NINJA'S NEEDED!! (cue eye roll)

Attention Employers! It's a buyers market. Over the course of the last 18-24 months software engineer Supply / Demand reports are showing approximately three open positions for every one qualified job seeker.

If I told you we were hiring JavaScript Ninjas would you think any less of me? Don't answer that. See, I'm not looking for "Rock Stars," "Warlocks" or a "Code Monkey" either.

Attracting top talent takes more than posting an extensive laundry list of required skills or using clever words and phrases to appear "hip."

What if I told you I simply need a solid client-side developer who can come up with elegant front-end solutions? You'll be given autonomy to make decisions, work with some reasonably talented and friendly human beings, and be treated & compensated fairly. Sound reasonable?

The methods recruiters (both corporate and agency) are using to engage with technical professionals need to change. Job descriptions should be descriptive of the job not a generic list of skills that you won't find combined in one person.

Here's what top talent wants to see in a job description:

• A decent picture of the day-to-day roles and responsibilities. They understand they'll be slinging code and running unit tests. They also understand there likely will be some production babysitting. They're looking for the FUN stuff like researching and deploying new technology along with being an integrated member of the solution development & delivery team. Coding existing technical requirements is part of every software engineer's job, but if that's all they're going to do reference "code monkey" and make sure your day-to-day picture looks like that. (Note: this will likely negatively impact the number of applicants.)
• What kind of people will they be working with on a regular basis? What's the team make-up? Who inside and outside the organization will be influencing and impacting their work on a daily basis? Is there a mentor? Is there someone there TO mentor?
• What the company offers in terms of culture, benefits, and opportunities for growth. Ultimately they want to know why it's a great place to work and what might set you apart from the other two employers who are competing for their services.
• How much money the employer expects to pay for the right person. They'd also like to know the non-monetary reasons to consider the job if the money is on the low side of the scale.
• Some core technical expectations without running down the litany of every piece of technology and third party vendor currently residing in your data center.

What top talent doesn't want to see is qualifications listing "a minimum of five years experience in XYZ" or a demand for "excellent organization, communication, and/or people skills."

They also don't want to see jobs that don't pay a fair market wage. A recent senior .NET developer posting in Kansas City touted "TOP PAY $" yet listed pay range is $25,000less than average compensation level and $35,000 less than what empirical data from a number of reliable sources indicates.

The data tells me the senior .NET developer you are so desperately trying to attract to your team is currently making anywhere from $90k - $120k annually. An advertised $65 - $85k range represents a significant cut in pay which will only attract unqualified applicants or no applicants at all.

PS: I didn't run the numbers on a ninja, but I'm certain that will be higher.

Software professionals are smart buyers so talent acquisition professionals need to be savvy marketers.

PPS: I seriously am hiring a couple solid client-side developers to build elegant front-end solutions who will be given autonomy to make decisions, work with some reasonably talented and friendly human beings, and be treated & compensated fairly.

Should Human Resources be Recruiting?

No doubt you've heard about "The War for Talent." The economy is rebounding and organizations are scrambling to find people to help keep up with a growing business. Some of you reading this may be wondering why these organizations aren't fighting to find you. My answer is simple: they are, they just have broken mechanisms to find you.

In most organizations the responsibility for finding people falls on Human Resources. This is the department that is in charge of ensuring that the company is compliant with federal, state, county, and municipal law; researching, negotiating, and administering increasingly complex benefit programs; developing programs to maximize return on employee investment; making sure employees are properly trained, that leaders are following prescribed procedures for managing & promoting people on their teams, that existing employees are happy, and that no one is being sexually harassed or discriminated against. They make sure the workplace is safe and (while they're at it) they're charged with attracting, screening, vetting, and on-boarding new talent (seeing as how they have so much spare time).

Job seekers generally give HR a bad rap. Some of this reputation is earned - when I see job descriptions that include requirements such as "While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk or hear" it makes me question their understanding of how to attract talent. I'm fairly certain silly requirements like that come from legal, but just as bad is "must have excellent communication skills" which I'm pretty sure was included in a description 20 years ago and the HR team has never bothered to take it out.

