kevin. is a fast-growing mobile payments fin-tech from Lithuania, founded in 2018 by CEO Tadas Tamošiūnas, a serial entrepreneur with over ten years of experience in the banking sector, and COO Pavel Sokolovas, whose background is in business development and consulting.
kevin.’s product, which enables merchants to accept payments directly from bank accounts via an API for services like parking, deliveries, and insurance, is the first time PSD2 has been used to compete with card networks for this type of payment. Currently operating in the Baltics, Poland, the Netherlands and Portugal, the company closed a €1.5 million seed round at the end of 2020 to scale into 15 new European markets this year, bringing its total funding raised to €3.4 million.
Developing an alternative payments network to credit cards offers unique challenges but also a chance to work in a versatile environment with lots of freedom to organise your time. Agnė Meškaitė, Chief People Officer at kevin., offered us a glimpse into their working culture.
INTERVIEW
Some people might be unfamiliar with kevin., as you focus on B2B customers. Please tell us service does kevin. provide exactly? Who are your customers?
kevin. is a payments fintech that provides a secure and developer-friendly payments infrastructure accessible via an API. In layman’s terms, we enable businesses to accept payments directly from banks, cutting out the card networks and making the payments process cheaper, faster, smoother and more convenient.
We are a team of 42 (and growing) passionate people driven by our expertise, ambition, trust and a sense of ownership. Last year, kevin. was named the best fintech in the Baltics at the prestigious Mastercard Lighthouse program, and one of the most promising startups of 2021 by EU-Startups.com.
2020 was a challenging and transformative year for any business. What did you learn as a company during the year?
For us, it happened to be the first year of growth and scaling as we have hired nearly 40 employees since March 2020. Remarkably, nearly all hiring processes were conducted online. The first challenge we faced was onboarding and integrating our newcomers. We developed a detailed onboarding plan, which included people who were responsible for clarifying our business goals, setting values and mindset for our new employees.
At the end of last year, we also welcomed a Community Manager to kevin., who takes care of our internal and external employer branding and communication. This step was crucial because many of our colleagues had never met each other in person during their time in kevin., so the roles and team structure had become unclear. Remote work challenges all HR professionals to be creative and support line managers in engaging their teams and sharing a sense of purpose and value.
kevin. has a somewhat unique working culture with minimal rules concerning working time. Could you tell us about your approach?
Our founders have been very clear from the start that the company’s focus should be on the results, not on hours spent working. We believe that if you hire promising talented people, give them the freedom to think and operate, they deliver the best results on time and find smart ways to overcome the obstacles along the way.
The key to this new way of managing working time is a state called “flow”. We believe that tasks that require a high level of intelligence and creative thinking can only be achieved if the employees are rested, engaged and focused. This is why we do not track hours or have set-in-stone rules regarding working hours. Everyone is free to complete their tasks on their own schedule, as long as deadlines are respected.
Our company is home to creative and bold achievers who want to build a sustainable payments infrastructure. To do so, they need to feel trusted by the founders, but even more importantly, by their peers as well.
“The company’s focus should be on the results, not on hours spent working.”
What reasons led you to make the shift? Was there scientific research behind it?
This mindset mainly came from the previous experience of our C-level team. With support from the founders, we develop company culture based on trust, efficiency and result-orientedness.
The team is everything for our company, so we do our best to help our people do great and feel proud of their work. In an industry like ours, strict working hours do more damage than create value. Thus, we communicate clear expectations and give freedom for everyone to find their own work-life balance.
From the employee’s standpoint, more free time certainly sounds nice. However, there might be concerns: removing organizational norms requires excellent time-management skills from employees, people working at different hours might make the team-work more difficult, etc. How did employees react to the change?
I would not describe this approach as giving more free time to employees, but rather as a benefit of managing your day according to your flow and individual peak productivity hours.
We analyze and evaluate every new hire, position and additional team resources. Based on a robust forecast, we create a plan to efficiently accomplish our goals and meet business targets. We also set clear expectations for each employee and measure their key performance indicators regularly.
Since we are an IT company, scrum and sprints guide us through the process. For example, our meetings focus on solving issues instead of updating and chatting. This is why the enrollment process is critical and boosts different teams to cooperate and contribute to each other’s success. In short, we empower employees to use our work environment to get the most for their professional growth and satisfaction at work.
Although it might be too early for definitive results, could you tell us how the change has worked out so far? Are the employees indeed happier?
