Everyone wants to be a winner. However, in both life and hackathons, victory comes to those who want it the most. With limited time to solve problems and submit prototypes, a hackathon is the ultimate test of skills and endurance. Here is what you can do to win your next hackathon:
1) Plan to win
Be clear on your motive for attending the hackathon. Be hungry to win. Plan and prepare in advance. Set up templates, GitHub repositories, and components to accelerate prototype development. Research, study APIs, and explore sample apps. If the theme is available early, brainstorm with your team and be ready with practical, implementable ideas.
Conduct a mock hackathon a week before the competition. Work together, understand team strengths and weaknesses, and finalize communication channels.
2) Form a good team
Success depends on execution. Build a team with good chemistry to work efficiently under pressure. Team up with friends or previous hackathon teammates. Pitch your idea clearly and concisely if given the opportunity to form your team on-site.
Include members with diverse skills—design, frontend/backend development, business development, etc. Assign clear roles and choose a decisive leader.
3) Think through your ideas
Not all hackathon ideas are great or feasible. Filter ideas based on value and feasibility. Think like a product owner. Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and focus on the problem statement: Who is the end user? What problem are you solving?
Estimate time and effort realistically. Sketch a prototype and assign tasks accordingly.
4) Validate concepts
Don’t assume—research. Understand what you’re building and why. Define dependencies, priorities, and checkpoints. Talk to potential users, gather feedback, and include these insights in your presentation. Validate before and after building.
5) Focus on building an MVP
To win a hackathon, focus on building a strong MVP with a clear value proposition. Avoid feature overload. Focus on 2–3 core components.
6) Set up a repository on GitHub
Create a repository for your product. Use feature branches for parallel development.
7) Know your audience
Research judges, vendors, and sponsors. Understand their criteria and tailor your project accordingly. Introduce yourself and share your vision. If mentors are assigned, use their input to refine your solution.
8) Choose the right approach
Prioritize a fully functional frontend experience. Backend development can be time-consuming and may not be necessary for demo purposes.
9) Take short breaks
Breaks help refresh the mind and improve collaboration. Use them to check progress and spark new ideas.
10) Invest time for the presentation
A good presentation is key to winning. Start early. Envision the perfect demo and work backward. Keep the message simple and highlight key features. Show how your product solves a problem and how it's different from competitors. Back claims with data. Be prepared for questions. Share your team journey and make the pitch interactive.
A great idea alone isn’t enough to win. It takes strategy, teamwork, and execution to win a hackathon.
There are always these small annoying hurdles while participating in a hackathon that sometimes make everything so difficult; they eat into your precious hacking hours!However, with this list of hacks, you will know what best practices should be followed and what preparations need to be done while participating in a hackathon. Not only that, these hacks could just be what you need to find success at the hackathon event.
Choose the right team
Distribute tasks effectively
Use version control
Use pre-made HTML/CSS framework
Set realistic expectations
Do thorough homework
Take breaks
Spend time in creating a demo
Network
To know a little more about each, keep reading...Choose the right team - Attract good talent and form your team with the right people in specialized roles. For example, if you are a back-end engineer and are creating a full-fledged web application prototype that requires a user interface (UI), you must team up with someone who has the right coding skills for the application, preferably a front-end engineer.
Distribute tasks effectively - Since a hackathon is a limited-time competition, the work distribution should be effective and even. Everyone in the team should work on tasks that match their expertise. All of them should work in parallel, with few “blockers” in the team.
Use version control - You can save a lot of pain and frustration by using version control for collaboration. Not using a source control tool may lead to a significant loss of valuable time and effort.
Use pre-made HTML/CSS framework - If the hackathon rules allow, you should be ready with the HTML/CSS framework in advance to save time. This always gives you an edge over the competition in terms of time.
Set realistic expectations - In a hackathon, it's not about how much you could do but how well you did, what you did. So, make sure you:
Aim small
Plan something that you can build in 24 (or 48) hours
Build a prototype / product that works
Create something which is demo-able
Do thorough homework - Before the hackathon, it is good if you can do the following:
Do extensive research
Study the related APIs
Go through the examples
Understand how different libraries are put together
Take breaks - This may sound surprising, but when under pressure, don't just sit in one spot for many hours. Take a small break and walk away from the code. Come back after sometime with a refreshed and re-energized mind.
