Although the tech talent market is tight, there are things you can do to make sure you have the best chance of identifying, hiring and retaining the best IT and digital professionals for your organisation. Here are the five that are the most important.

Planning

The first thing you really need to understand is what you’re trying to achieve. Why do you need to hire a development team or other IT professionals? What outcomes are you expecting from implementing this new data science tool? How will you utilise their skill sets whilst keeping them interested and engaged?

Benchmarking

Make sure that you have done PROPER due diligence on the market rate for the skill set you want. Don’t just rely on salary surveys and reports, as these often lump large groups of skills together under titles like “software developer.”

When you have an understanding of what you are looking for, speak to a recruiter or another professional who specialises in that space to understand if this type of profile is readily available in the market and if your benchmarking is accurate. If you are in a hurry to hire, the last thing you need is to spend three months interviewing people with the wrong level before having to relook at your budget. 

Hiring process

Before you start hiring, it is really important to make sure you have clearly defined your process: 

• How many interviews will it take?
• What are the stages? Why do you need these stages?
• Who is involved? What is their role – veto vs opinion; why are they involved?
• Do you have any tests or objective measurements of skill levels? If yes, what value do they add and have you put everyone through them to get a benchmark?
• How long does it take? In a market with a talent shortage, an efficient process is key.

Motivation

If you’re a start-up founder, don’t always expect your tech guru to love your brand as much as you do. It may be irrelevant to them, or they may learn to love it over time. What many technologists really covet is the opportunity to build exactly how and what they want to build. Obviously, it helps if they understand your business model, especially from a front end / design perspective.

Skill set utilisation & planning

Reiterating an earlier point perhaps, but once you’ve built your fancy new platform, or delivered your digital transformation initiative, with stunning new mobile apps, what do you expect your team to do? If they’re not engaged and enjoying their role, please expect to have to replace them sooner rather than later.

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Sam Randall

Associate partner - Technology Practice Head SEA
T: +65 6416 9876 / +65 9182 3621
E: samrandall@pageexecutive.com

Sam is a seasoned recruitment professional in Page Executive for the technology sector, with 10 years of experience covering the IT market in Southeast Asia.