Last summer, we asked our employees what they appreciated the most about working at kevin. The answers obviously varied, but the most common notion was a flexible work schedule and the freedom to create and express their opinion. The sense of ownership and the colleagues’ trust boost our employees to execute the boldest ideas and therefore exceed the expectations set by our clients and investors.
More and more companies experiment with remote work, flexible work hours, unlimited vacation time, etc. What would you recommend to companies which are looking to replicate kevin.’s approach?
I would recommend carefully assessing the value of a free working schedule for the company. Everything we do for our people and business aims to increase efficiency, simplify processes, and improve employee engagement. Not all companies, and certainly not all teams can work under such flexible conditions. And there are always certain activities that should be scheduled in advance.
With a mindset toward the ownership of individual tasks should come a certain level of maturity from the team members. Finally, a free working schedule requires explicit internal rules and interpersonal cooperation setup. So, before initiating and implementing this approach, I would think of the purpose and probabilities to make things work better.
On a different subject: what channels/methods does kevin. use to find candidates to hire?
Our best friend is MeetFrank, by all means :). We also use LinkedIn, various local and international job portals and… headhunting.
As kevin. operates in the finance and payment processing industry, you are often competing with established international corporations for employees. What are your secrets for attracting talent from corporates?
The market is oversaturated with great employers and competitive job packages. To the best of my belief, there is no secret ingredient that would work every time.
The common mistake I notice is employers trying to mimic ideas from other successful employers, hoping to get the same results. At kevin., we are very consistent in revealing our unique selling points and thus do not try to fill someone’s shoes. This helps us select the best people that fit our culture and mindset. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be a battle between big old corporations and small restless startups for the same candidates. We know what we can offer our talents, and if it is a match, no unnecessary promises have to be made to attract smart people.
“There is no secret ingredient that would work every time.”
What kind of mindset are you looking for when recruiting new people to kevin.?
That’s a great question! I prefer the right mindset over skills and years of experience. In short, everyone, who prioritizes logical reasoning, possesses grit and excels in their area of expertise, has a great chance to thrive at kevin.
What advice would you give to people looking to get hired in a fast-growing tech company like kevin.?
I would recommend assessing your level of resilience for uncertainty and willingness to work in an agile environment. Also, if you seek to work in a tech company, it is crucial that you are genuinely interested in the product or service the company is developing.
Teltonika IoT Group accelerates the technological progress in Lithuania by developing unique Internet of Things solutions. With the headquarters located in Vilnius, Teltonika IoT Group has local offices spanning from Mexico to Singapore (27 offices in 18 different countries).
If unaware of the term Internet of Things (IoT), you might imagine it as cat 🐱 videos and memes on the Web. Instead, let’s think about wearable health monitors, pet tracking collars, or any other appliances that are connected to the Internet to make our life easier.
Despite the tough competition in the IoT field, the past two years were extraordinary for Teltonika IoT Group, as their workforce grew from 750 employees to 1300. What are the obstacles this growth comes with? How does the company find the top talents and which HR problems they face?
Interview with Julius Svagzdys, Chief Corporate Marketer
Congratulations on the amazing growth! What does this expansion mean to Teltonika?
The people in the Teltonika company group are the most important business asset. And it is not surprising that workforce expansion, first of all, stands for business acceleration.
We are very proud of our HR department team who always seek the maximum result and can find the most talented employees in more than 18 operating countries. For us, this first stage of global expansion means that soon we will be recognized as a worldwide leader in IoT technology development.
Furthermore, we do not intend to stop at this milestone, but we’ll be continuously expanding our team. This is why we have more than 50 open vacancies from engineering to management spheres. It is also a great challenge for our HR development department.
What are the main challenges HR department has to face? How have they tackled the growth problems?
Challenges always come together with problems. It means that when your organization is continuously expanding, it opens more business opportunities, but at the same time it brings more problems related to new talents’ acquisition, training, leadership development, integration into the organizational culture, and much more.
The Teltonika company group is always looking for new methods to attract talents through social media, postings on job boards, special advertising, and even other traditional methods, such as recommendations from our current employees. We even have a dedicated team that is working on talent acquisition campaigns on social media.
Another opportunity vs challenge is employee growth and professional development. In every Teltonika company, we offer constant trainings that will reflect career advancement opportunities in the future. In our case, the organization is expanding very quickly, so it is a big challenge to provide every employee with professional trainings. Today we are proud to say that more than 90 percent of our managers started their vertical career paths inside the company.
