24 ways to finally find a good specialist

Today I want to talk about one of the most common problems in IT - the lack of qualified specialists. Absolutely everyone is facing it, there are more job vacancies in this area than there are specialists in the market, and the growth rate of demand for specialists is enormous.

We have put a lot of effort into solving this problem on our scale and tried quite a few interesting moves. There is a way out of a difficult situation, because the market works and grows every year. In this article I will discuss 24 methods that helped us solve this important problem for ourselves.

A little background

I personally first encountered this problem in 2005, when I began working in the field of digital technologies. At that time there were so few specialists that they were searched mainly through acquaintances. For all, they hung a single “itishnik” label, which was practically comparable in meaning to the word “genius”. At the same time, the IT specialist could only assemble computers and install software, but even such a person was always in demand. Today, all sorts of specialties, even if related to the Internet, where I work, are a great many.
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In 2005-2007 I worked mainly with freelancers, the team was scattered in 3 countries. In 2007-2008, I worked in a fairly large Ukrainian IT company and we had a team already in Kiev, and since 2008 I have been working in two offices in Kiev and Simferopol, a team in both offices. This is important, because I came to this not by chance, but in an evolutionary way.

As you already understood, I will talk mainly about Internet specialists: managers, web developers, web designers, testers, internet marketers, analysts, and many other specialties and their subspecies.

Market

First, let's look at the market as a whole. There are a lot of specialists today, and since this is IT, they are scattered around the world, and many can work anywhere in the world. The most expensive specialists in the US, UK, Australia and other developed countries. The cheapest - in India, China, Pakistan and other developing countries. If we talk about Russia and Ukraine, then in Russia the salary of itishniks is about 20% higher, and in the whole world we are slightly below the average. In theory, it is most advantageous to look for specialists in countries such as India, because there the cost of specialists is much lower. In practice, there is a language barrier and often poor quality of work, so we always looked for specialists only within the CIS. If you need a first-class team and high quality requirements, you will have to look for people in several cities and countries, there are still very few good specialists.

In the post-Soviet space, more than 95% of specialists are self-taught. Universities do not produce specialists, they give only a useless "crust" of higher education. I know that many people will start fanning holivars right now, but I speak from the perspective of my experience - I saw literally several thousand IT specialists, and not one at the university taught the profession, at best they taught important near-thematic things, such as mathematics and instilled interest to this area, which gave a person an incentive to learn himself. There are also specialized schools, including from large IT companies, but there are very few of them, and they, most often, are taught by entry-level specialists. On the whole, I don’t believe in educational institutions that are divorced from real work, they can only learn theories, and everyone needs practice.

All specialists can be divided into three levels of qualification: Junior, Middle and Senior. Programmers often do this, but in fact nothing prevents them from sharing all specialties for convenience. Good specialists usually have a lot of experience and already work somewhere, they need to be enticed by the best conditions and salaries, they are valuable. It is easier with newbies, there are many of them, but not all of them take them.

You can search through agencies (quickly, but expensive) or directly (slowly, but cheaply). Both methods have advantages and disadvantages, see below.

Due to the lack of specialists, there are no problems with finding a job, the majority have become rather spoiled and demanding, and salaries have swelled. People rarely hold on to their occupied places, with the exception, perhaps, of managers. This raises the bar for the employer.

A brief portrait of the market: there are not enough specialists, they are scattered geographically, they are practically not taught, high-quality specialists need to be poached and even having assembled a team, you also have to put a lot of effort into keeping it.

Where and how to search for specialists?

For 9 years of work, I personally and the companies in which I worked, have tried, probably, with a hundred different ideas and ways. I will tell about the part, I will try in an evolutionary order, starting with the first ideas that I used.

