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How to find 14 IT employees in 1 month on your own

Today I want to share the experience of extreme employee hiring: how to find 14 IT employees in 1 month, taking into account rather strict restrictions.

Prerequisites:

  • It is planned in three months to begin commercial operation of a complex of new information systems (ERP, WMS, TMS) at a site where there is no IT support.
  • In connection with a complex of factors, it was decided that the first and second support lines will be provided by internal IT forces.
  • There is a month and a half before the start of training - and the task is set to find 14 employees (4 on the first line, 5 on the second line, 5 additional developers) in a month, so that the employees have time to undergo training and become part of a single IT team by launch.

Limitations:

  • Use external recruiting companies and explicitly publish on professional portals that we are not looking for employees.
  • We are looking for local specialists, which in the conditions of a search city (a small single-industry town) creates a certain specificity: IT resources are few. Many people leave for larger cities, where the conditions for work and development are much better.
  • Employees are needed not only knowing IT, but also willing to grow, fit into our team atmosphere of controlled madness, and understand the importance of IT in the overall business. We need adequate people.
  • There are no resources to conduct a professional interview with each potential candidate.

The main approach:

  • Monitoring of major job search sites.
  • Based on the resume, an invitation to a general interview (the goal is to recruit a group of 7-12 people).
  • Passing two tests (for adequacy and IT adequacy).
  • According to the test results, an invitation to a professional interview.
  • For candidates for the position of the developer, it is mandatory to complete the test task after passing the interview.

Next, I will briefly dwell on the main points of the proposed approach and talk about the results.

The general interview is built in the presentation format, which contains the following main blocks:

  1. A short story about our company: who we are, what we do, why we are looking for people and whom and for what positions we are looking for (4-5 slides).
  2. Mandatory slide on working conditions - what we are ready to give.
  3. Descriptions of who we need from the point of view of the approach to work - what we expect from future employees, on what principles the interaction within IT is based, what personal qualities are welcome, etc. All that helps to understand whether an employee can fit into our team.
  4. Session of questions of answers.

Some more important not obvious moments of the general presentation:

  • The format of the first interview in the form of a presentation is completely non-standard and in fact is the first selection barrier. If a person is not ready for a non-standard approach, we are immediately off the road.
  • Talking about us, I always offered to take our business cards and tell my friends about us, that we are looking for people. The more people find out about us and want to come to us themselves, the more we will simplify the task of finding the necessary employees.

After the first general presentation (when only about 50% of people came), we began to remind potential candidates on the day of the general presentation via SMS or mail about the date / time / place of the event. As a result, according to the results of the entire company, the number of candidates who have reached us is 80%.

After the presentation, everyone who wishes to continue will be given two tests: for adequacy and for IT adequacy. The general adequacy test contains questions that need to be answered unequivocally and immediately allows you to understand how a person suits us. If the candidate does not know the key moments in the life of the country in which he plans to work, and in the IT sphere, then he will not be able to fit into our team, grow personally and contribute to the growth of the team. Examples of these issues: the years of World War II, the author of the novel "War and Peace", the year of the first manned space flight, what is famous for Steve Jobs / Bill Gates, etc.

The IT adequacy test contains open questions, which are expected to be more detailed answer (2-3 sentences). The main tasks are to understand how much the candidate is ready to work in our IT structure, is familiar with the main IT tools and, key, whether he can formulate his thoughts briefly on the one hand, and on the other is understandable. Examples of questions: what does 1 (or the second) support line do, what is SLA, your actions in the event of a technical failure that stops users, etc.

Upon successful completion of the test, the candidate is already invited to a personal interview, where he is asked technical questions regarding the position for which he is applying.

Some statistical information on the results with comments:

  • 229 resumes were analyzed.
  • 116 candidates were invited to a general presentation (50%).
  • 103 (80%).
  • 32 ( , 31%). , – 103 , 32, 71 .
  • 16 (50%), 14 , .
  • , 14 – 4 , 30% ( , ).
  • 10 employees came to work within a month after the start of the project to find people, another 4 employees came to work over the next two months.

I would like to note that 1 year after the arrival of the first new employee, only one of the newly recruited people left the team. The reason was good: health status - could not stand our pace.

The main results of the applied method of searching for adequate people:

  • All work was done on their own, which saved a lot of money on the services of HR agencies.
  • Over a short period of time, I managed to review a large number of candidates, with minimal distraction from internal resources.
  • A very high level of professional interviews (50%) - again, minimizing the distraction of employees for interviews.
  • Stable team: people were ready to work in the environment they were in.

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