How companies attract the best IT professionals to work - expert answers

Research Kelly Services: if you are completely satisfied with the salary, what are you ready to put up with?

Everyone agrees that only money talented IT professionals can not be lured. Now the level of the majority of employees in this area as a whole is quite high. Some candidates in the pursuit of a really interesting project are ready to sacrifice even personal wealth.

Some market players believe that due to personnel shortages in the IT industry, “poaching” of employees has become an integral part of the hunting process.
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Among the important ways of motivating programmers mention a "warm-up for the mind", contrasting it with routine tasks devoid of creativity.

We talked to employers and asked to share thoughts and secrets of successfully attracting IT specialists.

1. How acceptable is it for companies to entice talents from other organizations? Competing companies?

Pavel Krasavtsev, General Director of iBrush Production Company (3rd place in the outsourcing production / subcontractors rating at Digital from Tagline 2016):

In our web integration market, executives and top managers often have good relationships. If there is such a relationship between the two organizations, then nobody will engage in hunting from each other. This is incorrect, and hardly contributes to the continuation of friendly communication in the industry.

If the organization does not bind anything, then in my opinion, it is quite correct to offer a good developer more comfortable working conditions and the amount of payment. There are not enough good personnel, all the tenders are common, and in the war all methods are good.

Andrei Shakhbazov, former HR director, Oil company, IT company:

The practice of luring is common, especially when there is no personal competence in this area, or they have shown their own incapacity.

Anna Tatyankina, PR & HR Director, JetStyle:

Here, rather, it is important to understand the following: do we have any personal agreements with a company in which we like the developer very much?

If there is, then it is impossible to hunt, and the point. In any business in the long term, to maintain good relations and reputation is better.

Another conversation, if the person himself comes from a company with which there is an unspoken agreement "not to hunt." Then we immediately warn people on the shore that we will discuss the vacancy after:

• clarify whether the manual knows about the intentions of the person to change work;
• let us warn that such and such a specialist turned to us.

This is not the most common practice, but we have such agreements with several major players in the market of Yekaterinburg.

If there are no friendships and agreements, then the question of “to hunt or not to hunt” is not worth it, in fact. Every person has the right to make independent decisions - whether he is interested in job offers, whether he will consider them. You can interest and suggest interesting tasks - suggest.

Alsou Glinskaya, Human Resources Director, ICL Services:

Acceptability cannot be shared, this is what each company decides for itself. For some, "it's just a business," and for another, "responsibility and respect for rights." Both of these visions are unique cultures, unique views that deserve to be recognized, and they will exist regardless of our assessment of their moral qualities.

Anna Ivanova, IT & Telecoms practice consultant for the Hays recruiting company in Russia:

As for the first part of the question, the answer is unequivocal. Of course, it is absolutely acceptable for a company to entice talents from other organizations. Otherwise, where do you get them from? All employers are interested in hiring employees who are still engaged in the corporate environment. This removes the great risk associated with the need to reckon with the opinion of a large number of colleagues and customers within the corporation.

Yes, and the specialist himself will be easier to adapt. He is already accustomed to the working mode, is able to work in a team and represents how roles can be distributed in it. Knows the methodology.

As for luring talent from competing companies, here you need to look at the situation from two sides. What is the motive for choosing such a strategy? Does the company want to get an employee who will bring information about the technologies that a competitor is developing? Or does the company intend to hire someone who understands the specifics of a similar business, knows how to work with similar or the same technologies, knows how software of a particular class is developed?

In the first case, one should remember about business ethics and banal respect for other players in the market. In addition, the race for employees of competing companies always goes in a circle: first, you run after someone else’s specialist, then a competitor runs after yours. And what do we get in the end? We get crazy overstated expectations of potential candidates. Because in such a race, the main motivator for employees will most likely be money.

Of course, there is also the notion of competition, and sometimes very, very tough. But I can say with confidence, focusing on my own practice and the practice of my colleagues, that similar requests have recently been reduced to almost zero. And truly technological companies in modern society, nevertheless, are guided by the level of a person’s skills, and not his experience with a competitor.

Alexander Ustinov, CEO of Digital Agency BeaverBrothers:

We are not hanting people - we do not go and do not offer work in other organizations. I think that these are mainly staffing agencies. It happens differently. Familiar (in our industry all know each other) in communication say that they are already tired of everything and they would like to change jobs.

Alexander Yurov, Deputy General Director of the company Vogsoft:

The situation in the labor market in the field of software development is such that the necessary qualifications are not enough. Therefore - acceptable, of course. They lure us, we lure. Intelligent people are always needed.