Method number 1. Familiar

Probably, I resort to this method all - to find the necessary expert among friends. In such people usually more confidence, you know something about them in advance, this is a plus. But the minuses are much more:

1. The circle of acquaintances is usually very limited, it is very difficult to find the right person among them, and in fact, it is practically impossible to find a quality specialist with a narrow specialization. This, of course, depends on the seeker, a specialist with extensive experience and a social circle will be appropriate, but, nevertheless, this does not solve the problem.
2. Often, even if the necessary specialist was found among friends, he already works with other friends or at the previous place of work and is not very ethical to poach him.
3. Most likely, the quality level of a specialist will not have to be chosen, it’s impossible to arrange a competition and choose the best, you have found the one you found.
4. Once you can go through the familiar, but if specialists are needed all the time, this resource will quickly exhaust itself.
5. Working with friends is always difficult, they will wait for a special relationship, and this is not always possible and sometimes there is a choice between work and personal relations, what will you choose?

Method number 2. Freelancers

In IT, they tried to work with freelancers, probably everyone. And we are not an exception, we also tried. Now I hate freelancers. If this article is read by freelancers - don't be offended, I was also a freelancer, I hate not people, but the form of work from the point of view of the employer. There are a lot of freelancers, they work remotely, due to such work they live. It would seem that there are some advantages: you can quickly find a good specialist and shift your tasks. In reality, our freelancers are hampered by the mentality. They disappear, do poorly, they do not care about the customer, because tomorrow they will be able to find a new one and in fact do not bear responsibility. At the beginning of my career, I often worked with freelancers, now I work with them extremely rarely and only with those whom I know personally. It is desirable that they are in the same city so that they can be physically found if necessary. And, of course, to work only on a clear TZ and full post payment.

Method number 3. Work Sites

Today, these sites contain a huge number of resumes. In Ukraine you can use: http://www.work.ua/ , http://rabota.ua/ and http://www.jobs.ua/ . In Russia - http://hh.ru/ , http://www.job.ru/ , http://www.superjob.ru/ . There is a specificity here.

Firstly, the number of free vacancies is monthly limited on almost all sites, usually 3 pieces.

Secondly, these sites are usually addressed by people who are looking for work here and now, that is, one-time.

Thirdly, good specialists rarely use specialized sites for work, the work is looking for them.

Fourthly, if you search the resume database, then most often there are resumes of those who cannot find a job for a long time (up to half of all resumes) or who are constantly in a passive search, so they will have to choose the right people from dozens of unnecessary ones.

In all vacancies that the company can post, you need to specify the region. You can search not only in your region, but also in others, especially in neighboring ones. Young people are often willing to move to the region you need, subject to a good salary. In our experience, the search for specialists in other regions is much more time consuming, but it is quite possible. For specialists from other cities, you need to immediately think about moving, renting an apartment, etc., so they will agree more willingly.

In addition to posting resumes and searching the databases of these sites, you can subscribe to new resumes with interesting keywords and in the regions you need, they come daily and you can choose potential candidates every day.

On such sites you can buy additional services: the ability to post more vacancies, highlight your ad, brand it, etc. This helps in both the search and the image of the employer.

If specialists are needed constantly, it is better and to continuously search for them through such sites. But you shouldn’t strongly hope for a large influx of willing, at least high-level specialists.

Method number 4. Thematic Portals

You can look at the problem through the prism of marketing and look for specialists where there is Central Asia. Such places can be professional portals and communities: http://habrahabr.ru/ , http://www.siliconrus.com/ , http://ain.ua/ , http://dou.ua/ and others. Many of them have sections for finding work / employees. You can also track the activity of specialists, for example, who write articles or comments, communicate with interesting ones. In addition to common portals, there are still very narrowly thematic sites and forums on individual technologies (for example, http://pydev.ru/ - the python developers forum), they are not difficult to find through search engines.

Method number 5. Agencies

Large companies often resort to recruitment agencies. It is better to choose agencies with specialization in IT, others will not have enough knowledge to make a preliminary assessment of candidates. Agencies usually have a large base of specialists, but at the same time their services are not cheap, on average, 1 month rate of the required specialist. Through such intermediaries, it is best to look for high-level specialists, especially managers at various levels.

Method number 6. Social networks

First you need to have the official fan pages of the brand in all popular social networks and get as many fans of the brand as possible there. They usually willingly respond to the search for specialists and help the company for free, and among the subscribers themselves there are very likely loyal specialists who are ready to work in this company.

Even in social networks there are thematic groups, both as a whole on work, and on separate specialties (for example, groups on web design). They need to find and post job ads there. On a paid or free basis.

