The Zuma Roundtable Summary

Last week we had the opportunity to compare the methods & learnings of some of Berlin's most innovative leaders of Talent & Software Engineering. And here's a summary of the main points discussed....

(?? A huge thanks to our leadership contributors: James Samuel ( Reddit, Inc. ), Ibtehal Hussein ( HelloFresh ), Andreea Lungulescu ( thermondo ), Daniela Strazza ( Reonic ), Rap Paulavicius ( Kittl ), and Roberto Ferraz ( Delivery Hero ).

And here are the highlights... ??♂? ?? ?? ??

Technically Assessments

It’s impossible to accurately measure someone's technical engineering skills by only reviewing a CV. So, what other measures could we take?

• Recognise that there is no single best approach! People perform differently in assessments irrespective of skills, and different companies have varying needs and challenges with their open positions
• Assess communication skills, problem-solving abilities, and passion. Often this is more valuable than only evaluating coding skills. After all, the job of an engineer these days is much more than cutting code for 8 hours a day
• On any type of technical assessment, make the scoring of each step as granular as possible, to make the scoring as objective as possible
• Consider how important communication skills are for your vacancy. Live coding interviews allow evaluation of problem-solving skills and communication but can be stressful for some candidates
• Take-home coding challenges can better reflect real-world work, but risk candidates cheating or not demonstrating true abilities
• Always standardize the interview process with clear candidate evaluation criteria. You’ll help mitigate bias and ensure fairness
• Train your hiring managers regularly on interviewing best practices, and understanding bias

Identifying the Good vs. the Great (Engineers)

This starts with understanding what ‘good’ and ‘great’ actually mean to your team.

• Consider what the real needs are across the team and not the 'nice-to-haves'. Problem-solving, communication skills, and passion are often more important than only technical skills. How about you?
• In your searches, try this 4-point checklist. Identify the best candidates who bring 1) a track record of success, 2) Passion, 3) Collaboration skills, 4) Appetite for Learning
• A great book recommendation is Kim Scott's bestselling book Radical Candor. Scott identifies the two types of high-performing employees: rock stars and superstars
• We even had a Simon Sinek reference, just to drive home a point about performance vs trust! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJdXjtSnZTI?

Optimizing Hiring Pipelines in Aggressive Growth

Some businesses are rising again, and others are growing for the first time! For this, you’ll need to adjust your hiring strategies to attract great candidates en masse.?

• Try running 'hiring sprints' where candidates go through the full interview process in a single day, with the coding challenge completed in advance
• Host hackathons to assess larger pools of candidates at once
• Regularly align with business leadership on hiring targets and timelines. Things can change rapidly and often in times of aggressive growth
• Recognise the need for closer and more frequent coordination between talent acquisition and business leadership. This includes getting regular availability of all interviewers on short notice and generally reducing the number of staff involved in coordination, interviewing, and decision-making

Hiring Mini-Mes vs. Diverse Talent

Another great challenge for businesses!? We all want to build a team that balances the skills and strengths of the existing team, rather than just hiring to our hiring manager's wants. To do this, try:

• Uniformly review the hiring requirements and job descriptions to ensure they are not overly narrow or biased towards a specific profile. We want to open the job up to candidates from diverse backgrounds
• Again, educate your hiring managers on unconscious biases and standardise the interview/feedback process to minimise bias, including defining strict criteria of?what 'good' means for each role
• Utilise interviewers from diverse backgrounds, from across your team, department, and organisation

The Salary Wars in Engineering

Since the post-COVID rush to hire, salaries universally sored and expectations quickly followed. And then the market plummeted, and hiring dramatically slowed down. We then saw an abundance of job seekers, but engineering salary expectations have not adjusted. And this has caused major problems across the tech industry.?

We looked at a few methods we’ve used to address these:

• Consider early-stage salary transparency, to help manage candidate expectations and then provide clarity on compensation ranges. But be sure to emphasize the importance of highlighting the overall employee value proposition beyond just the salary!
• Build a strong technical brand and reputation to attract engineers, even if your company cannot offer the highest salaries. Give technical presentations at conferences and be visible in the tech community to showcase interesting projects
• Advertise both employee impact and growth opportunities to compensate for lower salaries
• Adjust your hiring expectations and potentially hire at more junior levels if the company cannot match the market rate for senior engineers. But, continue to provide great opportunities for growth and learning

Gender Diversity in Tech?

A giant and everpresent topic! We recognised the lack of diversity, especially in tech leadership positions. With a smaller pool of females in computer science/engineering, the challenge is easy for nobody!??

We also identified that we still have a problem with unconscious biases in hiring and promotions. We reviewed some of our methods that successfully addressed these issues:

• Reevaluate the needs of the position versus the wants of the hiring manager (opening the pool of talent)
• Identify and utilise allies of various genders and demographics across the business, at every possible interview opportunity. You’ll get a fairer process and higher engagement from diverse candidates
• Try as much as possible to keep a balance of male and female candidates at each stage (challenging to do, given that there are typically more males applying)
• Recruitment process management - review these. Ensure that the team is working to clean, standardised, and unbiased processes

• Make sure that DEI Metrics sit with Execs / Leadership, and not only in Talent Acquisition
• Educate (annually) hiring managers on unconscious biases
• Standardise the interview/feedback process
• Build a pipeline of female talent through active and targeted sourcing, and reputable and targeted community events (have you heard of Women+ in Data and AI , or Girls in Tech - Germany , for example?)
• Focus on retention and career development specifically for women (mentorship, flexible work, fair promotions)
• Illuminate and highlight the existing representation of women in leadership roles

So many topics to explore, and so little time! For more information and expansion on any of the points above, drop us a message or leave a comment!

Next time on the ZUMA Roundtable Summary, what would you like to learn about? Let us know in the comments below.

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