The big reason they have a bad rap isn't their fault. People educated and/or trained in Human Resources have a LOT on their plate. Take a look at the required courses for a Masters Degree in HR Management at one of the top schools in the area for HR (Ottawa). One class in recruiting. ONE. It's not a priority. They have too many other pieces of the organizational puzzle to manage to be effective at talent acquisition. 

HR professionals are simply too busy to dedicate 100% of their time to recruiting. Frankly, I'd be shocked if they have 20% of their time available to recruit. They aren't effective recruiters because they simply aren't given the time necessary.

Here's the rub - to say recruiting is a full time job is an understatement. 

Recruiting is the only job I've had where I could work 24x7 and not run out of things to accomplish. Organizations that are effective at talent acquisition usually have two strategies. The most effective is a great referral program. Happy employees make great recruiters. They other strategy is having dedicated Talent Acquisition teams. These may or may not be people trained & educated in Human Resources, but their time is 100% dedicated to recruiting. Without one (or both) of those programs I have to question how much priority the company puts on hiring great people.

If it was up to me, recruiting would be a separate department under sales and marketing. They're already out there promoting the company brand, they know how to get the audience's attention and get them to act. Good customers like your company and trust you enough to earn their business. 

I'm sure some of them would like to be on your team.

Rock Star Ninja Warlock from Mars?

If you read my last post you know the market for top talent is tight.  To attract that talent means I spend a lot of word-smith time authoring job descriptions. Part of the challenge I face as a recruiter is when we get clients asking for resources it can be hard to accurately paint a picture of the job from the description provided.  Maybe I'm wrong, but descriptions like the following are so generic I don't see them as something that will get a top flight software engineer to reach out.

As a Java Developer, you will be enhancing systems created using the following technologies:  J2EE 1.5, Java Server Pages, Java Servlets, Struts, Javascript, HTML and XML.

SKILLS & QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED:

• The ideal candidate must have atleast 3 years’ experience with Java development
• The ideal candidate must be well versed with J2EE, JavaScript and JSP
• The ideal candidate must be well versed with Unit testing.
• The ideal candidate must have experience working within the Oracle or SQL environment

SKILLS & QUALIFICATIONS PREFERRED:

• Experience with JDBC or ODBC
• Experience with UNIX
• Experience with stored procedures, CGI, Access
• Experience with MVC, web services, SOAP, and xml
• Experience using Jbuilder or Eclipse

This was not sent to me by a client, I just pulled this off a job board as an example of what I frequently run across.  Notice the repetitive verbiage and "atleast" typo?  That's how much thought can go into this very important aspect of marketing an organization to potential employees.

I've been authoring and editing job descriptions for years, and am always experimenting with different styles.  Yesterday it seems I crossed the line from informative / creative to lame.  At least that's what I'm starting to sense from the audience I'm trying to reach.

Based on the feedback I've gotten so far, and on some other things I've been reading, this description I wrote is lame.  And that's cool with me - I'd rather make mistakes trying to make something happen than be like everyone else.  After talking to a few people I trust and respect, and going through this thread from a developer forum, I make this solemn pledge - no more job postings for a "Rock Star Ninja Warlock from Mars" (unless I need to hire Charlie Sheen at some point).

Which brings me back to what's important in a job description.  If I was looking for a job I'd want the posting to 'pitch' me a bit.  Give me a little flavor of what I could expect doing the job and what the company thinks is important.  Of course I'd want some qualifications, but if your description leads me to believe you aren't interested in hiring me because I don't have X amount of years of experience, or specific hands-on expertise with some obscure piece of software you happen to be using (even though its EXACTLY like something I use every day) I'm going to be turned off.

So my question to you is what do YOU want to see when you read a job description.  In general, what types of things spark your interest and what turns you off?