You can work directly with people, seek out people with the necessary interests in the required region and write to them directly.

Separately, you need to pay attention to the professional social network LinkedIn, in which there are a huge number of specialists in the field of IT.

Method number 7. PR on thematic portals

Another good way - PR on itish sites. Each specialization has a number of thematic portals, both narrow subjects, and the general. You can buy there whole articles about the company and vacancies. We used this technique last year as an experiment - in the article we described who we needed and made a small action. After such a PR, we received a total of up to 50 resumes, took a few people and improved our image. A move as a whole can be considered successful, cheaper than looking at agencies. Ideally, the course is implemented immediately on all the major thematic portals at the same time in order to block the information field throughout the country.

It is worth saying that almost all the specialists we needed in the regional office, I think, with large cities, especially Kiev and Moscow, where all regions are striving, this move will be much more successful.

Method number 8. Collaboration with universities

Tried to go to local universities. It turned out that universities, in general, do not care about the employment of their students, the most important thing for them is to take more money from them. Only individual employees of educational institutions may be interested in this, who have not forgotten that their task is to help young people settle down in life. However, if you go to the right teachers or deans, you can agree that those who are especially talented are sent to an internship where necessary. So people for this service, of course, have to pay.

But, even having received such an arrangement, you should not forget that the most intelligent students most often realize themselves as future specialists in junior courses and are transferred to correspondence courses or simply do not go, instead they begin to study and work independently.

You can try to make an additional course with the resources of companies within the framework of the university program, but it will be interesting for an educational institution only if the company’s name is known to everyone and they can be promoted through this. In particular, companies like Microsoft or Cisco often do courses for students.

In general, it is also possible to agree with universities, with a strong desire and take from there young professionals.

Method number 9. Collaboration with specialized schools

In addition to universities, there are special schools and courses. The larger the city, the more such specialized institutions. They, unlike universities, it is important that their students get a job. It is necessary to find all such courses and agree on the selection of the best, and ideally still have an influence on the program, so that the courses prepare specialists for certain specificities.

Method number 10. Training from the company

Many large companies in the conditions of acute shortage of specialists open their specialized schools. This is generally quite a costly undertaking, but it allows you to create a constant stream of talented specialists in the company. It is profitable for such companies to teach up to the Junior level, to employ the most talented people and, under the control of more experienced colleagues, to teach people on real projects. On the whole, it is profitable for them to improve IT culture in the country. Such a move uses, for example, Yandex.

We tried this method, a year ago we held a free course on Python / Django programming. The course itself was conducted traditionally in the regional office, as a platform for experiments. About the course was told in social networks a month before the start, 50 people came to it at once, after the presentation lesson 30 people began to walk in two groups in the evening. About 80% are young people, students who still have wind in their heads. About 10 people attended the course until the end of the course, 3 of whom we hired as interns. As a result, only one survived and now he is working as Junior Python Developer. The method is effective, but long and costly. Significantly faster and cheaper to use the services of the agency.

Method number 11. Internship for students

All Universities are obliged to send their students to practice in profile companies. Since they usually do not think about the employment of their students, and almost do not teach anything, each such practice for them always becomes a serious problem. At this time, they will be happy to receive representatives of the company who will be ready to take students to practice. You can take small groups, add them to experienced specialists, who can throw off some of the elementary routine work and at the same time get to know them, you can also invite the most talented to study with subsequent employment.

Method number 12. contextual advertising

Advertising can not only sell something, but also help in finding employees. Especially good for this contextual advertising. All specialists conduct professional activity every day, and this means that contextual advertising on the necessary keywords will be constantly in their eyes.

Therefore, the principle can use targeted advertising in social networks, where you can specify the region, gender, age and interests. We tried to use similar advertising on VK and Facebook for a regional office, the cost of a click usually ranges between $ 0.5-1, and the targeting turned out to be very narrow. In total, we covered about 10 thousand people and received several hundred transitions to the site in the vacancy section.

Method number 13. Section with vacancies on the site

All self-respecting companies with a staff of more than 5-10 people hold a section with vacancies. He, however, will also be more effective for well-known companies whose sites are popular.

