should be checked regularly. Ask the employee to periodically fill out online questionnaires to analyse his adaptation and plan his individual development in the company. Allocate time at each meeting to receive feedback from the employee about his experience in a new company.
Collecting feedback from an employee for all 90 days according to the plan will help in subsequent work with this and other employees. It will be helpful to collect feedback from the employee’s immediate supervisor.
How to know that the onboarding was successful on the remote?
A new employee may be looking for a new job, although his supervisor believes the onboarding was successful. To prevent this, onboarding success should be evaluated during regular video meetings before the adaptation program’s end.
It is also possible to think of metrics to evaluate the success of onboarding a remote specialist. Metrics can be financial and “human”. Financial ones help to calculate the costs of adapting an employee, and human ones help to assess how quickly an employee got to work effectively and how satisfied he is with the adaptation.
Performance review
PR (Performance Review) is the last stage of onboarding. In a video meeting, a new employee, mentor and supervisor discuss how the employee has completed the “roadmap” over the past three months. Feedback is exchanged.
Before such a meeting, an employee can send a questionnaire evaluating his adaptation to the company. These questionnaires will help to assess the quality of the onboarding process in the company and identify growth points and what can be changed.
There are many ideas to make the remote onboarding process of IT specialists successful and useful for the company and for the specialists. We recommend getting acquainted with the cases of large companies and improving your experience based on feedback from new employees. The most important thing in onboarding a remote IT employee is to keep in touch with them and receive feedback. It is necessary to define the goals that should be achieved by each planned meeting and compare these goals with the adaptation “roadmap”.
We’re Here to Help
If you contact us by the email we guarantee that you will receive a feedback from us within 2 (two) hours on any business day and within 6 (six) hours on any other day (holidays etc.).
How to Hire IT Stuff in Belarus
Hiring IT specialists in Belarus is an urgent task for many companies wishing to develop their business and remain competitive in the modern world of technology. Belarus is famous for its qualified specialists in the field of information technology, as well as for the affordable prices of its services. The process of hiring IT staff takes a long time and requires finances, time, and human resources. At the same time, it may later turn out that the wrong person was hired. The main task of the service or the person engaged in selecting candidates is to minimise possible errors associated with unsatisfactory hiring results. To successfully hire IT employees in Belarus, it is necessary to consider the peculiarities of the labour market, trends in employee self-presentation, and use various strategies to assess their competencies. This article will examine what to pay attention to when hiring IT employees.
1. You can not choose employees based on emotions
From a human point of view, the ideal candidate would be an excellent specialist, meets the requirements of the vacancy and is likeable as a similar person. We do not avoid emotional evaluation of the candidate, but we are guided primarily by the compliance of his skills and experience with the requirements for the vacancy, his ability to cope with the tasks set and emerging, as new challenges and opportunities are constantly emerging in the IT sector in Belarus. In such a situation, emotions are somewhat secondary.
2. Remember, a resume is not the main selection criterion!
Recruiters often tend to select candidates whose resume shows a similar job title in an equal company in the market. However, in Belarus, IT specialists may have completely different functions in different companies in positions with the same name. Therefore, we do not base our selection of candidates solely on studying resumes. We use several stages of interviews, tests, and assignments.
3. Don’t trust the recommendations!
Although IT often requires employee recommendations, you should trust them only partially. Sometimes, recommendations are given in a friendly way to help in the profession, or vice versa. They are harmful in order to spoil the career of a stubborn former employee. It is often impossible to objectively evaluate recommendations. Therefore, we offer candidates testing and completing technical tasks.
4. Ask as many questions as possible
At the interview, you need to allow the candidate to prove himself and listen more to what he says about his experience and functionality in previous IT companies. It is preferable that the ratio of the recruiter’s story about the advantages of the vacancy and the answers to the candidate’s questions should be 20% of the time to the candidate’s story about himself and his questions, which make up 80% of the time. Not every IT specialist in Belarus is a master of words, but our specialists can ask the right questions to determine the suitability of a vacancy.
5. You need to agree on everything at once
So that after hiring, the company and the new IT employee do not have a feeling of mutual disappointment, and both sides do not feel deceived, it is necessary to inform the employee about his duties accurately. And also about what the company provides in return for the employee performing well-defined functionality.
6. “What called him into the distance”?
It is essential to understand what made an employee move between companies in the IT field and his motivation. The candidate’s personality traits may lead to a similar situation in your company. Sometimes IT employees get bored at their previous job, and they are looking for new tasks, and at the same time, new financial goals, a more profitable bonus program, prospects to become one of the key employees, owners of the company, opportunities to gain experience in large IT companies with a name. These markers of interest need to be identified at the interview and correlated with the needs and capabilities of the company.
7. Do not evaluate the applicant. It is better to “sell” your company to him
When interviewing a potential candidate for a vacancy, it is important to assess his qualifications and compliance with the requirements and show the advantages and attractiveness of working in the company. It is known that experienced IT professionals can choose for themselves. In the case of hiring a less experienced employee, the “sale” motivates him to achieve the company’s goals. Instead of strictly identifying the shortcomings and evaluating the candidate, it is recommended to focus on the strengths of the company, its culture, values, development prospects and benefits for employees. This approach will help to create a positive impression on the applicant, increase his interest in working for the company, his desire for development and increase the likelihood of successful vacancy closure.
