Category: IT Recruitment

New to Recruiting Tech Talent Globally? 3 Ways a Local Partner can Help

Going global in hiring tech talent seems more and more not only a viable but also an inevitable option. Let's see what are the key challenges and how a local "friend" could make it easy to overcome them.

The pandemic challenged us to move work online last year fast, with the hope that we will soon return to normal. But then we slowly started to realise that “normal” is just one way we used to do things before and we may never really return to it. Partly because we will not be able to for a bit longer, and partly because it proved surprisingly productive and can also help us tackle the climate crisis.

Today, online work looks to stay with us and be very much part of our long term futures, too, part of a new normal.

The side effects on tech recruitment?

Digital industry going strong: Companies soon realised last year that they needed to speed up digitalisation to accommodate to a new, virtual way of work and living, and also to stay relevant. Investments in European tech grew last year, and together with government intervention to tackle the economic recession helped the industry to further expand.
The tech talent gap narrowing down: Several other industries suffered, and thousands lost their jobs or started to worry about job security. In some countries this led a trend in re-skilling to tech and the narrowing of the tech talent gap narrowed in some countries for the first time in a long time.
Recruitment going global: All those miles and kilometres between companies and work force seem much less relevant than before. Remember, tech is the field where 99% of workers can sit behind their laptops and do their work from anywhere in the world. Or at least from parts of the world in similar time zones. Our new, online way of life just opened us to a new, global tech talent market.

To fuel further digital growth and find the best of the international tech talent, however, you must step out of your comfort zone and focus on 3 key challenges in this new, global playground. We believe that getting help from a great local partner might not just help with these challenges, but in the end make all the difference for you. Let’s see exactly how.

1. Don’t compromise: Find your true fit

"Though helpful, it is not about whether the person was from MIT, Harvard or Google.

The first thing to look out for is a fit. The values of the company and candidate must align.”

[Desmond Lim, CEO and Co-founder, Workstream / recruitment.com]

Once we presented a selection of junior tech developers fitting the requirements of one of our clients. They interviewed each and we were surprised to learn that they did not finally pick the person with the most relevant project experience. We asked our client why. It turned out that the student they picked was an enthusiastic table football player. Our client has football tables in their office and the game is a big deal for them, core part of their culture. They saw a group of similarly skilled engineers, and in the end, this small detail made all the difference for them.

Fit is obviously not just about hobbies. Often it is about values, drive, communication skills, feedback style, attitude to failure, openness to challenges, resilience to stress, a good vibe, and many other soft traits and skills.

But how do you find your true fit outside of your direct network, during some zoom interviews, from another country, probably with subtle cultural differences? This is the first challenge.

What works for our clients from around Europe is to let us use our local presence to hand-pick the best talents for them and offer them a short list of candidates matching their corporate style and culture. This works only because we make sure we get to know each other well in the beginning.

Also, we develop tech professionals that we ourselves would be happy to work with. We make sure to grow and nurture talents to become not only the best digital experts, but also great international team members, too.

2. Don’t lower the bar: Demand quality

“Recruiting tech talent is about finding the right mixture of technical skill and culture fit. Neither can be sacrificed for the other — you really need both.”

[Marc Boscher, Founder & CEO, Unito / recruitment.com]

Sure, fit is must have, but skills and experience are just necessary, too. You need the best competences in place for each specific role and task to get work done fast and in the top quality.

But how do you make sure there is real, practical and relevant craft behind the degree, the confidence and the industry terminology your candidate is flaunting at the interview, when you are out of your own networks, without your usual points of references? When a growing number of non-tech workers are looking to re-skill to tech fast, taking the easy way with short bootcamp courses?

And how will you find knowledgable experts in an international market with experience in your technology, which may be big in your country, but possibly less relevant in others?

First of all, a local “friend” with credentials and a proven track record can help you our here. Obviously no one will know better the quality of local tech resources than a really good local tech talent agency or training partner. You will want to look for one with a transparent, thorough selection process and a tried-and-tested training methodology.

To make sure your demand for specific technologies is also met, sometimes tailor-made trainings are the best and cheapest solution. When looking for a partner, make sure to check flexible curriculum options, too, adjusted to your needs specifically.

In the end, what really takes the pressure off is to have guarantees in place, like flexible trial periods and different sourcing and training options. Hiring is a huge commitment. Make sure you have a chance to try and test candidates first, and make big decisions only later.

3. Don’t lose momentum: Hire fast

“The number one gap I observe in the market between candidates and employers is hiring timeline!”

