"We Need World Leading Software Engineers, Find Them!" - How?

My most recent role with the BGLGroup, saw a huge demand for Software Engineers at Comparethemarket.com. But whilst the tech team were using cutting end languages; developing a platform being used by millions of consumers, and winning awards for leading the way with consumer branding, we still struggled to attract what I would call world class Software Engineers/ Developers/ SE's - But the changes we begun to make in the process, will set the foundations to altering this!

Now I'm not going to bore you with the positioning of the lack of talent in the market- we all know this is the case. We all know there are at least 5 open roles per 'employed' developer out there and it's a candidate driven market and I'm not saying I have the solution to the problem, to be fair I think it's a deep rooted social issue- but made some simply changes that will ensure the business understand it is hard, but it isn't impossible! The first thing I realised when joining, was that no matter whether we were looking for one, or one hundred SE's, we needed to change our behaviours as a business as well as a Talent Team in order to hire, especially if we wanted to do so at scale.

Educating the Business on the SE Landscape - Persona Sessions

Engineers are the most in-demand professionals across the Globe right now! So guess what, they don't need to work for you- this was the first educational step which was the hardest.

The statistics that are continually being published, along with the articles you read, make one thing obvious- Great engineers have the luxury of picking which projects they want to join! This presents an opportunity and a challenge, which you need to take the business on the journey of understanding.

The challenge is obvious: competition is fierce. The opportunity, however, is that it provides a blank canvass for you to tell your story. This is were understanding the persona in which you are looking to attract is essential to you doing so successfully.

To have a chance at attracting engineers, you need to know what a typical engineer is looking for, who they are and what they want! - Beyond the money! These are a few things that came out of the initial sessions.

Think Opportunity - SE's need to understand they will be making an impact, they will be developing their career, both skills and finances.

Think Challenge - World class SE's want to be working on difficult problems, problems they can solve, grow from and point to as major achievements in their career (which is a peer to peer sell for you, I'll come back to this later).

Think Community - SE's want to work in a supportive business, a business with a culture that accepts and values their opinions, not just within the team, but wider a field. How often does an SE in your business have access to 'Seniors' to just casually discuss a problem solved, or are they allowed to express an opinion about a product? And is it listened to? Throughout my career, I have spoken with many SE's that would consider a 'pay cut' to work for an awesome company with a fantastic culture and brand.

Is your story one that SE's would want to be apart of?

A lot of the time I see hiring guides and 'crash' course to hiring produced, along the way, not to dissimilar to the journey I'm taking you, we fall down the employer branding rabbit hole. For this I'm simply quoting Greg Brockman, CTO of Stripe, who sums it up best:

“Consider approaching recruiting the way you approach marketing. The end goal of each is to make your company appear more desirable. You have to build a brand.”

There is no denying, Recruitment has become Marketing, and to build your brand, you need to be really methodical about documenting and promoting your company’s 'Why', 'How' and 'What'. Every company generally has a mission statement, most don't promote it, you will have a culture, along side a particular way of doing things- it's these things that make up your story.

Instead of guessing, SE's want to engage with your vision, purpose, culture, and philosophy instantly. This is quintessential brand marketing, by which you can broadcast your values and journey to other like-minded people to get excited around. There are a variety of ways to broadcast this message, from blogs, to video content, infographics, social takeovers, the list goes on. BUT, and this is a big but, without a persona sessions to understand the type of content your SE audience will consume, it's a futile effort to create it.

Please don't stop 'Networking' & 'Sourcing'

The real secret to hiring amazing engineers is to never stop networking! So many businesses create budget for particular projects, hiring pushes, hosting & supporting events, investing in HUGE networking and sourcing efforts, but lack the grit and consistency. This is where the process fails. Recruiting the best, in a full time continuous efforts, which is why I'm the biggest fan of skills alignment specialists. Cultivating communities and having an amazingly knowledgeable sourcer in each specialism, someone who knows the leading SE's at each company from here to the USA and then Asia. This is a continuous effort, please don't make the mistake of throwing money at a project and then walking away from it once you've achieved the quota for the season.

“Most engineering managers are introverted by nature — that’s true of me and most. You just have to embrace it. It’s not about loving to have coffee with 20 people in two weeks. It’s about that amazingly talented person that you’re eventually going to work with.” John Ciancutti, formerly Netflix & Facebook

This doesn’t mean you need to hire 30 new engineers every quarter, that's not what I'm saying, but flexibility and fluidity in your hiring is key, coupled with this as an ability to 'pipeline'. If you have not got a continuous effort, you won't be able to pipeline #FACT be a network marketeer engage with world-class people daily.

It's almost like SE speed-dating in that you’ll spend a lot of time with people you might never take through to interview, but, you’re building relationships with dozens of quality SE's, which will pay off in the future- think about the long term!

