Tech Staffing & Hiring

September Jobs Report: Strong Hiring Defies Economic Challenges

October 6, 2023 by INNOVA People Leave a Comment

In a surprising turn of events, job growth in September exceeded expectations, signaling the resilience of the U.S. economy in the face of rising interest rates. According to the most recent employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, payroll employment surged by 336,000 during the month, surpassing the Dow Jones consensus estimate of 170,000 and exceeding the previous month’s figures by over 100,000. Simultaneously, the unemployment rate held steady at 3.8 percent, in contrast to the projected 3.7%.

This payroll increase marked the most robust monthly performance since January. However, wage growth proved to be more modest than anticipated, with average hourly earnings rising by 0.2% for the month and 4.2% year-on-year, falling slightly short of estimates of 0.3% and 4.3%, respectively.

Regarding industry sectors, leisure and hospitality led the charge by adding 96,000 new jobs. Other notable gainers included the government sector (73,000 jobs), healthcare (41,000 jobs), and professional, scientific, and technical services (29,000 jobs). Conversely, motion picture and sound recording positions decreased by 5,000, reflecting a 45,000-job decline since May due to labor disputes in Hollywood.

The service-related industries played a significant role in the overall job growth, contributing 234,000 jobs, while goods-producing industries added 29,000 jobs. Average hourly earnings within the leisure and hospitality sector remained unchanged for the month but showed a robust increase of 4.7% compared to the previous year.

The private sector outperformed earlier predictions, with an impressive gain of 263,000 jobs, far exceeding the earlier estimate of just 89,000.

The September employment report underscores the positive momentum in the United States job market, with notable growth in the leisure, hospitality, government, and healthcare sectors. This resilience in employment numbers is particularly noteworthy in light of ongoing economic challenges. Although slightly below expectations, wage growth continues to exhibit positive trends in average hourly earnings.

10 Steps to Hiring the Best Candidate for Your Team

October 6, 2023 by INNOVA People Leave a Comment

Hiring the best candidate for your team is crucial for the success and growth of your organization. The process of finding the right fit can be challenging, but with a well-structured strategy, you can significantly increase your chances of making a successful hire.

1. Define the Job Role Clearly

The first step in the hiring process is creating a clear, candidate-focused job description. Outline the responsibilities, qualifications, and expectations for the role. Be specific about the skills and experience required, as well as the cultural fit and values that are important for your organization.

2. Use a Recruiting Firm

Don’t limit your search to a single job board or your internal recruiting team. Use multiple sourcing channels, including recruiting firms specializing in the roles. Our AI platform sources highly qualified, diverse talent faster and more accurately because of our vast experience and deep tech stack. Partnering with a firm like INNOVA People allows you to cast a wider net and reach a diverse pool of candidates.

3. Screen Resumes and Applications

If using a recruiting firm, we only bring you the most qualified candidates, so you don’t have to screen countless resumes. Review resumes and applications carefully to identify candidates who meet the basic qualifications outlined in your job description. Look for relevant experience, skills, and a demonstrated interest in the position.

4. Assess Cultural Fit

During the interview process, assessing cultural fit is as important as evaluating skills and experience. Consider the values, beliefs, and work ethic that are important to your organization, and ask questions that help you gauge whether the candidate aligns with your company culture.

5. Test Technical Skills

For roles that require specific technical skills, consider using skills assessments or practical tests to evaluate a candidate’s proficiency. This step can help you identify candidates with the hands-on experience needed for the job.

6. Check References

Contact the candidate’s references to gather insights about their past performance, work ethic, and interpersonal skills. This step can help you verify the candidate’s information and better understand their potential fit within your organization.

7. Evaluate Soft Skills

Soft skills like communication, teamwork, and problem-solving are often just as essential as technical skills. Pay attention to how candidates interact during interviews and their ability to adapt to different situations.

8. Consider Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity and inclusion are essential for building a solid and innovative team. Make a conscious effort to consider candidates from diverse backgrounds and create an inclusive hiring process that minimizes bias.

9. Make a Data-Driven Decision

Compile all the information you’ve gathered about each candidate and make a data-driven decision. Consider the candidate’s qualifications, interview performance, cultural fit, and feedback from references and assessments.

10. Let INNOVA People do all the heavy lifting

We also consider the seniority of the position and candidates’ skills that aren’t evident from their CVs. As a people-first company, we know how to connect to candidates, screen them, and only present top talent.

11. Onboarding and Support

Find hiring tools that meet your needs; once you’ve successfully found and placed talent within your organization, the recruitment process isn’t quite finished. An effective onboarding strategy and ongoing support can improve employee retention and reduce the costs of needing to hire again in the future.