Spend time creating demo - Whatever you create, presentation / video demo is as important as any other task. A good presentation is the key to the next level. Spend enough time preparing it.
Network - Sponsors, mentors, and fellow developers are great resources. Always make a big impression by good networking! You haven't reached the end of the road with your hackathon; your networking may also help you in future endeavors.
You can try and implement these life hacks by participating in the live hackathons.
Hackathons have become increasingly popular over the years. On a superficial level, a hackathon is still seen as a one-off annual event or a PR stunt. According to the 2017 Global hackathon report, more than 50% of hackathons conducted worldwide are recurring events.
Companies such as Facebook and Cognizant use hackathons as tools for sustained innovation. Even smaller companies with a shoestring budget for innovation find hackathons as a safe and promising bet.
Process of Innovation
Broadly speaking, innovation is the process of commercializing new and innovative ideas. Let’s take a typical innovation process, for example.
The first step of the process is discovery. Discovery is the act of choosing your area of focus for innovation. It can be emerging trends, a big market insight that has the potential to disrupt the market or even a game-changing technology.
Once the area of focus is finalized, then you need to choose how can you exploit the opportunity. In other words, you figure out what can be done in this space that would offer the opportunity growth. And you need to consider all possible ideas. And this where the second stage of the innovation process, ideation, comes in. Rather than depending on a few ideas, you open it up to a larger group internally or externally.
The next step of the innovation process would be execution, where the ideas are evaluated and the best ones are shortlisted. This is followed by the development of a prototype, followed by a feasibility study and if all goes well, you roll it out to the market.
Role of hackathons in the innovation process
The challenge lies in executing every step of the innovation process efficiently and connecting them in a coherent manner.
With hackathons, you can take the market insights you have identified, translate it into themes and problem statements and open it up for ideation followed by the development of prototypes.
For instance, KONE, one of the world’s largest elevator manufacturers, wanted to capitalize on the expected $37 billion market growth. It conducted a hackathon with the identified market drivers as themes such as smart elevators, security, and energy efficiency. It opened the challenge to the developer community around the globe and ended up with working prototypes in a span of few weeks.
The infographic below clearly shows how valuable a hackathon can be in the process of innovation.
What makes a hackathon a valuable innovation tool
What makes a hackathon unique is that it is the only tool that enables the creation of minimum viable products or prototypes from ideas. There is no other innovation activity that covers roughly 70% of the process.
Hackathons are swift. The entire process of creating a hackathon, marketing the event, driving registrations, ideating, and creating prototypes typically takes 30 to 40 days. At the end of the event, you are left with working prototypes. An innovation program cannot get more agile than this.
The diversity of ideas is another important factor. When you open up a problem to a global audience, you are bound to receive a diverse set of ideas which wouldn’t be possible with traditional innovation models.
Overall, a hackathon is a consummate tool for sustained innovation. Regular events yield better results than one-off hackathons. If treated as an innovation program and crafted meticulously and executed efficiently, it is the most cost effective innovation tool.
[Ebook] How to conduct your first hackathon. Download now.
Welcome to the HackerEarth guide to hackathons for hackathon participants!
HackerEarth is a global community of 1.5 million+ developers who compete and innovate through various online coding challenges and hackathons hosted on our platform.HackerEarth encourages programmers to take part in hackathons, work on real-world problems, network, code, learn, and build incredible hacks.
Follow these steps to get started with your first hackathon at HackerEarth:
1) Create your HackerEarth profile
To log in, visit https://www.hackerearth.com/. Update your skills and complete the profile to find relevant hackathons and join the right teams.
Once you select the hackathon, you will get the registration details. Go through the overview, themes, submission guidelines, and requirements carefully before registering. All registrations at HackerEarth are free of cost.
Register for hackathons on HackerEarth
4) Complete your registration form
Submit your details in the registration form. You can participate only after successfully submitting this form.