The Channels

Most hiring platforms, have a simple offering- You pay for immediate access to top engineers. Just having a profile on these platforms is a positive social signal, but it isn't the gateway to the level of applications or engagement you need to hire. But in the shoes of the SE - it would be odd if the company that has approached you, or you are considering, doesn't have a LinkedIn company page, or a company profile on Stackoverflow...

The main benefits to using platforms/ job boards etc. is the speed and reliability. Sign up, complete your profile, and start engaging on a consistent and continuous basis!

Referrals

This is one of the biggest missing links to most organisations hiring strategy, every knows the company offers a referral fee, an incentive of sort, but how much is this pushed before you go to market? How often does the Talent team engage with the existing SE's and the rest of the business to get their thinking caps on, or has them promote the roles via their social networks? Is there an alternative way you could incentivise teams to do this? I've recently looking at DSMN8 - I'd be interested to hear from anyone who is or has used this.

The key here is the peer to peer sell, the trust in your people's network. Good people, know good people - think about pipelining the way Cadbury's did when they created Bournville.

The only consideration here, is in geographical locations that are difficult to recruit for, you risk homogeneity. If you exclusively hire friends of existing team, it may result in homogeneous and non-diverse teams.

Proactive Hunting

It’s basic recruiting. Look for someone already doing the work you need done, and go get them. Candidate quality is usually stronger, you can recruit someone who is already succeeding in the exact role you need- usually these people are happy, but would move for a stronger story and the ability for more impact. - I recently did!

The main issue with this, is time and skill. You need someone that has a skills specialism, is personable and can sell! The outreach needs to be spot on, it's likely you'll have one attempt and one attempt only to grab their attention. Also SE's are constantly spammed by recruiters who don’t understand the tech they’re recruiting for. Having someone on your team do the recruiting with that knowledge, will differentiate you as a company, but will also cost.

Employer Brand

Building a world-class employer brand to attract world class people is hard! This isn't a side hustle for your coms, marketing or recruitment team - Talent Attraction is a world of it's own! It’s a second brand that is humanised by your consumer brand, but entirely different.

Success here isn't about the number of people hired, or at least it isn't for a minimum of 3 years! Success in this area is the engagement, the evergreen stream of quality, inbound SE leads, request for subscription of your content, the 'Medium Blog' 'Likes' the twitter engagement (not followers). The use of social listening will give you data as to a successful EB, however, without a minimum of 2 years you will drive blind metrics that won't mean anything, because for the first 2/3 years it's intangible.

Reflect the role in the interview

Sending them a test, great idea for you, but poor experience for them. We have already demonstrated that you need to take the candidate on the journey, spending time with them, walking them through the role etc. Why would you then switch them off by sending them an unrelated test? I've never seen a company issue a test that relates to what the SE would be doing in their day to day role.

Align purpose, demonstrate a real customer problem and have them provide the solution. Whether this is an algorithm-driven whiteboard interview, or a peer to peer test as part of the interview, you need to think about whether this is really needed. If it is, then please, ensure it resembles what they will be doing on a day to day basis, think collaboration, think time and most of all, think experience.

You like them? Then offer and do so now!

The biggest asset we managed to secure in my time with BGL was speed. We were fortunate enough to have some advocates, come with us on the journey and realise the importance in turning things around quickly. In a competitive market, this will set you apart from your competitors.

There are simple things you can do here to ensure this happens, a daily scrum with your business to ensure everything has a 24 hour turnaround/ movement. Jatinder Bansal, our London Recruitment Manager was great at setting this expectation and really partnering with the business to push this.

They accepted, but they aren't 100% with you...

Sometimes notice periods can be as long as 3 months. Why not invite them out for team drinks, dinner or bring them in for a team lunch before they start. If you have Slack as a coms tool, could you invite them on that beforehand. It's the small offerings, that make all the difference to ensuring these SE's feel included and apart of the business from the initial contact through to their start date. Please don't rely on HR Admin teams to do this, it means more coming from that person that first approached them, or better still, the person they will report to!

Sourcing to Closing, telling them your story...

If I was to condense this post into one sentence it would be:

The key to hiring world-class engineers is to share your story, and help them see where they fit in it. You’re not just offering them a job, you’re selling them on the next chapter of their life #BeHuman

In summary, there is no simple fix for the bottleneck around engineering talent — it’s supply and demand. But following this blueprint, will enable you to build a pipeline that will connect you as a human to the right engineers for your business.

My journey with BGL was cut short for a global opportunity that came knocking, I hope the early seeds of what I helped to sow aren't forgotten. With so much potential across all the brands, a great team and so much to shout about, I look forward to watching their growth and next chapter.

Have you tried any of these behaviours with your business? What has and hasn't worked for you? I'd love to hear your ideas...