Approximately 40% of our team, we "grew up" from the student's bench, when the guys studied at the mathematics department and the faculty of computer science and computing technology in Yaroslavl State University. P. G. Demidov. For talented students you can compete, of course. Therefore, along with other major IT companies in the region (Vogsoft headquarters is based in Yaroslavl), we hold contests for students, participate in joint events, invite for internships — we rather actively participate in their lives.

In general, the Khantym students, starting from the first year, are acting according to the principle: “I take one berry, look at the other, notice the third, and see the fourth.”

2. What is the role of intangible / material motivation in this process?

Pavel Krasavtsev, General Director of iBrush Production Company (3rd place in the outsourcing production / subcontractors rating at Digital from Tagline 2016):

It is considered that among developers (as opposed to managers) the process motivation prevails: interesting projects, comfortable and modern workplace, atmosphere. Money excites everyone, but creators - to a lesser extent. Therefore, in order to attract the best of the best, you need to adhere to the market level of wages and create the most comfortable conditions for working on interesting tasks.

Andrei Shakhbazov, former HR director, Oil company, IT company:

It must be remembered that a person thinks about changing jobs, provided that the proposed package is 30% higher than the current one. But for top management and professionals, the main motivation is still not monetary. In the first place is dissatisfaction with the current leadership, another factor is the complexity or magnitude of the tasks to be solved.

Moreover, if we are talking about specialists in certain industries, the unpleasant news for management is that they are committed to the product, not the company. And during the transition, they first of all assess their prospects for working with the product.

As for the intangible motivation, the candidate primarily assesses how the corporate culture of the company corresponds to its internal values.

Anna Tatyankina, PR & HR Director, JetStyle:

In my experience, when we talk about highly skilled developers, a person is motivated not so much by money (in this case, a person understands how much he is on the market, how much he gets, we always ask about it at interviews and are ready to discuss the amount depending on the level) how many tasks and the ability to apply their skills and experience, the desire to be involved in solving non-standard tasks and other engineering joys on doing something that nobody else has done, build processes, etc.

For more than four years, I have been looking for people for JetStyle and Ridero, and among the things that matter to people, I often hear something like the following:

• tasks that allow you to go to the zone of the nearest development (yes, many call it interesting tasks, but if you look, many want to have something to think about)
• team and atmosphere: in my opinion, when people do a lot and intensively engage in intellectual work, they should definitely be. Firstly, it is comfortable in the place where they are located, and secondly, there must be something that helps to reboot the brains - adequate colleagues with a sense of humor strongly contribute to this.

Money almost never comes first. A person should receive money so that it objectively corresponds to his level, and his head does not hurt about money, because we want the person to solve important tasks for us, and not about the salary. But there are cases when “nuggets” from small companies come to us, who receive money that does not correspond to their level, then we are surprised, rejoice and offer our amount.

Alsou Glinskaya, Human Resources Director, ICL Services:

It is quite difficult to lure an employee with money alone. Of course, almost everyone agrees to go for a hundred thousand million, but in reality it is extremely rare for the “indecent purchase money” strategy to be applied. Usually a certain amount of interest is added (depending on the industry and the rarity of the talents of the specialist sought), and this is taken into account.

But despite the cynical “tapkokakidatelstu”, I am sure that the good old non-financial motivation is as important as anything else in this matter. The employee involved, and this is the one who has accumulated a positive experience of relationship with his employer, doing what he is interested in, receiving recognition at the moment and linking his future with this company. The employee involved will not leave. And he is not some, I'm sorry, ram, so that he was taken away.

But if the employee is already internally fired, then, alas, he will leave. And in this case it will be better.

If you suspect hunting of your employees, immediately check how much you are working with their involvement and, if it is not too late, immediately start correcting mistakes. This should be done not by cunning methods or an attempt to negotiate with a competitor, but by open conversation with an employee. We urgently need to understand why he is considering the possibility of leaving and what can be done right now to prevent this from happening.

There is often a question of money. And the leaders in every possible way avoid talking because of this slippery moment to discuss. Just evaluate whether you are paying an employee whose care will be very sensitive to you, according to today's market. And then - either we save and look for cheaper employees, or agree on an acceptable option.

Anna Ivanova, IT & Telecoms practice consultant for the Hays recruiting company in Russia:

Here it is important to emphasize once again that, despite the fact that we all, of course, work primarily for money, recently when changing jobs, candidates are guided by some combination of factors of material and non-material motivation.
The standard of living within companies that respect their employees, especially from the IT industry, has been very high lately. And few of the modern developers at the interview asks only about the level of wages.