From our long-term company experience, I can ensure you that the culture of organization influences the performance of new talents. Today in the Teltonika company group we are working in a mutual trust and respect culture. We are not only investing in new employees’ understanding of our organizational culture processes but also doing our best to show how effective it is. Every organization is performing by following a certain internal culture, so it is a huge challenge to show our organization’s cultural path to every employee.
Great workplaces with great culture are more effective and successful compared with an organization without it.
How has C-19 affected the IoT field?
Covid-19 continues to make an unprecedented impact on our society and the global economy. As a result, the Internet of Things industry was also involved in the consequences of the pandemic. However, this industry is full of undiscovered use case opportunities that Teltonika companies have taken up during the pandemic period.
First of all, we started our new business niche called Teltonika Telemedic which is now responsible for professional telemedicine devices development. It gave us a chance to start developing professional artificial lung ventilators, proximity solutions, and other useful devices that can help people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following this period, we demonstrated that by focusing on the possibilities, we were able to reach more than 30 percent yearly growth and hire more than 300 employees only in Lithuania. And of course, those achievements are the reflection of a great team spirit and significant effort from our employees.
What is that special something that Teltonika offers to its team members?
Many companies are concerned about the side environment or activities that help to integrate the organization internally. All of this is really important, but during the COVID-19 pandemic period, most employees are working remotely, which requires a new employee integration strategy.
As we all know, a good team spirit and the environment that promotes well-being are the key elements for employee engagement with a company. However, another necessary element that builds integrity within a company and increases employee engagement is exceptional challenges.
Let’s imagine that everything you are doing is about innovation and different ways of helping people. I personally believe that such exceptional challenges are definitely one of the most convincing arguments for choosing the Teltonika company group. Today we are performing in 5 different technology spheres, and you can become a part of various projects such as e-scooter sharing devices, insurance telematics, development of medical gadgets, and professional networking device programming.
Teltonika seems to be very good at educating the community as you are investing into, not one, but two educational programs. Could you please tell us more about the Teltonika IoT and B2B Academy?
We believe that professionalism is the main criterion of building exceptional IoT devices and directing them to the right client. This is why we are taking care of our employees’ education from the very first days.
As a result, we have successfully launched IoT and B2B academies that are taking care of our youngest employees who are learning about IoT technologies and professional B2B sales.
Right now, we have 5 operating academies in Kaunas and Vilnius which have successfully trained more than 500 students.
The IoT academy offers 8 different technical programs that help students to obtain more knowledge about IoT devices programming, supporting, designing, and more.
Whereas the B2B academy is an exceptional project for students who would like to challenge themselves in professional sales. Our main value is to help the people and by supporting our academies, we are helping students to make their first career step.
You mentioned that Teltonika has plenty of open vacancies. Where could one reach out to you if they wish to join your team?
Now we have open positions for PHP and front-end developers in our brand awareness department. If You are looking for an opportunity to show your programming superpowers, just let me know!
And finally, what is the most useful IoT gadget that you use in your daily life? What IoT appliance (that is not made yet) would you like to use in the future?
Nowadays I cannot imagine flexible connectivity without Teltonika Networks equipment which is traveling together with me and keeping all my gadgets online wherever I go, from home office to the holidays on a boat. In the future, I will definitely use one of our upcoming smartwatches detecting atrial fibrillation.😄
Founded in 2003, Sievo is a global leader in procurement analytics. The company now manages over 350 billion euros in spendings yearly. They have also succeeded in building an incredibly diverse organisation with people from over 30 different countries working in their Finnish and USA offices.
To find out how they did it, we interviewed Janina Kurki, Head of Nerd Attraction & People Development Partner at Sievo. In the interview, we talk about challenges that recruiting internationally presents, finding the best talent from abroad, and tips to the companies planning to start hiring globally.
In addition to the company’s take on the matter, we also asked some questions from Sievo’s employee Aleksandr Shevelev. The Senior Software Engineer is originally from Russia, but in 2019 decided to move to Finland to work at Sievo. How was his relocation experience and how smoothly did he settle in? Let’s jump into the interview to find out!
INTERVIEW
People from over 30 different countries are working in Sievo. It might not seem outrageous for a tech-company in 2020, but Sievo has been hiring international talent since its establishment. Why did you choose to focus on hiring internationally from the beginning?