Such sections should include a list of vacancies, regions, contacts of the HR department, special programs for applicants, photos of the office and other useful information.

Method number 14. Personnel reserve

Using a variety of methods to find specialists, it inevitably happens that vacancies in a certain area are closed, but suddenly there is an interesting candidate who could fit in perfectly with the team. For such people, you need to create a special database, personnel reserve and constantly fill it with potential candidates. For many years of work there is a large base of potential candidates who can be invited to work if the vacancy is open again.

We use such a database. We have a common base of all those who once filed a resume and of them are worthy candidates that have priority.When a vacancy is open, we can use this database, and when there are many vacancies, we periodically ring up all the people from the database and are interested in how they are doing. Practice shows that this speeds up the search for the right candidate at times.

In addition, we have a brief mention of the program on the website in the vacancy section, and often we are sent resumes for vacancies that are now closed, but theoretically they can appear in the foreseeable future, people right in the subject line of the letter make a note “in the personnel reserve”.

Method number 15. Pay recommendations

You can pay for the recommendations of experts. Everyone has friends, and if someone can connect such a friend and employer, then why not pay for his efforts? We practice this for employees, everyone who brought his friend to us and we hired him gets 50% of the monthly rate (one time) after the probationary period. I can not say that everyone searches every day, but occasionally someone leads someone, and this generally facilitates the job of finding employees. Somehow we tried to involve strangers in this case. In the PR article I wrote about above, we offered to pay certain amounts for recommendations, but unfortunately this move was not successful: we received two dozen recommendations, but no one not taken.

Method number 16. Jobs with a bare percentage

For some specializations, you can attract specialists not full-time, but for one-time work with a percentage payment, in particular, it concerns the sphere of sales. For developed countries, this is the norm, such people are called free sellers who can work for several companies at once. For the CIS, this usually sounds crazy, but, nevertheless, more and more such people appear. What is good for the company, such people can be taken constantly and the more, the better. It is worth making such programs and continuously recruiting them. However, the idea itself does not solve the personnel problem as a whole, but it can quite close it in terms of sales.

We used this move and use it now. I can not say that it is simple, very few people are interested, mostly familiar friends who trust, so you should not expect a big or quick success. In addition, there are many specifics in our business, you need to be trained for a long time to be able to make sales in such a high-tech field, which means that it will be difficult for young specialists to be involved in the program, they will lose their enthusiasm even before they start selling something, we need experienced ones people, and such, again, a little.

With other specialties, everything is much more complicated, but you can also try.

Method number 17. Contract staff

In recent years, this employee search model has become widespread among small and medium-sized companies. Employees are collected for a project with salaries above the market (often a fixed amount), they conclude a contract, they are in 1 office for the duration of the project, after the project they all say thank you and say goodbye. The employee and the employer take responsibility only for the duration of the project. The model is similar to freelancing, but more controlled by the employer. Here the problem is that, even overpaying, you cannot quickly assemble a good team.

We periodically use such a campaign when we experience temporary overload with work, but we take, basically, only proven people.

Method number 18. Thematic events

In recent years, thematic events, in particular, conferences, where a huge number of specialists gather, are held more often. For large companies looking for talented employees, you can set up a booth to find employees. You can also send someone from the management to make a report, at the end of which you can advertise a little and tell the hall that the company is looking for certain employees.

I myself tried a couple of years ago to use the method at a student IT conference, where I invited representatives of the largest companies in the region to a round table on employment. In general, a number of guys became interested and we even took a couple of people to work after a while. What is good about the conference is its audience: usually active young people go there who are interested in the subject matter of the conference, which means you can find talents.

Method number 19. Base resume and work with her

All applicants with whom the company ever relates should fall into a well-structured database with detailed information about each person. Moreover, not only names and contacts should be stored there, but also full summaries, characteristics, information from recent interviews, etc.

Having such a database, you can join forces with your colleagues in the market, exchange information, and protect yourself from unscrupulous employees.

All people learn and develop, if today a person has nothing but desire, this does not mean that in a year he will remain the same. Maybe in a year he will discover the talents necessary for the company and will be useful. You need to work with the base, periodically ring up the candidates and invite them for an interview at least once every 3-5 years.

