According to the 2017 SME performance review of the European Comission hungarian small and medium enterprises mentioned following topics as the most pressing issues:
- Availability of skilled staff or experienced managers 27%
- Finding customers 26%
- Cost of production or labour 13%
- Competition 8%
- Access to finance 7%
- Regulation 5%
- Other 13%
Below I will try to describe a number of solutions that can solve those issues.
How to find skilled and motivated staff?
Today one of the biggest obstacle of steady growth for any company is the non-availability of skilled staff. It is not only hard to find motivated employees, it is also difficult to retain them. When the personal network cannot provide new candidates the tech industry can help to overcome the situation.
The personal network
The most obvious first step of the recruitment process is to utilize the personal network. The friends of talented employees often have a similar professional background. It is also likely that good performing colleagues will have friends who also achieve a lot. This will make onboarding and retainment easier.
That is why more and more companies encourage their employees to attract friends and former colleagues to the company.
Professional network, events
Conferences and meetups are great opportunities to make new contacts with similar background. On these events you can meet professionals in a less formal environment. This may provide you an even better insight about the person than an interview. A conference or a meetup is at least as much about learning as it is about networking.
Job portals, social network
Parallel to the search in the personal network companies more and more often post jobs on job portals. The most popular portals like LinkedIn, Profession and Monster offer additional functionalities above job postings like a targeted search in the database. Based on certain conditions companies can reach even professionals who are only passively looking for jobs. This can significantly extend the pool of potential candidates.
Other companies focus on special market segments. Techloop.io for example only targets IT professionals.
At one of my former companies we successfully hired several colleagues via the most popular portal, the formula works indeed.
Company career pages and websites
Company career websites are common for international enterprises. However for SME’s they are only effective if the company has managed to establish a well known brand. The reason is that these pages are mostly visited by applicants who specifically aim to work at the given company. You should also consider that those pages needs to be regularly updated. An outdated career page gives a bad impression about the company, this is probably not the way you want to stand out from the competition.
Internship, dual study
Many enterprises try to find young talents already during their studies. An internship or participation in a dual study program is an early bird opportunity to find talented candidates.
Participants will have tangible benefits compared to their fellow students outside these programs. On one hand they will have several years of experience at the end of the studies on the other hand the employer will have a lot of insight about their performance.
Recruitment firms
If you cannot manage it alone it’s time to contact a recruiting firm. Based on their experience and network they often find suitable candidates faster then most companies. Especially if a company doesn’t have a dedicated recruiter the search has to be carried out on top of the daily activities. This will be far less effective than if somebody would do it in full time.
How to attract candidates?
Currently there is an excess demand on the labour market therefore it is not enough to just find a candidate. Companies must also focus on becoming attractive for future employees.
Web appeal
After learning about a job posting most candidates will check the company website. Based on their first impression the company might become more but also less attractive. An informative and well designed website can be the tipping point in the job search.
Brand image
A respected company will have an easier job to find skilled colleagues. However building a good employer brand requires a different approach then a brand for customers. It will need a conscious process to create an appealing company culture and to present the brand promise on social networks, events etc.
Apps for recruiters
If you hire regularly you will soon start to think about streamlining the recruitment process. Recruitment apps like Workable, Bamboo HR are not widely used in Hungary yet unlike LinkedIn Premium which is quite popular. Nevertheless if the current demand on skilled labour continues, these applications will also see a steep increase in installations.
Is a new hire always the best solution?
More and more companies have to make a compromise as they simply don’t find the right candidate. In many cases it is not even feasible to hire somebody just for one major project for example. Our services help to find a good solution in such situations.
We provide many years of IT leadership experience in the form of flexible services, which would be difficult, time consuming and costly to get otherwise. Next to that our Coaching service supports your employees to become dedicated leaders and it also improves their engagement.
