Tech job trends 2019: Survey reveals why companies fail in sourcing TOP talent

At a time when disruptive technologies are forcing companies to change the way they operate, it seems they are facing another big challenge: Of hiring top talent in the industry. A large number of companies are finding it difficult to source the best tech workers, according to a report ‘Tech Hiring & Technology Adoption Trends 2019’, by leading talent assessment company Mercer | Mettl. The report reveals major trends, best practices, and challenges faced by global organizations while conducting tech talent recruitment. The insights compiled in the report are based on a survey of 350 industry leaders from over 200 companies of different sizes.

Speaking on the report, Siddhartha Gupta, CEO – Mercer | Mettl, said, “Rapid digital transformation across domains has resulted in a steep rise in the demand for quality technology professionals the world over. However, as everybody is onboarding the automation bandwagon, companies are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain quality tech talent. This is mostly on account of inadequate knowledge regarding tech-driven best practices and widening demand-supply gap.”   

Highlights:

Organizations are unable to source and retain top tech talent

For the majority (42%) of the companies surveyed, the first step of the hiring process, i.e., the sourcing of top tech candidates comprised the biggest challenge they faced while carrying out recruitment. While one-fifth (20%) of the respondents cited the time taken to close a tech position as the primary reason causing the potential engagement to fall through. 

Mercer | Mettl also found that more than 32% of organizations lacked sufficient knowledge about the tools for conducting effective assessment methodologies across all the stages of the hiring process. Lack of budget came a close second for nearly a quarter of the respondents (24%).

Moreover, 12% of companies did not have a competency framework in place and nearly one-fifth (21%) depended on face-to-face interviews to screen candidates. Except for the 18% of companies that leveraged smart AI-based technologies to filter resumes, the rest relied on lengthy ways for pre-screening the applications. This not only caused the lead time to stretch unnecessarily but also lowered the success rate of the entire hiring process.

The report further reveals that a competitor firm offering better pay package contributed to more than half of the reasons (60%) for a candidate to decline a job offer. Recruiters also reported to having conducted rehiring for the same position 23% of the times in a financial year.

Conversely, chief reasons (85%) that lead a candidate to accept a job offer include the pay and the quality of work.

He added, “Through our ‘Tech Hiring & Technology Adoption Trends 2019’ report, we aim to enable organizations to remedy the inadequacies in their hiring process by adopting more scientific and systemic tech hiring best practices. For this, companies must learn to identify what tools and technologies can add value to their objectives. They can gauge the effectiveness of such tools with the help of crucial metrics such as time-to-hire, offer acceptance rate, and rehiring rate.”

Key hiring trends and best practices

Regarding the channels used by tech recruiters to source candidates, more than one-fifth (23%) of the respondents reported to depending on employee referrals while 22% used job portals and forums.

On the other hand, organizations (12%) that conducted campus hiring reported to having the highest success rate by closing tech positions 67% of the time.

While evaluating candidates, proficiency in the required tech skills comprised the top criterion for 20% of the organizations. On the other hand, 18% of them tested the candidates with the view of up-skilling them as and when necessary. In this case, cognitive ability and learning agility formed the basis for evaluation.

The report also uncovers that over 85% of the respondents had a tech competency framework in place for conducting a structured tech recruitment process. As opposed to their peers who followed traditional, and lengthier, hiring process, those who used ATS and AI tools registered 69% of success rate. Tech-driven tools also helped them reduce the time-to-hire by almost a week.  

The businesses that used a combination of MCQs and coding simulators were able to effectively assess the knowledge as well as the skillset of tech candidates. This methodology yielded a 63% success rate while the use of only interviews resulted in a 52% success rate.

Some of the best practices adopted by the surveyee organizations include: assessment methods including competency framework-based recruiting, hackathons for sourcing, application tracking systems for pre-screening, skill and personality assessment for screening, and virtual video interviews for selection. These made all the stages of the hiring process more agile, intelligent, and productive.