Hiring the best candidate is a critical task requiring careful planning and a systematic approach. Don’t be afraid to hire a recruiting firm specializing in the role you’re trying to fill. Remember that the hiring process is not just about finding someone with the right skills; it’s about finding the right fit for your team and your organization’s long-term success.

Resume Red Flags

September 11, 2023 by INNOVA People Leave a Comment

When reviewing resumes, it’s essential to look for red flags that could indicate issues with a candidate’s qualifications, experience, or fit for the role.

Here are some typical resume red flags to watch out for:

Unexplained Employment Gaps: Frequent or unexplained gaps in a candidate’s employment history might raise questions about their consistency or reliability.
Frequent Job Changes: While job changes are expected, excessive short-term positions could indicate a lack of commitment or difficulty working within teams or organizations.
Lack of Relevant Experience: If a candidate’s experience doesn’t align with the job requirements or is heavily skewed towards unrelated roles, they might not be well-suited for the position.
Inconsistent Dates: Mismatched dates for education, employment, or other sections could indicate inaccuracies or potential dishonesty.
Overemphasis on Soft Skills: While soft skills are important, an overly vague or excessive focus on them might be an attempt to compensate for a lack of relevant technical or job-specific skills.
Exaggerated Responsibilities and Achievements: If a candidate’s accomplishments seem too grandiose or lack context, they could stretch the truth or inflate their contributions.
Lack of Quantifiable Achievements: Vague statements without specific accomplishments or quantifiable results can indicate a lack of impact in previous roles.
Mismatched Job Titles: If a candidate’s job titles don’t align with their level of responsibility or the roles they are applying for, it could be an attempt to appear more qualified.
Unprofessional Email Address: A non-professional or inappropriate email address might indicate a lack of attention to detail or professionalism.
Spelling and Grammar Errors: Multiple errors in spelling and grammar can indicate a lack of attention to detail and communication skills.
Incomplete Information: Missing information or incomplete sections on the resume could suggest laziness or a lack of thoroughness.
Unrelated Hobbies and Interests: While personal interests can provide insight into a candidate’s personality, including irrelevant or controversial hobbies might distract from their professional qualifications.
Lack of Customization: A generic resume not tailored to the specific job or company might indicate a lack of genuine interest or effort that could translate to job performance.
Suspicious References: Listing references that seem too familiar or overly enthusiastic might indicate a lack of objectivity or honesty.
Excessive Personal Information: Personal information such as age, marital status, or a photo isn’t relevant to job qualifications and could lead to biases in the hiring process.
Technology Resumes that List Every Code Language Under the Sun: Software Engineers that display so many technologies that they are supposedly skilled at is a huge red flag. Software Engineers who are truly skilled in a certain tech stack display their tech chops in that tech stack. They don’t need to list every single technology they may have been exposed to in their educational and professional career.
Job Description Resumes: Resumes that just list the job title and then proceed to rattle off the job description of the role that the professional had held can be a yellow flag when looking to hire this person. Resumes should not only be a place where experience, education, and skills are displayed, but most importantly, it is where candidates should list accomplishments. If these are missing, you will want to explore whether they can articulate what they are proud of or what they feel are accomplishments in their past experience.

Sometimes, there might be reasonable explanations for certain discrepancies or issues. If you notice any red flags, consider addressing them during the interview to understand the candidate’s background and qualifications better. Our recruiters can screen for these red flags using our technology, so you’re not wasting time sifting through countless resumes. We only bring you the most qualified candidates to fit your needs.

Five Tools to Improve Productivity

June 13, 2023 by INNOVA People Leave a Comment

If you want to spend less time on daily tasks, we’re bringing you five productivity hacks to help you work smarter and faster.

Stop Over checking your email.

The average professional spends 28% of the workday reading and answering emails. For the average full-time worker in America, that amounts to a staggering 2.6 hours spent and 120 messages received per day.

That’s a lot of time spent in your inbox.

Professionals check their email on average 15 times per day, roughly every 37 minutes. Considering most people do not expect a response within that time frame: Only 11% of customers/clients and 8% of coworkers expect a response in less than an hour. At the same time, about 40% of people expect a response in about an hour. If people checked their email hourly rather than every 37 minutes, they could cut six email checks from their day and save 21 minutes.

Turn off notifications and instead check your email hourly. We know you can do it.

Calendars aren’t just for meetings.

A study out of the University of California Irvine found that employees are interrupted, on average, once every three minutes. After an interruption, it may take people 23 minutes to refocus.

