We all know that IT professionals’ time costs money and it’s not small money.
If in your programming team there are 12 programmers and each of them earns 30000 per month, the annual cost of this team is 4 320 000 PLN. Whichever way you look at it – that is a lot.
The good news is that your client pays even more, so in the end, it pays off for everyone. The bad news is that those two top programmers who do the recruiting and technical interviews spend several hours a week interviewing mismatched candidates.
The interview itself isn’t everything either – you need to schedule it first, put it on the calendar, prepare for it and finally write down feedback and evaluate the candidate.
Your technical interviewer will probably spend about 3 hours of his time on one interview in total. If the interview is in the morning, when most people are most productive, his most productive time will be spent talking to the wrong candidate. If it is in the middle of the day, he will have to make a buffer of about 30 minutes before and after (coffee, toilet, getting out of the task he was working on), and write down the feedback and send it to the recruiter who deals with given recruitment.
The remedy here is quite simple – plan rigidly 2-3 days a week for 2-3 hour slots, where the programmer will be able to choose them according to his biorhythm – after all, he himself knows when he is most productive. During a conversation with a stranger, there is always some excitement and stimulation – cortisol, adrenaline, that’s why after an intensive call we are tired and after a whole day of calli… everyone has been through it and knows that most people are either unnaturally stimulated or fall down from fatigue.
Let’s compare two cases for an imaginary Tech Lead Marcin, who makes an average of 4 tech calls a week at your company.
In the first case, Marcin sets aside two hours for the recruiter every day except Fridays; in the second case, the recruiter asks Marcin on a regular basis what time he is available for a tech call.
Case 1:
Marcin indicates that he is available for an interview Monday-Thursday from 3-5 pm
Flow:
Marcin shares his calendar with a recruiter who knows to schedule interviews with candidates for 3 or 4 pm Monday through Thursday.
The recruiter can set the candidate up with Marcin right away, at the same time as he talks to him on the phone – he simply puts the meeting on their calendar. In the meeting, he throws in a short note about the candidate and his CV so that Marcin can review and have everything in one place.
The recruiter has prepared a special Google Forms that he shares with Marcin, where Marcin can record relevant information and evaluate the candidate after the interview. The recruiter will see this Form immediately after the interview.
The time from the first screening of a candidate to the receipt of feedback after the technical interview: on average, about 24-48 hours.
Case 2:
Marcin does not have rigidly fixed hours at which he gives technical talks.
Flow:
The recruiter talks to the candidate and decides to set him up with Marcin. He ends the interview and says he will get back to him with the dates via email.
The recruiter writes to Marcin (Marcin does not reply because he is working on a complex task), calls him, and asks about his availability – Marcin gets distracted, opens his calendar and checks his availability, passes it on to the recruiter. Marcin gets distracted, opens his calendar and checks his availability, and passes it on to the recruiter.
The recruiter has a deadline and sends it to the candidate. As 5 pm passes, the recruiter finishes the job.
The next day at 9 am, still no answer, but the recruiter is not a man of his word, so he calls him right away – no answer. He writes a text message. At 12 o’clock the candidate sends back the availability, but he sends only 1 slot – unfortunately Marcin has already taken it.
Eventually, they make an appointment. Marcin has a conversation with the candidate but writes everything down on a piece of paper. He remembers that he has to send feedback to the recruiter, but he has to get back to his tasks, so he will do it first thing tomorrow morning or after daily.
Time from the first screening to receiving feedback after the technical interview: 72-168h
In the first case, everything is organized and Marcin does not spend his most productive time on technical calls. In the second case, he is regularly distracted by your recruiter and the technical interviews interfere heavily with his schedule, making him less effective.
As you can see, bad organization of the recruitment process costs a lot. There is also a second issue, equally important for recruitment.
The lifetime of a good candidate on the market is about 2 weeks. And here we can divide candidates into two groups – those that everyone wants to hire, including decent startups, i.e. a) Technically strong candidates with experience in good companies. Those who spend on average 2 years in one company, and even 3-4 years in the better ones.
b) Jumpers who change companies every few months (usually to get that extra 20 PLN/hour) and within 4 years have worked in 10 different companies.
So-called “jumpers” are automatically rejected by decent companies with their product – recruitment costs money and nobody wants to risk that a candidate will change projects in 5 months’ time because he/she will get 10% more salary.
Looking at the market and the demand for candidates, you really have to make an effort to hire an A candidate and you can’t afford to delay the recruitment process.
In short, good communication and process between the recruiter and the Tech Recruiter mean faster recruiting, saves your professionals time (and your money) and ultimately the ability to poison the best candidates in the market before your competition has time to set them up for a technical interview.
At RemoDevs, we help you plan your recruitment process in a way that makes it faster, and more efficient and saves your staff a ton of time.
Would you like to talk about the recruitment process in your company or do you need advice? Feel free to contact us via our website or directly at lukasz@remodevs.com
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