George Petrache | IT Recruitment Team Lead

??What technologies or trends do you foresee shaping the IT industry in 2024 and how are we preparing to adapt to these changes in our recruitment strategies?

We have supported hiring more than 40 roles since the beginning of the year, and from our internal figures, we generated over 1500 interviews and nearly 1300 submitted applications last year. During the first three months of the year, the projects in demand from our clients come on Java, Cobol, PHP in the development area. We are also working on infrastructure positions (System/Network Engineer) and Database Administration.

For 2024 we can also speak about the AI: with the ongoing advancements in artificial intelligence and automation, we can also see an impact on our activities: get a job with one click. The recruitment platforms offer the possibility to use AI in all kinds of searches. Although we are still filtering a lot of candidates manually, we use prescreening questions that can help us in our repetitive tasks and time management - for example when you are working on 10 different roles, each of it with its own specifications. We do not want to hide the fact that we also receive lots of applications from abroad (mostly in need of full-remote positions), but for the moment our needs focus on hybrid working.

Each team member has proven to match more easily with some roles and technologies and has a good pipeline of candidates; this means that they can easily calibrate the candidates and new roles when there is a ramp up needed in our teams. For example, roles such as cyber security or support analysts were filled in a short period of time because we assigned the recruiters with the best expertise on the matter. This is how we created dedicated teams of professionals for our partners. Last, but not least, a well-made CV, with details about previous experience and technologies, always increases the chances of getting a positive outcome from the recruitment process.

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?? How do you plan to address the growing shortage of skilled IT professionals, particularly in areas such as software development?

For HN Services, #Cobol is not dead- and you all know it ?? In 17 years, we have trained more than 350 young graduates- some of them are still with us, or in key leading positions at our partners.

We continue to train juniors to become those stable and long-lasting dinosaurs that our company still has. Since the beginning of the year, we recruited a group of juniors eager to take on a new adventure alongside us. For two months, they have been learning the COBOL basics, afterwards being ready to start a new project at our clients.

We are happy to contribute to new generations of developers, not only in the Cobol technology, but also in Java, PHP, testing… this is our strong message for addressing the shortage of skilled IT professionals and to an increased demand for seniors and not for young graduates in which is essential to invest as these are the people we are going to work in the future.

Our internal training academy, HN Institute, is open to train juniors at our own costs and is always guaranteed a direct job within the project of our clients.

We also face challenges here, other than technical and logical mindset, there are certain cases where we are demanding from our candidates some language knowledge of French, Spanish, Italian. This is a great opportunity for those who have this linguistic advantage and can get the most out of this skill.

?? In light of the global shift towards remote work, what strategies are you implementing to attract remote talent and ensure effective collaboration within distributed teams?

One of our recent polls, on LinkedIn, about what #programmers appreciate most about their #employers?, revealed that the most valued aspects of an employer revolve around flexible work policies and learning opportunities.

For us, the recruiters, it can also be a barrier – the IT professionals are divided into two groups. There is the first group where we can still observe a high demand from the candidates for fully remote positions; in these cases, we are doing our best to obtain some derogation where possible. For certain, we try to adapt to the needs of our candidates and get the most efficient outcome. We have colleagues from all around the country that have effectively proved to do a great job. But again, this was also possible with help and understanding from our partners.

The second group is formed by those who are not only willing, but they prefer to have close, social interaction with their colleagues. This is why the main work policy that we and our partners are using is hybrid, our colleagues go to the office 1-2 days per week. And this way of working is gaining more popularity by the day.

Speaking of adaptability, one of our bold projects this year is the opening of our second office in Cluj-Napoca. This office will have benefits for talented IT people to access new projects and for us to gain exposure in a brand-new market.

We also started to implement the relocation package - mostly for some positions that are more difficult to close or where we can see that the Romanian market is not at the demand level- here, we reiterate the fact that we are continuing to militate for training these resources to address the shortage of professionals in some areas.

And at the end of the day, it’s about people getting a new job and being happy with their choice.