8. Avoid employees who quit by agreement of the parties
The seemingly harmless reason for dismissal “by agreement of the parties” often suggests that at the previous place of work, the dismissal took place on questionable terms. Such IT workers sometimes cause scandals when fired, threaten to cause problems and get compensation. It is not a rule, but if possible, you need to monitor the behaviour of such employees when they are hired. They can undermine the authority of the head and turn some other company employees against others.
9. You should not hire employees from another corporate culture
It is challenging to find out at the interview how the candidate relates to the corporate culture of an IT company and what corporate culture he was immersed in earlier. However, we are trying to do this. It is crucial to identify this point about key employees and top managers. It is also vital that a new employee who claims an ordinary position in the IT field does not feel like an outsider, immersed in a corporate culture that is alien to him. The identity of the candidate should be revealed and compared with the values of the IT company. We have questions that help us do this.
Our recruiters conduct interviews in several stages to reduce the risk of error. It is how you can make sense of impressions after meetings, which helps to identify candidates who are good “interview psychologists” but cannot integrate into the corporate culture of the company.
10. Don’t hire employees in a hurry
When selecting IT staff, it is important to take your time and devote enough time to the selection and evaluation of candidates. Hiring employees in a hurry can lead to improper selection, insufficient study of skills and qualifications, as well as inconsistency with the goals and needs of the company.
Resume analysis, a thorough interview, and several interview stages reduce the likelihood of mistakes when choosing IT personnel. It is necessary to pay due attention to each stage of the recruitment process to find the best candidate who will meet the company’s requirements and become a valuable employee.
11. Betting on the uniqueness of a specialist is not the best option
The employee’s lack of a skill or several skills does not matter. In the IT field, priority is given to trained employees, not those whose skills are stable and unchangeable. Such a specialist may be unable to communicate adequately and learn new things quickly, which may interfere with the achievement of the company’s goals.
12. Don’t ignore your intuition
Of course, the data from the resume and the correct answers to the questions are essential. But it is worth listening to the inner voice. With experience comes an understanding of IT professionals and the consequences of their behaviour in interviews. The feeling that something is going wrong at the interview should not be ignored. We ask more questions and observe the answers. It helps us to conclude how well the candidate is suitable for performing the required functionality.
13. Figure out how the candidate’s aspirations correspond to the task at hand
The ideal candidate for a position in the IT field should approach the project during its term and meet the company’s goals. At the same time, we learn the candidate’s goals: what does he plan to achieve in the project or during the contract? Why will work help him achieve his goals? It is important to understand that the candidate’s aspirations correspond to how the company sees its development.
14. Don’t focus too much on the past
We pay attention to the potential of the employee, focusing less on his past achievements. Of course, it is vital to take into account the candidate’s experience and competencies in the IT field. However, the candidate must have the potential to develop in an ever-changing IT business environment and technology development. Within the framework of the position for which the candidate is applying, he must be able to reach his potential.
15. Use other assessment strategies besides the interview
Our specialists use more than just interviews to evaluate candidates’ skills in the IT field. Many IT specialists do not reveal themselves as interlocutors in interviews because of their unique personalities. Along with several interview stages, we use test tasks and questionnaires to assess the candidate’s skills fully. There may be several different levels of difficulty for test tasks.
16. Pay attention to the questions that the candidates ask
An interview with a candidate is a conversation in which we pay attention to what, at first glance, seems like small things. The candidate’s questions at the interview indicate his immersion in the interview process and his interest in further cooperation with the company as an IT specialist. The topics of the questions will help to understand the candidate’s goals, his interest in future functionality and the desire to learn more about tasks, colleagues, and not only about bonuses, relocation opportunities and the amount of remuneration.
17. Ask what they can’t do
Professional expectations of candidates will help them find out their answers to what they do not know how to do but would like to learn (or would not like to). We compare the candidate’s assessment with his answers and determine whether the hired IT staff will develop, whether they are promising employees who can master constantly developing new technologies and communicate productively, if necessary, with colleagues and clients from other countries and cultures.
18. Hire someone you could work for
A reasonable employee of an IT company will likely be a candidate for whom the recruiter himself would like to work if you switch places. This strategy, voiced by Mark Zuckerberg, is justified when hiring IT staff in Belarus. The candidate you can work with calmly and confidently is the one you can work for. Many years of experience help us with the help of tests, as well as intuitively evaluate candidates for the IT sector, including from the side of stability and reliability of personality.
19. Be very clear about expectations
We find out employees’ expectations regarding the number of tasks, duration and time of employment. Due to the fact that IT companies often cooperate with foreign companies, with companies that require continuous IT support, candidates need to form an understanding of the company’s expectations. These expectations may include working in a different time zone relative to Belarus, working after the end of the traditional working day in partner companies, etc. The candidate’s expectations must meet or, at the beginning of the selection, not contradict the expectations of the IT company.
If you are looking for professional IT specialists for your business, do not hesitate to contact us. Our experience and knowledge will help you find the best candidates who meet your requirements. There are more than 1,500 candidates in our database who are ready to consider new offers. Contact us today and let’s create successful stories together in the world of technology.
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