[Chris Menendez, Lead IT Recruiter, Hays PLC / recruitment.com]

Regardless of wherever you hire from, your deadline remains the same. Digital change is faster than ever and you need the right people to make it happen today – tomorrow is already late.

How do you manage to find and get the best candidate with the right fit and skillset fast enough in a vast global talent market without your well-known channels and processes?

We suggest you look for a partner with a big and active network of quality tech talents readily available and flexible recruitment processes, offering you access to a top talent fast lane. The complete hiring process from our students and graduates normally takes 4 to 7 days for our clients, from briefing though short listing and interviews to sourcing agreement. Why waste time when there are resources available and work to be done?

These are just a few of the challenges that a local digital training and hiring agency can help you out with in global recruitment. Local laws, tax rules, international security regulations and bureaucracy are also so much easier to navigate with the help of a competent, experienced partner with end-to-end service offerings. With all these off your shoulders, global recruitment might not even push you out of your comfort zone in the end.

Codecool has offices and programming schools in Hungary, Poland and Romania currently, and is opening new offices in two further European countries this year. We’re serving 200+ clients all over Europe and our 1000+ graduates work at companies around the world. With our proven training methodology and flexible curriculum, hands-on selection process and pro recruiters we are ready to help you, too, as your local tech talent development and recruitment partner.

Whether you need IT specialists or you are looking for company trainings, you will find the solution with us.

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More Women into Tech!

There are still much fewer women participating in the software development projects of the future than what would be healthier for society. Learn how Codecool strives closing the gender gap in IT.

There are still much fewer women participating in the software development projects of the future than what would be healthier for society.

The IT sector has been struggling with gender diversity problems for a long time, and in spite of the fact that this issue has been discussed more and more often in recent years, no significant change has taken place. In Hungary, the rate of women working in the IT sector is still around 10-15%, which deeply underrepresents society – although by now it has become a fundamental truth that diversity is desirable on the basis of both moral and business considerations.

Technology and diversity

Technology influences all aspects of our lives from healthcare through traffic to personal relationships. Programming has an impact on an increasing proportion of our lives, while only a tiny minority of mankind understands code, algorithms and artificial intelligence. This small group of the population has an enormous responsibility for creating code that take the problems of entire societies and the differences within society into consideration , as well. An unbalanced representation of coders may indeed affect our future!

Most programmers, of course, do not create biased apps deliberately. But our own experience and past inevitably influence us when we make decisions; and such decisions are then integrated into the technology we build. It will form the way we live and might cause significant damage without diversity. For instance, underrepresented social groups may be put at disadvantage – including the social group of women.

But the lack of diversity raises not only ethical questions. It may significantly affect business results and innovation capability, as well.

“Several studies and our partners’ experience also prove that more diversified management teams are more likely to have higher profitability than companies run by homogenous C-level managers. The teams within Codecool also operate by putting this principle into practice: the proportion of our female managers is 50%. More diversified teams bring new points of view to the discussion and come up with alternative solutions that could not necessarily have been developed by a more homogenous group. The multilayered approach and the ability to solve problems more successfully contribute directly to better business performance at the end. We strive to provide our corporate partners with a more colourful and versatile coder and tech talent base in the well-known Codecool quality, so that they could benefit from the advantages of diversity, too,“ said Lea Kalocsai, Head of Sales at a leading Hungarian programming school Codecool.

Education is the key

There will be more female programmers only if more women are trained. However, in Hungary the rate of female students in IT training is only 10-15% today. This ratio is in line with the also ver low rate of women working in IT, and is still far from the 30% threshold, above which minorities do not feel disadvantaged.

There are still several stereotypes associated with coding. People tend to visualise coders as men wearing glasses and sitting in a dark room all day long. It’s a long process to change an image like this, and besides IT companies, educational institutions must also take an active part in changing this mindset.

“Codecool would like to make girls and women be aware of the fact that they are welcome in technological, digital and programmer training and career paths. As an open-minded, transparent company, we strive to get rid of the stereotypes connected to technology, programming and managerial roles in Central and Eastern Europe. One of our main objectives is to continue increasing the 20% rate of our female students – which otherwise even now exceeds the local averages in this sector – and to help a generation of much more diversified professionals and start-ups to start and develop their careers,“ says Codecool’s Head of Marketing, Anna Ferenczy.

From the economic performance’s point of view, it is crucial to have more and more coders in Hungary. Similarly to international trends, the number of IT graduates is less than the vacant positions in Hungary, too. There are about 22-22.5 thousand IT positions to be filled in the labour market, currently. From the aspect of companies’ competitveness and the establishment of social equality, it is essential to fill many of them by women in the future.