The presence or absence of additional benefits, such as medical insurance (including family members), the ability to work remotely or flexible working hours has become important for everyone. The presence in the office of recreation rooms, a gym, kitchens. The ability to receive additional compensation in the case of vacation or sick leave. Various “buns” (here the flight of fantasy is limitless: from freshly squeezed juices and fruits to beer parties on Fridays).

And, of course, the more interesting a candidate is (his expertise or experience from competitors), the greater the combination of these factors will have to be offered to the company.

Alexander Ustinov, CEO of Digital Agency BeaverBrothers:

If the company has a very strong idea - a new product, cool technology, an amazing work culture, then all this helps to move away from money. It happens that a person can be attracted by career growth. If not, then only money. There are few good people, they understand this and want to get a decent salary. Sometimes it is important for people to have health insurance, but this is not a trend.

Alexander Yurov, Deputy General Director of the company Vogsoft:

50 to 50%. When there is very high competition, you have to use all possible methods. It is clear that comfortable working conditions, including the team, the atmosphere, additional activities are very important, especially in IT. We strive to create conditions that would help our employees to realize their high potential and develop.

The organizational structure of our company (we have it “flat”) and the whole range of opportunities for professional development and training are also focused on this. This includes work in innovative software development projects for clients in 12 countries of the world, internal seminars, a library with the best professional literature in the specialty, hakatons where the most creative ideas are implemented, corporate learning of English and German languages ​​and much more.

Of course, all companies, not only in the IT industry, need to think about attracting talent and create an appropriate atmosphere for this - so that people work with pleasure. Everyone benefits from this.

3. How acceptable is it for companies to impress by playing on the shortcomings of competitors to hire the best employees?

Pavel Krasavtsev, General Director of iBrush Production Company (3rd place in the outsourcing production / subcontractors rating at Digital from Tagline 2016):

In vacancies, I began to frequently meet the line “You’re no surprise anyone with cookies, so we have ... and further enumeration of various kinds of products and buns."

If you play on the shortcomings of colleagues in a comic form, then why not. But, unequivocally, without specifics and specifying specific market players. It is considered that the discussion of colleagues from the negative side always turns negatively.

Andrei Shakhbazov, former HR director, Oil company, IT company:

In an explicit form - meaningless, but unobtrusively - a normal reception.

Anna Tatyankina, PR & HR Director, JetStyle:

And this is beyond the zone of permissible. All have their advantages and disadvantages. At the same time for different people the same things can be both pluses and minuses. About competitors, it seems to me, it is better "either good or nothing." You can discuss the differences by leading the reasoning with the candidate, but precisely from the point of view of “identifying differences”, so that the person has the most adequate idea of ​​how things work (well, if you yourself understand well what is different from your competitors)

Alsou Glinskaya, Human Resources Director, ICL Services:

Again, I do not consider the question of acceptability as having the only correct answer. If the goal is to win at any cost, then all means are good. For our company - it is not.

Anna Ivanova, IT & Telecoms practice consultant for the Hays recruiting company in Russia:

Here we return to everything that was said in the answer to the first question. Namely, about ethics, morality and, in the end, the banal “if I speak badly about some company, then it can also behave in relation to my employer”.

Alexander Ustinov, CEO of Digital Agency BeaverBrothers:

It is better to make an impression when telling about yourself, about your advantages, about your work culture, about projects. A clever man himself will make conclusions. The applicant will see that the employer is trying to defame competitors and this will only alienate him.

Alexander Yurov, Deputy General Director of the company Vogsoft:

On the one hand, I do not see anything bad in it ... But it is more interesting for us to talk about the advantages of our company, and even more interesting when those whom the candidates know about our “dignity” tell us.

4. How common is the practice of tackling talented engineers with the help of friends and relatives?

Pavel Krasavtsev, General Director of iBrush Production Company (3rd place in the outsourcing production / subcontractors rating at Digital from Tagline 2016):

We, on the contrary, have a common ideology of not associating with friends, friends of friends, and especially relatives (and their friends). Too many dependencies on personal relationships, which makes it difficult to manage based on actual results and market conditions.

Andrei Shakhbazov, former HR director, Oil company, IT company:

The practice of hunting with the help of friends and relatives is standard, moreover, in many companies they even pay extra for the listed candidates who came to work and passed the probationary period. And the amount of surcharge is very significant.