When Sievo was founded in 2003, the founders Matti Sillanpää and Sammeli Sammalkorpi built a procurement solution to help big companies globally. Our first client was a Danish company LEGO, and already the third hire was a non-Finnish speaking specialist. So our focus is not on hiring internationally, but on always having the best talent.
“Our focus is not on hiring internationally, but on always having the best talent.”
What are some of the greatest mistakes Sievo has made on this journey of hiring and relocating foreigners? Maybe you could share a specific story?
Hiring international people requires that the company has a working culture that fits for people from different backgrounds. I think Sievo has been exceptionally successful in that, but it might have made us assume it would be an easy thing to do and that relocated people would fit in Finland organically.
There has not been a crisis that I could think of, but it helps if things are well prepared in advance. There have been surprises on how many daily activities in Finland rely on e-bank credentials. Also, the taxation might hit hard when you see your first payslip. There cannot ever be too much information shared beforehand, and we should share even more information about the local ways of working. When you have a relationship of trust with people going through relocation, they will also trust your advice on managing the Migration Bureaucracy Jungle.
Aleksandr: Between companies, there are quite a lot of differences in management and working style. I am glad to say that Sievo’s values were quite helpful in making the transition between companies and countries. I was extremely happy to see that within Sievo I get a lot of opportunities to grow, which was one of my concerns during the relocation process.
How does Sievo find the best talent from abroad to relocate in the first place?
We do use different channels to promote ourselves; LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Meetfrank, etc. We take part in meet-ups and events, and our developers have good networks where they promote their work and teams. We have always been able to attract international talent, so it has helped a lot when we have much more diverse candidate pool potential.
We do not settle for the basic ways, instead, we are always looking for new ways and channels, e.g. we were also one of the first companies in Finland using Meetfrank too.
Aleksandr: When I started looking for a job in Finland, I visited a job fair organized by Helsinki Business Hub in the Consulate General of Finland in Saint Petersburg. At the event, I had the first interview round with Sievo and some other companies. A couple of rounds of interviews later I chose to accept Sievo’s offer.
How much do you have to convince people to choose Finland as a place to work? What are the country’s main attractions for potential employees, a wage level, culture or something else?
Actually, mentioning Finland makes it easier. Mainly people are worried about the climate, location and taxation. However, people are usually pretty positively stunned, after sharing the tips about surviving the cold and darkness, and what great things the high taxation rate brings (safety, clean environment, free schooling and health care). Also, the current situation with Covid-19 is just a concrete example of how well things work in Finland.
Sometimes it seems that Finland is the best-kept secret for IT professionals. It would help if Finland would be promoted as one of the best countries for developers as it is confirmed already by the latest research.
“Sometimes it seems that Finland is the best-kept secret for IT professionals.”
Aleksandr: I started to look for a job abroad due to general political, social, and economic problems in Russia. Finland became my first choice because of several factors, including being a well-managed country and its closeness to Russia. It is relatively easy to get to Saint-Petersburg via train without long queues at customs (if there wasn’t a raging pandemic).
What are the biggest challenges for foreigners while relocating to Finland based on your experience?
You cannot get things done without e-bank credentials and to have them, it takes multiple visits and a lot of bureaucracy. Also, getting rental accommodation as a foreigner (without bank credentials) takes longer than it should. Sievo provides accommodation to get started and helps with recommendations, references and even sets-up appointments with the long term renters, but it still might be time-consuming to get things sorted.
The Finnish bureaucracy has its ways, and it definitely might cause issues at some point. But we promise every new team-member assistance with any matters because moving to a new country is quite stressful already by itself.
Aleksandr: The main problem was the thinning or breaking of almost all the social and personal network connections. From the technical or bureaucratic standpoint relocation with Sievo’s support was quite a smooth process. There were some delays in getting the Finnish ID Card and renting a place to live, but it was mostly due to my inexperience with the local market.
When looking back, there were several means of support provided by Sievo:
Help with the paperwork
Financing the moving expenses
First accommodation in Finland
Lots of help and information in general about living and working in Finland.
Currently, European countries have closed their borders already for a second time this year, which makes relocation more challenging. On the other hand, people are working remotely more than ever. How has this year changed your views on recruiting?
As we have always recruited internationally, the remote tools have been used for years already. We are also very fortunate in a way because businesswise it is one of the best years in Sievo’s history – and we are recruiting probably more than ever. It has shown me that we have been able to recruit people that have a high tolerance for change and uncertainty.