Use your calendar to time block to finish specific projects, work on strategic initiatives, or take a break. Fewer interruptions in your productivity flow can lead to more profound focus work.

Turn on the Do Not Disturb or Focus mode on your phone and laptop to pause notifications.

Consolidate your work apps.

Overwhelmed by the number of apps you have to handle every day? And the number of tabs you have open? Reduce toggling time between apps and bring all your work into one centralized hub. You can also use app integrations to connect all your most-used apps for a seamless workflow like Shift. This small hack will open up more time for essential and deep work and clear your way to productivity land.

Eat breakfast.

We know we aren’t your mom, but research shows skipping breakfast can lead to difficulty concentrating. How are you supposed to be productive if you can’t focus? According to the Harvard Business Review, food, or lack thereof, affects our cognitive performance and decision-making.

“Just about everything we eat is converted by our body into glucose, which provides the energy our brains need to stay alert,” psychologist Ron Friedman said. “When we’re running low on glucose, we have a tough time staying focused, and our attention drifts. This explains why it’s hard to concentrate on an empty stomach.”

Short on time in the morning, plan your meals the night before.

Stop multitasking; it’s a myth.

Our brains aren’t wired to do more than one thing at a time. Even when it feels like you’re getting two tasks done simultaneously, you’re switching between two tasks at lightning speed. This process—called task switching—takes precious brainpower, even if you don’t realize it. Research showed that even these brief mental blocks due to context switching cost as much as 40% of someone’s productive time. Because it takes mental effort to switch between cognitive tasks, multitasking affects your ability to get work done efficiently and effectively.

It’s almost always more efficient to monotask: Focus on one thing and move on when you’re done, so you don’t pay unnecessary switching taxes.

Dice Sentiment Report: Tech Pros Likely to Take Flight

November 22, 2022 by INNOVA People Leave a Comment

Despite concerns of a looming recession, layoffs, and hiring freezes at tech giants like Amazon, Twitter, and Meta, technologists might feel like hunkering down and holding onto their standing desks. But a new report shows tech pros are still open to changing jobs in the next 12 months.

Data released from Dice’s annual Tech Sentiment Report includes sentiment data from 950 technologists and historical trend analysis from previous sentiment and salary reports.

Here are the key takeaways that can help empower your career moves and support company leadership, HR pros, and hiring managers to build their 2023 tech talent acquisition and retention strategies.

More technologists are likely to change employers.

Technology professionals feel confident about their skills and market prospects to consider jumping employees, with 52% of respondents surveyed indicating they’re likely to switch jobs in the next year, up from 44 percent last year. The need for tech talent shows no signs of slowing, and this increase in openness to opportunity means recruiters are more likely to get a response from both active and passive candidates.

Fully remote work remains important to most technology professionals, surpassing interest in a hybrid working model.

Once seen as a temporary solution during the pandemic has remained the preferred work method in the tech world. Dice found that approximately 70% of employers plan for a hybrid future; however, only 30% of technologists prefer hybrid work. 60% of technologists surveyed ranked fully remote work as their most desired workplace setting — up from 53% in 2021. It’s hard to ignore those numbers.

Given the continuing demand for tech skills, technologists may find they have the leverage to negotiate with employers for the flexibility they want, including custom working hours and a fully remote or hybrid working model.

From an organizational standpoint — diving into why they prefer working remotely and what, if anything, would entice them to return to the office a few days a week could help retention before rolling out a return-to-the-office model. Employers will need to get creative on incentives beyond free meals and comfy office furniture to lure workers back to an office environment.

Brand, reputation, and company culture are driving factors in technology professionals’ decisions to join a new employer.

In the age of online conversation, the reputation of individuals and entities has become more critical than ever before. With the tech job market so competitive for companies seeking talent, technologists are becoming more discerning in how they view a company’s culture, reputation, and brand.

Nearly 90% of tech professionals feel an employer’s brand is essential when considering a new employer, and almost 8 in 10 said they would not apply for a higher-paying job at a company with a poor reputation. It will be challenging to attract top tech talent if you’re not investing in your brand and reputation as an employer and ensuring your company culture supports employee morale and creativity.

Time-to-hire could create more opportunities for technologists.

Dice found that most HR professionals surveyed indicated that their times-to-hire had been faster in 2022 than in 2021. That could be due to the need to fill roles, considering nearly 50% of respondents indicated that attrition rates for technology professionals in their organization are higher than in 2021.

That’s increasing pressure to find replacements and accelerating the time needed to fill roles. So technologists need to be ready not only with an updated resume and portfolio but also to consider an offer faster than seen in the past.

Salary and merit increases

Technologists know they are in demand, and they’re learning more skills than ever to increase their value at organizations and maximize their compensation packages.