Anna Tatyankina, PR & HR Director, JetStyle:

Rather, people come to us on the recommendations of friends, acquaintances and relatives. A completely working strategy is to ask all colleagues, “is there such a specialist among your friends?” It really works. Asking for a repost in social networks is also a guaranteed surge in responses to vacancies. Generally, to create such a personnel brand that is broadcast outward through its own employees is what is important. Then each of your employees works a bit to attract new talented people to the team.

Alsou Glinskaya, Human Resources Director, ICL Services:

Widespread. These are powerful agents of influence.

Anna Ivanova, IT & Telecoms practice consultant for the Hays recruiting company in Russia:

I want to say only "why not?". This is the easiest way. But in no case because such kinship or friendship ties are the only way to become an employee of an attractive company.

This is an indicator that the company values ​​its own time and respects the opinions of its employees. And if I know someone really talented, expert and useful, of course, he should be recommended.

In modern realities, this practice is another, additional way to find great shots. And yes, many use this method on a par with the search for employees through work sites, social resources, recruiting companies.

But it is very, very important that both the company and talented engineers understand that a candidate, regardless of the sources of information about him, goes through exactly the same steps as any other.

From my own experience, I can say that I often hear from our clients that in the final stages of the interview there are several candidates, and one of them came to the company on recommendations. And in three or four cases out of five, the decision is made in favor of other candidates. This, again, is due to the fact that the company evaluates everyone equally and really sees the goal of hiring a quality specialist.

Alexander Ustinov, CEO of Digital Agency BeaverBrothers:

We have had other cases where friends and even relatives recommended our company to people who are looking for a new job. In general, this is a fairly common practice in the market. It is successful because the “applicant” has less rejection of such offers.

Alexander Yurov, Deputy General Director of the company Vogsoft:

It is very common, especially with the use of friendly relations. As a rule, specialists working in the same field are well aware of many “peers” and can give objective recommendations. You simply ask your employee: “Who do you know who would you like to see in the company?”. Some companies motivate their employees financially for attracting valuable personnel. We do not motivate with money that this does not become a purely commercial enterprise. The best motivation is when a person wants to work with the person he wants to invite to the company.

5. How important is the company-employer to be no less “cool” than the talented engineer she is looking for? By what criteria can this be assessed?

Pavel Krasavtsev, General Director of iBrush Production Company (3rd place in the outsourcing production / subcontractors rating at Digital from Tagline 2016):

For "cool" developers, this is unfortunately important. As mentioned above, they are guided by process motives. The key evaluation criterion is the level of projects and tasks.

Young and small teams are often very difficult to attract strong engineers without additional motivation in the form of partnership and distribution of shares in new directions of development.

Andrei Shakhbazov, former HR director, Oil company, IT company:

The “steepness” factor really plays an important role, but one should not forget that there are a lot of people who do not want to work more in “cool” companies with their office rats, but want a warm family atmosphere of small companies. But the brand factor really matters.

Anna Tatyankina, PR & HR Director, JetStyle:

The company must be such that a person wants to work in it. That is, to provide him with tasks corresponding to his level. How to evaluate - look at the work, find out exactly what tasks will fall in the new person, understand what the employer will look at, and whether your vectors are the same in understanding where to go and how to develop. In general, it is very important to find your people as you would find your company. Then the company and the people live together happily and go forward together. On the same wave.

Alsou Glinskaya, Human Resources Director, ICL Services:

Multifaceted. If you look from the side of a star, then the idea of ​​bringing a mega-star to a modest company without extra-mega-super-interesting and breakthrough projects happens to solve a bunch of accumulated problems or as a PR move to attract other specialists. If this can be done, then this, alas, is a dead end and a headache for a long time.

If “coolness” is considered as an expert level, then all that matters is how interesting from your point of view the tasks of your company coincide with the notion of interestingness of the expert involved by you.

In any case, appreciating the existing work, for which you plan to look for talent, you, in addition to the obvious points that can attract the right employee, invest part of the outlook of your company (I mean the corporate culture). It will be visible by what text you describe the vacancy, how you will meet with the candidate, what the current and former employees will say about you. And if your worldviews are close, it means that your criteria for “coolness” coincided.

Anna Ivanova, IT & Telecoms practice consultant for the Hays recruiting company in Russia:

It all depends on what is embedded in the concept of "cool." A fairly popular reason for the refusal of our candidates to continue communicating with the company recently is that the company uses outdated technology. Or the candidate is simply not interested in the project.

The steepness of the company for a truly talented engineer is an opportunity to develop professionally. I can even say in confidence that some of our candidates, in pursuit of a really interesting project, are even ready to sacrifice personal wealth. And there are those who change jobs without any or with a slight increase in compensation, because: a) wants to develop in the direction proposed by the company; b) I intend to pump my skills, working on the technologies on which the company operates.