For more inspiration take a look at our blog post on Forbes’ ’30 Successfull Coder Women under 30’ list, and meet 11 super talented female coders who studied at Codecool.

This article was published on forbes.hu on 7 December 2020.,

„The old models are crumbling down” – we attended HR Fest 2020

The big yearly HR Fest conference in Hungary was last week, fully online for the first time ever. We were there, too, Codecool’s Head of Sales, Lea Kalocsai hosted the ToborZóna (RecruitZone) session room. One of our favourite events every year, touching also on subjects that matter for us most: training and sourcing of talents. In our case, tech talents, even with no IT background whatsoever.

After looking at the programme, we panicked. So. Many. Options. A main stage and 5 to 6 session rooms running in parallel. How will we ever not miss at least the most exciting stories and presenters?

Obviously, we had to prioritise and choose. And we did just that. Still we ended up with running from session to session, and finally enough inspiration and ideas to think about for at least another week.

So, we decided not to try dumping all of our insights summarised in one overview piece for you, as we wanted. Instead, we picked one of our favourite presentations that especially spoke to us, for a little dive-in.

Steve Rader was one of the big stars of the event this year and for a reason. Being with NASA for more than 30 years, currently Deputy Director for the Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation – his titles sounds quite impressive already.

If you listened to him at HR Fest Online in May, you also know that he is a passionate advocate of an open-talent world and crowd-sourcing innovation. These are concepts worth their own blog posts, so we would not go in detail about those at this time.

In his presentation at HR Fest 2020 Steve raised 3 specific ideas that especially resonated with us. We thought you might find them inspiring, too.

Idea #1: Innovation is no longer an option, but still a challenge

Sounds like a cliché already? That’s totally right. But it’s a cliché many keep repeating and few take seriously yet.

Steve says innovation is not about getting ahead in the race. It’s not some icing on the cake, some pet project to attend to when you have the time. Today you have to innovate just to keep up with everybody else. To remain competitive and relevant. It’s that black-and-white.

Digital innovation is faster and faster and is happening across domains. Just look at 3D printing used in prosthetics, mechanics, fashion or the food industry. Or machine vision used for picking produce in farming, for calibration in mechanics or for safety in autonomous vehicles.

Therefore, he suggests, your innovation problems may only be solved by innovation from out of your domain. You should employ brains coming from different domains (crowdsource innovation), and you should be able to come up with the right questions for others to solve.

Idea #2: Learn tech – even if it’s not your focus

From Steve’s line of thought at least 2 reasons can be derived about why it is wise to study technology.

One, for innovation leaders: because you need to at least “speak a little bit of tech” even to raise the right questions. If you are not the person working on solutions, you are probably one of those defining the problem and putting the questions. If you try to do that without understanding technology, that is, the means of the solution to at least some extent, you will not get very far in the process.

Two, for innovators: because they need to have the overview, the tools and the mindset at hand to help solving today’s problems. Knowing tech is not just about knowing code. It’s so much more. It’s about understanding systems, logic patterns, how to connect dots, how to fail early and how to keep learning new things.

Idea #3: Outsource selection and training – make your life easier

In Steve’s experience, efficient innovators or problem solvers have to learn in 60% of their time and work on problems in only 40%. But then in this 40% they will probably deliver as much as six times more value than without all that time spent on learning. Because learning boosts effectiveness via increasing skillset, creativity and motivation at the same time.

He believes in life-long learning and looking at learning as if it was part of your job. The right approach, he says, is „life-long learning built into and agile workforce that can actually adapt to the changing market place and the changing way of work.”

To achieve this, Steve suggests that companies should outsource selection, pre-onboarding and upskilling of the work force to release the growing pressure on HR. Centralised hubs partnering up with companies focused on solving challenges could do these much more efficiently, in his view. They are already up-to-date with all the skills required for the fast changing challenges, and they are not pressured by the business challenges on their shoulders.

These three ideas confirm our belief that we are doing something really good at Codecool. Helping companies by training and sourcing their digital talents. Supporting life-long learning of future-proof skills. Enabling digitalisation.

They also project an exciting, and probably very close future for all of us. Open-talent platforms. Crowd-sourced innovation. More freelancers than employees by 2027 on a global scale. New HR models and new company structures. „Passionate crowds, voluntarily joining to create and find out and contribute to solving challenges.”

All-in-all, really truly exciting changes.

We are ready for them.

Are you?

Whether you need IT specialists or you are looking for company trainings, you will find the solution with us.

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