Complete your Hackathon registration form
5) Add your skills
Add skills, tools, and frameworks that you are familiar with in the submission form.
Add your skill set in hackathon form
6) Form a team
On registering, you will be able to form your team by clicking, ‘Form Team’. You can either invite people to join your team or you can join an existing team. You can find team information under the section, ‘View Your Team’.
View your team on HackerEarth
You can see all participating teams. You can join any of these teams. There is also an option to update your profile to make it easy for others to find and add you. Once you join a team, you cannot build a team of your own.
Alternatively, you can build your own team by inviting other participants. You can invite team members via email.
Form your team on HackerEarth
7) Submit your hack
Go through the submission guidelines carefully before you submit the final entry or prototype. Incomplete or incorrect submissions will not be evaluated.
Submissions on HackerEarth
8) Evaluation
Your submission will be evaluated by a team of mentors and experts. Shortlisted teams will be notified by email. The final results will be announced on the hackathon page.
By participating in HackerEarth Hackathons, you can build your professional network, learn new programming skills, get recognized for your hacks, and make a measurable impact.
Over 80% of the Fortune 100 companies conduct hackathons.
There are over 1000+ hackathons conducted every year around the world and 48.5% of them are conducted by private companies. Yet, hackathon is still an underutilized tool when it comes to corporate innovation.
When asked what a hackathon is, the common definition you get is something along these lines.
“It is an event where a bunch of programmers come together to collaborate and code on a project lasting several days, typically 48 hours.”
While it is true in the literal sense, it is like saying,
“People paying $1000 to live in the middle of a desert for a couple of days and finally burning a wooden effigy while trying to adhere to some principles is what Burning Man is about.”
There is more to hackathons than meets the eye, especially from a company’s perspective. So why exactly do companies conduct hackathons and what do they aim to get out of it?
Here are 6 different reasons why companies conduct hackathons.
Crowdsourcing ideas and solutions for your business
Let us break this down a bit.
When to conduct crowdsourcing hackathons
When you have identified the problem and don’t have a well-defined solution or when you have a major insight or idea but do not have a full-fledged vision of the product, crowdsourcing is your best bet.
Let’s take blockchain, for example. It is an emerging technology and there is no denying that it is going to change the landscape of transactions as we know it. The applications range from digital identity to distributed cloud storage to cryptocurrency. However, the complete potential of blockchain is not yet realized. It is still anybody’s game to win.
Traditionally, a company would assign the responsibility of exploring this technology and the task of coming up with a killer product to a handful of people, their R&D division/Innovation departments that work in silos.
The problem here is by the time the R&D team comes up with a workable prototype or two, there could be five other similar products in the market.
Not convinced yet?
The famous and “anonymous” Satoshi Nakamoto conceptualized Blockchain in the year 2008. In the 9 years since there have been over 900 cryptocurrencies in the market and four major players.
IBM and Microsoft are two companies that leverage hackathons in this space. IBM launched Hyperledger Fabric Version 1.0 and Microsoft unveiled its open-source blockchain framework Coco. But beforethis, both these companies conducted or sponsored many blockchain hackathons, including the world’s biggest event— the Dutch blockchain hackathon.
Although innovation is still thekey responsibility of R&D/ Innovation departments, the hackathon approach enables the entire organization to embrace innovation. With this approach, the team primarily responsible for innovation works with the entire organization to synthesize ideas, proof of concepts, and, finally, take the shortlisted ideas for development under its wing.
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Why crowdsourcing hackathons
Shorten the innovation cycle
Get a diverse set of quality ideas
Incur lesser costs compared to traditional innovation models
An API can be used for a number of purposes, from driving innovation to developing a new line of business. Here is a snapshot of different ways APIs are used.
The more the active developers, the more the quality applications we can expect. More active users lead to more API calls, which could then translate into revenue.In other words, you need to get your product (API) to developers and get them to use it (say, use it to build great applications).
So, how do you acquire more quality developers and activate them? Here is a typical developer acquisition funnel.