From the last examples: Java developers planning their development in the direction of Scala, Python - in the direction of Go. Many of those who see their future related to Big Data technologies.
Plus, the social aspect often plays a role here.

For example, take the game industry. Often, companies that make gambling products face the difficulty of positioning themselves in front of candidates. This is largely due to the fact that the gambling industry in society is not a very high opinion. As a non-IT counterpart, you can bring alcohol or tobacco companies. Some potential employees refuse offers from internal beliefs.

Alexander Ustinov, CEO of Digital Agency BeaverBrothers:

I think that it is necessary to separate talent and ambition. There are talented people who do not look at how fashionably the company looks on the market, but look at the internal processes or product on which they will work. Such people need to be attracted by the demonstration of their work culture, the technologies used, product creation plans, and money. In contrast to such people, there are “ambitious” guys. They will always strive to work in famous brands. And you can keep them only with money.

Alexander Yurov, Deputy General Director of the company Vogsoft:

Of course, the capabilities of the employer must match the talent of the specialist. It is important. The criteria in each case will be their own. Most often for the candidate it is: how important, interesting product / products does the company, how interesting are the technologies, how many good reviews about the company among his friends.

If a person can solve complex problems, and he is offered to create websites, then, of course, this will not impress anyone. But it happens quite rarely. The more complex tasks a person is able to solve, the higher the payment is required - a non-cool company simply will not call him to him. But exceptions are possible.

And do not forget that the talented specialist himself contributes to the exit of the company to a higher level. The main criterion for such compliance is to provide a person with opportunities to realize his talent.

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Of course, there are some lessons learned from the findings. For example, we know for sure that in searching for engineers working with rare or completely new technologies, the Amazing Hiring resource is much more efficient than hh.ru. If you are looking for a Product Manager or someone from the e-commerce industry, Facebook will be your great assistant. However, in these cases neither we nor the company that is looking for an employee can afford to “hammer” on other resources.
There are cases when a company publishes a vacancy and out of 20 responses finds the ideal employee.

It happens the other way around. Most recently, we had a case in which we conducted a super-complex search, internal HR and several competing companies worked, and as a result we were “shot” with a HH.ru finalist. Absolutely miraculously, he decided to update his resume in the system.

Alexander Ustinov, CEO of Digital Agency BeaverBrothers:

We do not have such a large permanent job list to build a reliable sample. We use online ads on job portals, write messages in our social networks, we ask friends. It’s not that any channel works better or worse for us. SMM specialist, programmer, illustrator and video designer, we found through ads, and managers and copywriter through Facebook. A front-end and designer came to us through friends.

Alexander Yurov, Deputy General Director of the company Vogsoft:

For us, the main channels for attracting talent are the HH portal, work with students and hunting through friends, including through the teachers of YarSU. Also help social networks. Of course, when mass dialing is necessary, we use all channels. Previously, in the search for talent, competitions that we conducted among students helped a lot. But five years ago, competitions were much more effective than they are now. Apparently, there are too many contests in our industry, we’ve become boring. However, for the time being we do not refuse this instrument and hold such events once a year.

Madina Rodionova, IBS Chief Recruiter:

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Strong, already formed specialists who have not grown up in the company, do not appear from nowhere, they work somewhere, including among competitors. The war for talents is always going on, but aggressively outbidding them from competitors is not a policy that a market leader can afford. We always adhere to honest civilized relations with competitors. If for any reason an employee decides to leave a competitor to us or vice versa, it is always a matter of dialogue with the company.

A good source of attracting people to the company are those who work in it. Our employees very actively recommend friends and relatives for open positions in IBS, as they are already involved in the corporate culture and see the possibility of realizing not only themselves and their goals, but also their friends and relatives.

To entice talents from a small not very well-known company to a leading company is easy only at first glance. Scale and leadership positions are not always decisive. It is important to understand what is the main value for this particular applicant, and if we can give this to a talented candidate, he will definitely become our employee.

It does not matter at all what channels to use, it is important to transmit through these channels information about what the company lives, what goals and values ​​are close to its team, and those who share them will see the dream company in it.

Nikolay Patskov, General Director of the “FreshDoc.ru Document Designer” company:

The Russian IT market continues to grow. It is safe to say that an IT-specialist of almost any profile today can find a decent job for himself. Moreover, in this market personnel shortage significantly exceeds the quality offer. Therefore, the search for a valuable employee is in one way or another connected with the “enticement” of employees - simply due to the fact that 90% of specialists are already employed.

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