I have not felt the need to make huge adjustments on our side, but candidate behaviour has changed. People think thoroughly if now is a good time to change jobs, so they check information about the company very carefully, including the financial data.
“People think thoroughly if now is a good time to change jobs.”
From a growth company point of view: we have been able to bring people stability in very unstable situation and been agile to adjust with the ‘new reality’ while enabling Sievo’s hockey stick growth.
How do you see the impact long-term? Are people likely to look for new challenges internationally?
International migration has already started. It is not just Covid-19 that makes people search for brighter futures. Climate change, political uncertainty and even warfare will make people leave their current homes. I personally hope we can globally make an impact for a better future for all, so migration wouldn’t be the only way to provide safety and prosperity to everyone.
Let’s look at the bigger picture for a moment. Hiring international talent to Finnish companies has been a hot topic over the summer. Why do you think the issue has gained so much attention this year?
I have been very surprised about the fact indeed, but it is definitely a good discussion and an important topic. I have been talking about the issue since 2017, but it hasn’t raised that big headlines until now. I believe the increasing need for talent and the shortage of experienced professionals are finally coming to a critical state where IT companies in Finland need to become more accepting of international talent.
When it becomes a business-critical issue, the change will happen. I believe it is inevitable. The difficult question is how well the companies can make that change – changing your work language and company culture is not a recruitment decision, it is a strategic decision to the core. And that takes time.
What would you suggest to companies that are only now making their first steps to attract talent from different backgrounds?
Before anything, I would recommend companies to think about why they are making the transition, what it means to them and what are the objectives. Also, the team has to be involved in the process as early as possible.
There are some cruel rumours about “international companies” where a couple of international developers are kept in a separate room “so they would have someone to talk to” as in the cafeteria the only spoken language is Finnish. Or similar cases where the official slide decks are in English, but the rest of the documentation is in Finnish.
In these kinds of cases, I would recommend the company to re-evaluate whether they are ready for international talents, and how they can help with the integration to the team. There are lot of companies that have done it already, the knowledge and information is available, it never hurts to ask help to have a better starting point for the change.
Software speciality is a major force in the job market. Unfortunately the field is strongly stereotyped. It is commonly believed that software engineers are introverts that work silently in the corner – somewhat typical nerds 🤓.
#ILookLikeAnEngineer was called into life to stop this appearance-based bias. Now let’s investigate the performance-based tilt.
It is commonly believed that great knowledge of tech skills is all you need to be a successful software developer. However, the HR & recruitment experts from People Link have pointed out an interesting shift 👀 in the IT recruitment field.
Currently, personality is getting more weight in taking a decision whom to hire as an engineer.
We discussed with Danas Venclovas, head of IT recruitment at People Link, how the software engineers’ personality has become the primary focus during the recruitment process.
Danas Venclovas from People Link has strong expertise in the IT sector recruitment.
Software engineering speciality has become a very broad field of study. Years ago a solo task is now an interaction between many stakeholders: designers, users, product owners, etc. How has that changed the profile of a software engineer?
That’s right, stakeholders are more and more involved in contributing to tasks meaning more collaboration is needed. If we look back 3-4 years, most of the companies tried to fill roles with people handling very specific skill set (i.e. software engineer with 3 years of .NET 4.x, or ASP.NET and even in some specific business domain experience) and that was complete standart in the market.
Currently, in recruitment we see a huge shift to what is required to fulfil tasks – companies now appreciate technical eclecticism. Meaning we are not looking for a PHP Symfony specialist or Java engineer, companies are looking for a Software Engineer who would feel comfortable with a combination of programming languages and would be able to choose different tools for different problems (i.e. use Node.JS on one microservice and Python for the other, while working on the same platform).
Another thing that changed over the past few years is the view on engineer’s personality. Companies used to focus on a specific skill whilst turning a blind eye on what they are as a person. Currently, personality is getting more weight in taking a decision whom to hire as an engineer.
As every company is using a different technical stack and in almost every case when a person joins the team, they have to adapt to the company’s stack and learn new things, Hiring Managers tend to take in consideration their communication, collaboration skills, ability to learn, flexibility, agility, etc.
Study suggests that although interests and personality types may play a role in the selection of a career, they may not predict success in that area. Would you agree with this? Do you see any prominent characteristics among software developers that secure a higher rate of success?
I really think that personality influences the selection of the career path – for example, in our recruitment we use a Tripod assessment center that assesses personality based on the Big 5 personality theory. Combined with mental and/or spatial ability tests can give us a very good indication on how a person will perform in a new role, will they adapt quickly and what might hinder their success.