While the job market for new hires rewards these skills and competes to attract talent, organizations aren’t necessarily keeping pace regarding their current employees’ salaries. In the report, Dice’s research shows that technologists received an average merit increase of only 4.8% this year versus an expected growth of 5.2%.

This salary gap could contribute to the growing openness of changing employers.

If your organization is struggling to keep up with inflation — as most companies are — offer other incentives or compensation like additional paid time off, remote and flexible work options, or training and education opportunities — all of which were ranked as important to tech professionals in the Dice 2022 Tech Salary Report.

Let our talent acquisition professionals help you elevate your career. Work with INNOVA People today.

Interview Process for IT & Tech Jobs 2024

September 29, 2022 by INNOVA People Leave a Comment

There’s a universal truth that resonates with tech job candidates: the process seems to take forever.

Researchers from LinkedIn’s Economic Graph team found that tech jobs top the list in hiring time. Engineering positions take an average of 49 days for candidates to submit their job applications and start their first day on the job. Technical positions in research, finance, and information technology (IT) follow closely behind, taking 48, 46, and 44 days on average to fill.

But why?

Regardless of how critical they need to be filled, some tech jobs can require rigorous requirements. Companies are willing to wait for the right candidate and move them through an exhaustive hiring process to find the right fit. As employers widen their talent pool to recruit more women and people of color, it can also lead to a longer hiring time.

Understanding how tech job hiring works can help curb frustration during the (sometimes lengthy) process.

The Hiring Process in Tech

The Phone Screen

Some sought-after tech jobs can attract hundreds of applications. Even if only half of those are qualified by meeting the basic requirements, hiring managers still have to screen them, which takes time.

The phone screen is the first step in the hiring funnel. This stage consists of an informal phone call with a company representative that can take 15 to 30 minutes. They want to determine if the candidate has the right skills, gauge interest level, and look for any red flags.

Work with a recruiter like Innova People, who can submit your resume to increase your chances of getting to this stage.

Technical Testing & Screening

Once you pass the phone screen, you are rewarded with, guess what, another phone call! Bonus!

This call is, however, more of a technical call. When you said that you knew Python, hiring managers were willing to take you at your word during the first phone screen. But now, your skills will be put to a basic skill test.

Typically, the technical call is more of a technical screen and can take 30 to 60 minutes, so be prepared. You may be asked to work through several coding exercises, asked how you’d analyze a batch of scientific data, or asked to design an experiment.

Your Innova Recruiter can help prepare you for the types of questions you may face so you can feel confident heading into this stage.

Interview(s)

Congrats on making it to the interview stage! In this third and final interview stage, you’ll be invited on-site and spend most of the day conducting in-person interviews with various other company members.

The potential employer will take care of your travel needs if travel is required.

This stage is the most involved and usually is at the end of the hiring pipeline. While on-site, look to understand the work environment and the employees’ happiness. Remember, you are interviewing the employer as much as you are being interviewed.

Hiring managers will then contact your recruiter to check on your references, so make sure your references are current and are aware of your interest in the position. The last thing you want is a reference to be caught off-guard when contacting you looking for a new role.

Make the Offer for the Right Candidate

Once the hiring manager and recruiter discuss the results of the reference checks, an offer letter will be drafted and shared with you! Candidates not selected will be notified by email or phone.

Each stage of the tech job hiring process can take weeks. Be patient and check in with your Innova Recruiter for updates and feedback as you work towards a great offer.

Time to hire – How long is the tech Interview process?

Some tech jobs’ myriad technical and program-specific requirements can increase the hiring time. In addition, the hiring process for government and government contractors often moves more slowly.

Requirements and corporate inertia aside, multiple people often have to sign off on a candidate’s progress in the hiring process. Those people often have other demands on their time, meaning they can’t always respond as quickly as recruiters and candidates would like.

How To Interview Remotely

Most job interviews, especially in the early stages, are handled remotely. These discussions can have multiple queries, so be prepared: you could jump from technical talk in one interview to fielding questions from an HR representative about how you may fit culturally.

Review the application materials before sitting down for the interview and ensure you can articulate everything in your past, including previous jobs, projects, and skills. Practicing in the mirror can help you frame your best responses while monitoring your body language.

Faced with so many required qualifications and customer-specific “wants,” there’s a high likelihood that you won’t know everything that a hiring manager or a potential teammate asks you..and that’s okay! Being open to learning is critical; admitting a shortcoming in your knowledge while expressing interest in learning can score valuable points. Where you lack knowledge or experience, let the team know you are eager to dive into the discipline.