Just like you would market any other product, there are plenty of ways, such as developing SDKs, posting on GitHub, and answering developer queries, to market an API. You should be carrying out a number of these activities in parallel and an API hackathon should be on the top of your list.
Even companies with a billion API calls still conduct hackathons. For instance, to celebrate its 10-year anniversary, Google Maps took a cross-country road trip from San Francisco to New York to meet developers and creators who are building the map of today.
Here is a pretty cool video of one of their hackathon pit stops during the road trip.
Why conduct API hackathons?
A well-marketed and well-executed hackathon can get you easily 1500 developers and 3000+ for big names such as IBM, Google, etc.
Here is an interesting case study of how Flock drove API adoption using hackathons.
Flock is a collaboration tool. It is a lesser-known alternative to Slack and Microsoft Team. Flock found that vendors have been trying to layer collaboration tools on top of platforms that were designed for individual users.To facilitate that, Flock recently launched its API known as FlockOS for developers to build apps and bots using Java and node.js software development kits (SDKs).
To drive API adoption, Flock decided to organize a series of 9 hackathons over a course of 12 months. Each hackathon is hosted with a specific theme and problem statement in different cities.
So far Flock has completed 3 of the 9 hackathons. With these 3 hackathons, Flock was able to acquire 3600+ developers and build 70+ new applications. A scale of this kind of acquisition is not possible through any other approach.And, you can get anywhere between 20 and 40 decent applications. All this is done over a course of just 4 weeks.
In short, an API hackathon:
Gives you maximum air time to pitch your API to the developers
Gives you the opportunity to put your product (API) in the hands of passionate developers and get them to use it
Gets valuable feedback from the developers to improve your product
Drive innovation internally
Hackathons are one of the best ways to drive innovation internally by engaging with your employees. It provides a platform for your employees to collaborate with other business functions and showcase their talent.
In an interview with New York Times, CEO of Shutterstock, Jon Oringer explains the significance of internal hackathons for his company:
“We have hackathons, which are pretty fun. A lot of people get really excited about them, and they can build whatever they want for the company — it could be crazy, practical, whatever. We actually wind up implementing a lot of those things throughout the year. It pushes a lot of thinking. It’s pretty amazing what people can get done in 24 hours. Sometimes we talk about a new product feature and it can take three months to build. Then someone will prototype it overnight.”
And no topic about hackathons is complete without the Facebook hackathons. When it comes to using these events to drive innovation and employee engagement internally, there are not many companies who can do it better than Facebook.
Facebook organizes one hackathon per quarter and has done 50 major hackathons and 80+ small events around the world.
Many of the Facebook products created at the hackathons end up being rolled out to customers or they become internal tools within weeks. The Like button, Timeline, and Chat were all created at FB’s internal hackathons. Talk about sustained innovation!
It is estimated that by 2020 we will have produced 40 zettabytes of data. To put this in perspective, that’s 5.2 Terabytes of data for every person on this planet.But as of now, only 0.5% of this data is being analyzed and used by companies.
One of the recent emerging trends is Big Data/Machine Learning hackathons. Over 6% of the hackathons conducted worldwide are Big Data/ML hackathons.
A lot of companies are opening up their data sets to developers to build effective predictive models. Especially, BFSI companies, which produce massive amounts of data every day, use this data to gain insights and better understand their customers by building predictive models.
Societe Generale, the French multinational bank, built predictive models from its data by conducting a Machine Learning hackathon, which saw over 1800+ developers and data scientists participate.
Not just banks, Exotel, a cloud-based telephony platform, is one of Southeast Asia’s largest companies. With over 1300 customers, Exotel powers more than 3 million customer conversations every day and has processed 1.2 billion calls in the past 5 years.
For Exotel, emotion detection from audio was an unsolved problem. The company decided to conduct a Machine Learning hackathon. It provided developers with large volumes of voice samples to decipher the sentiment.
In just 18 days, the company got some impressive models, built by 2000+ developers using ML and Natural language processing (NLP), which could detect emotion from audio and flags conversations based on sentiments, such as, happiness, sadness, anger, etc.