Overall, higher scores in Arithmetical and Spatial abilities is a good predictor of one’s opportunities to have a good career in the IT industry. Hence if one is considering to transition to IT, I would very much advise them to take such a test- it would be a very useful guideline for them.
Developers like any other people share a very wide range of interests and hobbies – sports, hardware, gaming, cooking, you name it. None of these interests can predict developers’ ability to succeed at work. During my career I interviewed a lot of diverse people who in no way support the stereotypes of developers. I’ve seen very communicative, extroverted people enjoying coding all day and complete introverts who successfully manage teams and develop businesses.
But there is one factor which can definitely describe a person’s success in IT, actually in any field – and it’s a very simple thing – constant learning and finding ways to challenge oneself. Best candidates and leaders of the market always say the same – the more I’ve learned along the way, the more I still don’t know. And as IT is a very fast paced industry with constantly developing technologies, tools, and frameworks, one must keep up with all of it if you want to stay in the game.
People Link consists of experts in HR Recruitment and Sourcing, providing full Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) services to wide range of sectors.
As an expert in recruitment, you have probably done numerous successful hirings. What are the biggest stumbling blocks that people make during an interview or in the applying process?
There are numerous ways one can fail in interviews or any other stage of the recruitment process. I could tell you stories for hours about candidates who come to a video interview without wearing a T-shirt, lights up a cigarette while being interviewed, curses, appears late by 30-40 mins or forgets to show up at all. So it’s not easy to surprise me anymore 😀
The interesting thing is that these stories are much more common in the IT industry than any others. It’s hard to tell why.
I think the biggest mistakes that people make during an interview is coming in without any preparation – not having taken a look at the company or position they’ll be interviewed for. I had cases when a person shows up on a video interview and doesn’t remember what company we will be talking to, and in most cases this strongly indicates that candidates have little motivation tochange jobs and are just “window shopping”. In most cases, talking with recruiters means one of the following: either you improve your salary and benefits by going to a better position/company or you increase your salary in the current company by going to your boss and saying – company X is headhunting me. So why not make some effort and show your best qualities.
At People Link we do a lot of surveys on the Lithuanian labour market and a few years back we were looking into what personal qualities employers look for in their employees. And the results showed that most desired qualities are responsibility, efficiency, independency, diligence and proactivity. So try to show these qualities during interviews with companies in addition to your technical skills and you will earn much more than you’ll lose: you’ll improve your working conditions, your salary, or at least – your reputation that in the long run might positively improve your working conditions and/or salary.
Give some hints to students or those who are considering a career change. Where in the IT sector do you see that companies’ demand is high, but the potential amount of talent is low?
In all the areas in the IT market demand is higher than supply. Choosing almost any field in IT to study has a tremendous potential. Of course, you should consider studying modern technologies like Golang, Node.JS, React.JS, Python, since the demand of these skills in the market are higher than other technologies but if you choose PHP, Java or .NET as your main technology, you will still have plenty of opportunities in the market. One of the “not such a good” choices would be going for Mainframe or other legacy technologies.
But, as I mentioned before, not only your technology stack is important, think of ways how to improve and show your personal qualities. And not only that but also invest some time into data literacy. If you’re thinking about IT, huge chances are that you’ll be working with data, algorithms and databases, unless you go for Front-end and Design. In this case you’ll have less data 🙂
If a company is struggling to find talent to join their team, how can People Link help in these situations?
At People Link we provide a number of services to the companies but the main is the full recruitment process. But I always say that companies we work with benefit the most from the partnership we have, since we help not only with finding and assessing candidates but we work with companies to make the best Employer Value proposition, help with recruitment process and strategy, we consult companies on the market trends, salaries and challenges, efficiency and effectiveness of their HR processes, etc. We have experience building teams for start-ups from scratch, helping market leaders to find and hire the right people and we cover many more functions from consulting to organizational research.
Want to know more about recruitment trends? Contact team of People Link for more info.
What are your predictions for the future? How will the IT sector recruitment trends change? What struggles/changes we have to be ready for?
The main struggle that recruitment will face is less time for filling the role. Two years ago it was completely normal for recruitment to take 3-4 weeks, year ago it was 2-3 weeks. Now if a candidate doesn’t have an answer whether he or she gets the offer or not in 2 weeks, you can practically forget about them – they’ve forgotten about you and lost their interest in the role. From the candidates point of view it’s completely fair to ask for a faster process since nobody wants to go through 1 month of recruitment and find out that the company chose someone else. It’s even worse when candidates don’t get any feedback at all.