We successfully use such a base, although, frankly, it’s not very well structured yet, and we are trying to look for new and new people. However, in the future it will be invaluable information for Eychach work.

Method number 20. Training

In many companies, professional growth is accepted and any specialist wants this. Such things need to be encouraged and then there’s no need to look for people from outside, especially high-level specialists, they can and should be grown within the company, but be joined by newcomers, who can then grow professionally within the company’s walls. This is especially true of managers.

We are trying to do it ourselves: we are looking for a novice specialist, at first he learns and observes more, then begins interning with an experienced employee, gradually improves his professional level and as a result becomes a full-time junior specialist. At the same time, it is still quite strict selection and requirements for starting knowledge, this system is designed to find talents among young people. Sometimes people move from one specialization to another, but this happens very rarely. We also sometimes conduct internal trainings, lectures, write articles, etc. We are planning to build a whole system of continuous education, for which we recently opened our own Digitov Business School ( http://digitov.com/ ), where we will teach both our employees (free of charge) and any others (for a fee).

We generally pay much attention to training, I personally consider it extremely important. We learn both within the company and try to carry knowledge to the market as a whole, even for free.

Method number 21. Opening regional offices

Many have already noticed that almost all large companies have many offices in different cities. This is due precisely to the lack of specialists. By opening a new office, the company gets access to a new market for personnel. Be sure to pay attention to the number of residents in the region, IT penetration, average wages and other important factors.

We also use this concept, now we are opening an office in Lviv. To begin with, several remote employees are hired, then a physical office is opened and its head is appointed, after all as usual. If there is a lot of money, you can start with the head of the office and the room itself with the equipment, but we decided to go an economical way - first several employees, then a physical office, then a head of the office.

Method number 22. Target search

You can search for employees in the ranks of competitors, but I personally find it not very ethical, therefore, as a way worth mentioning, I do not recommend using it, I would not like to go a simple way.

Method number 23. Competition for filling the position

For some specialties, you can hold contests to find the best candidate. For this you need to gather a group of people who want to take a vacant place and arrange a competition between them. So, in particular, often selected sales managers. It will be more difficult with other specialties, because there are not enough specialists, and the more difficult it is to recruit a whole group of people.

Any competition you need to promote. To do this, either there must be a well-known company in which thousands want to work, or you need to invest some money in advertising this competition.

We in 2008 held a similar competition for sales managers. It is this type of specialists that should have certain talents and not so deep knowledge of the subject area as other specialties, therefore the target audience for the competition was quite wide. They gave ads to the sites for work, asked the staff to call their friends, gave a small advertisement and recruited 30 people who wanted, who were invited to the office one day. At first, everyone filled out questionnaires about themselves and their experiences, then one by one called for communication and a test assignment “sell a pen”. A couple of days later, with five finalists, we had a deeper interview and revealed the best. This person as a result showed good results and worked for a long time in the company.

Method number 24. Competition "Who is the best?"

Often, large companies hold contests and competitions in various specialties, in which a huge number of people from all over the country or even several countries take part. Participation is available to all, there is a solid prize fund. These contests are very often nothing more than the search for geniuses. According to the results of the competition, the winners or even the entire top ten are invited to work at the organizing company. The method is similar to the past, only more ambitious and in a different "wrapper".

We did not hold such competitions, but I personally once participated in such. Back in 2006. The competition gives tasks, you do them and send them to the organizers. Then they choose a group of the best specialists, which goes to the next stage. The closer to the final, the more difficult, and the closer the organizing committee gets to know you.

Such competitions are mainly designed for young, active people. They are especially popular in the field of programming.

There are also a number of ineffective methods: placement of vacancies in print media, in an employment center, announcements in public transport, etc. But I do not advise them to use them, usually they do not lead to anything except useless time spent.

Few conclusions

Whatever one may say, there are not enough good IT specialists and there will not be another 10 years at least. However, the problem of shortage by a specialist can be successfully solved, for which there are many different methods.

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Author:
Nikita Semenov ( Facebook , VK , LinkedIn )
CEO
Company «SECL GROUP» / «Internet Sales Technologies»