Another thing that’s not a future trend but todays’ reality – recruiters need to work alongside hiring managers in order to recruit and engage the best people in the market. The age where recruitment agencies were just service providers is over and now every head-hunter needs to be as much as possible included in the recruitment process because only by having all the information we can help companies and candidates and actually be partners in dealing with market’s challenges.
And for the future in IT predictions, I really feel that Data literacy will become more important as everything is moving towards Big data, Data Science, AI and we all, doesn’t matter if you are a developer, a customer support, or HR Generalist, everyone will have to work with data and its analysis. Another trend – technical eclecticism – problems in the IT field evolve and become harder to solve but by sticking to one or two technologies as your technical stack means that soon you’ll be not competitive in the market. This means that, again, keep learning new things, keep up-to-date with new trends and invest time in learning.
Let’s summarise with 5 main takeaways:
💡 Currently, companies appreciate technical eclecticism – the ability of combining things from many different areas or systems. Constant improvement and finding ways to challenge oneself is the key.
💡 Danas has interviewed a lot of diverse people during his recruitment career and these people, in no way, support the stereotypes of developers.
💡 The recruitment process has become faster and faster. Two years ago it was completely normal for recruitment to take 3-4 weeks, year ago it was 2-3 weeks. Now if a candidate doesn’t have an answer whether he or she gets the offer or not in 2 weeks, you can practically forget about them.
💡 According to People Link survey results, the most desired and valued qualities are responsibility, efficiency, independency, diligence and proactivity.
💡 Not only your technology stack is important, but think of ways how to improve and show your personal qualities.
People Link is constantly helping to connect the right talent to relevant companies:
When hiring top talent, your employer branding plays a hugely important role.
People want to work in a company with a beautiful office, fun team members, and a list of perks (snacks in the kitchen, flexible working hours, company retreats).
As you post your job openings on a job board website, it will most likely be a plain text page. That’s quite boring and doesn’t really show how cool it is to work at your company.
When hiring through the MeetFrank app, you can set up an attractive company profile in 5-10 minutes.
As you share your MeetFrank job offer, people will also see your pictures, benefits, and can learn more about your brand.
See an example of a job offer published with MeetFrank here.
Up next, we will share the tips & hacks for creating a stunning company profile in the MeetFrank Employer portal.
Your company profile will be visible to everyone looking at the job offers in the MeetFrank app. Also, you can share your MeetFrank job offers on your own via social media and email.
To edit your company profile in MeetFrank, log in to the MeetFrank Employer portal and select “Company” in the left-hand menu.
1. Upload a high-quality logo and profile picture
Your logo and profile picture are the first things that the job-seekers will see.
You can either upload a product photo, stock photo, or a high-quality picture of your team.
Here are the recommended measurements: Logo: 512 x 512 pixels
Profile image: 1024 x 500 pixels
Tip: We recommend using a colourful profile image. Also, the profile pictures with people generally work the best (companies with such profile images get the most applicants per job offer views).
2. Fill in your mission statement
The mission statement allows you to say in 1-2 sentences what your company is doing.
Are you here to revolutionise an industry? Are you looking to improve people’s lives? Let the potential applicants know!
Here’s MeetFrank’s mission statement:
“Our mission is to bring transparency to the job market and help talented people be aware of and find exciting opportunities in top companies.”
Best practices for writing your mission statement:
We have defined some key questions that job-seekers usually have about the companies. Such as the size of the team, the amount of investment, annual revenue, etc.
You can quickly fill in some additional fields to give additional context about your business.
Here’s how the facts about your company will look in the MeetFrank app:
4. Tell more about your product
The top talent wants to make an impact and work on purposeful projects.
Telling people about your product and what’s cool about it helps to get them excited about working with you.
We recommend mentioning the following things:
What product/service are you building?
What is your product’s main benefit to its users?
Why is it exciting to work on the project?
5. Boast about your office perks
Who wouldn’t want to work in a company with flexible working hours, snacks in the kitchen, extra vacation days and free gym membership?
You can list all the cool perks about working in your team.
Here’s a list of all the benefits that can be mentioned:
⏳ Flexible working hours 🌎 Remote work 🎡 Team events ☕ Free coffee 🍪 Free food 🚗 Free parking 🌴 Extra vacation 🏖️ Company retreats 💰 Tuition assistance 💪 Gym membership 👶 Free day-care 🦄 Stock options 👩⚕️ Health insurance 👩🎓 Student loan assistance
The more perks you can list, the higher the chance that people will get excited about working with you.
6. Showcase the media coverage
One company profile section we’re especially happy with is the media coverage sharing. You can link to other publications’ articles of your brand.
We recommend adding between 2-4 links of media coverage.
Tip: You can also use this section to link to your own blog articles.
7. Link to your social media profiles
Last not least, you can link to all of your company’s social media profiles. Only add the ones that are up to date and look great.
8. Use the MeetFrank job offers as a Careers page
Once you have filled in your company profile, hit the “publish” button and you’re all set.
If you put a decent amount of effort into your MeetFrank employer profile, you can use your MeetFrank job offers instead of a Careers page. After all, it has a professional layout and lists all the relevant information a job-seeker might have.
To publicly share your MeetFrank company profile, publish a job offer through MeetFrank and copy its link.
Et voila! You’ve got yourself a job offer 2.0 with high-quality images, lots of context and all social media profiles included.
MeetFrank is not a traditional job board, which means that you can create and target your job opening quickly and delightfully. Your company can also highlight it’s culture through the personalised job description, images and social media links.
Without further ado, let’s see how you can create a perfectly targeted job offer in seven simple steps.
Step 1: Define the target audience for your new opening
To reduce your recruiting workload, MeetFrank helps you to target the job offer to the relevant audience. The powerful AI-based algorithm actively invites the most suitable candidates to apply, even if they are not looking for a job. Yes, you might be surprised how many top talents are passive in the job market.
All you have to do is to start with picking the employment type, speciality, and seniority for your upcoming job offer: – Choose between Full-time, Part-time, Project/Freelance, and Internship type of employment. – Select the speciality from 19 options, like Sales & Business Development or Customer Support. – Add suitable seniorities from Entry level to Executive.
Your job opening will be compiled automatically based on the bits of information that you select. Or if you are in a hurry, simply send us the job opening link, and we will set up the vacancy ourselves.
Step 2: Choose a clear and attractive job title
Clear and familiar job title leaves a favourable first impression to the potential candidate. For example, a salesperson already has an understanding of what are the responsibilities of a Head of Sales.
Adding some context to the job title helps to attract the best candidates. In case you need a Head of Sales to work with B2B clients worldwide, you might title your job as Global B2B Head of Sales. If you are looking to fill a technical position, you might mention a few required programming languages.
Pro tip: On MeetFrank, the job titles written in English tend to work the best, as the platform has a global talent pool.
Step 3: Pick the required skill set
Choose up to six skills that the ideal candidate should have from the pre-selected list of options. You can also add requirements for language and industry experience.
If there is one skill that the candidate possibly could not do without, select it as a “Must Have”. This option informs our algorithm to search only for the fitting candidates.
Step 4: Use the potential reach for your advantage
As you create your job opening, you will see the potential reach change in real-time. After your every move, our algorithm evaluates how many people might be interested in and qualified for your job offer.
How to use this number to your advantage? If the potential reach is very high, then you might spend more time filtering out the candidates who are not well-suited for the job. The solution is to add a few additional requirements.
If the potential reach is low, then you might not find enough qualified candidates to fill the position. Consider loosening the requirements to attract more applicants. With a little help, you’ll quickly find the perfect reach that suits your needs.
Step 5: Pick the target location and salary range
You can select up to five cities where you would want to look for talent. To further broaden the talent pool, consider choosing either option for remote work or target your job offer globally. We believe that talent is borderless, so this could give you up to 5x more candidates.
Also, specify the gross salary range you’re willing to pay. If you are ready to offer the candidate a higher salary than their current employer, choose the pay increase option as well.
Pro tip: Check Job Market Insights by MeetFrank to find out in real-time what salaries the job seekers expect and how competitive is the market for talent.
Step 6: Write a Job Description
In the job description, give an overview of the duties in the role. You may also expand on the requirements for the candidates.
A welcoming job description is crucial to get the potential candidate interested, so this is the ideal place to really be personal and display the tone of your company. End the message with a clear call-to-action to encourage candidates to submit their application.
Step 7: Publish the offer!
Good luck with your hire! Now we will take over and make sure to boost your job opening with direct notifications to relevant candidates. You just sit back and relax.