If you are wondering what a powerful developer community can do for your business, listen to what Eric Migicovsky, Pebble’s founder, and CEO, says.
“Our developer community rivals any of the competition since we came from the community itself, with over 27,000 developers building apps and watchfaces for Pebble. We’ve demonstrated that even a small group of committed individuals can launch an entirely new computing platform from scratch.”
Hackathons can be a great tool to create brand advocates from a developer community. Once you successfully host or sponsor hackathons, you build a community of developers who are a simple marketing channel that is cost effective; these developers/designers/thinkers help in ideation for the future, review of beta products, and creation of revenue or brand awareness by API adoption.
“Developers engage in community in an effort to discover tools, exchange knowledge, and solve problems,” said Sarah Jane Morris, former Developer Community Manager at Mashery (Intel).
Putting together a vibrant hacker community is easy with these innovation-focused events that provide amazing networking opportunities. Remember to keep them engaged. It is nothing but some give and take!
Employer branding and Identifying tech talent
An employer branding hackathon is a highly targeted branding activity. It allows a company to let potential employees know what the company stands for, the challenging projects it works on and communicates its values to them.
For instance, say your company uses a Django/ Python framework. By conducting a targeted hackathon for Django and Python developers, you will be able to let the developer community know about your company and the technology stack you use. It also allows companies to build a talent pipeline.
Another case would be companies conducting women-only hackathons to attract female talent by positioning themselves as an attractive brand to the female workforce.
Hackathon, a tool for sustained innovation
Novelty + Commercialization = Innovation
Hackathon is the only tool that covers 70% of the innovation journey. It starts with discovery, idea generation, and ends with idea conceptualization.
And best of all, it is cost-effective and can be done on a regular basis to create a culture of sustained innovation. The stronger the insight and problem statement, the better the outcome of the hackathon.
Hackathon is to innovation what 3D printing is to manufacturing.
It allows you to rapidly prototype an idea, determine the quality of the idea, spot flaws, reiterate, scale it, and roll it out to the masses.
Research shows that almost 60 percent of the companies expect to kiss goodbye to more than 20 percent of their revenues within five years because of disruptive innovation. Unless they change the way they operate, that is.
Understanding that a bleak future lies ahead unless they obey the innovation imperative, organizations world over are trying to align innovation and business strategy, take up open innovation, and “out-innovate” their competitors. Innovation entails identifying challenges, ideating to find solutions, implementing the most promising ones, and managing the process to sustain the winning outcomes.
Hackathons, which are a quick route for idea generation, have been surging in popularity for various reasons in recent years. A hackathon is defined as an event where teams of experts and advisers come together to collaboratively build and launch new ideas. No longer are they confined to the IT sector. More than the lure of awards, participants are excited by the chance to learn and the collaborate, be recognized by peers, enable social change, and network extensively.
With focused intensity, hackathons aim to spur innovation through various creativity initiatives and sustain the successful outcomes via careful management practices. Hackathons are much more than prototyping exercises—they are fun, engaging events that can help companies from becoming disruptors and not disruptees. Conducting a hackathon is often thought of as “starting up within a corporation.”
Being in the business of hackathons, we knew that a detailed analysis of global events would bring questions and insights that would indisputably help in strategic decision making across sectors and geographies.
We analyzed nearly 1000 hackathons across 75 countries in the world during a two-year period (from 2015 onward) and put together a Global Hackathon Report. Overall, we discern a common trend—hackathons everywhere are helping organizations battle talent scarcity, acquisition, and retention while fueling innovation across domains and functions.
From ideation to execution, we see hackathons upending traditional business models and rewiring the competitive landscape. In this report, we discuss the hackathon format and culture and its exciting possibilities to help people adapt to the future.
The list of countries and cities where most hackathons were conducted has some surprising names emerging as incubators of innovation and new businesses. It is time global companies and governments take notice of these new ecosystems with their talented citizens and creativity-focused organizations. These areas can be certainly earmarked for growth and future investment.
Governments and NPOs fall behind private firms in terms of the number of hackathons hosted. Corporates have been harvesting the benefits of hackfests—employee engagement, recruitment, branding, API adoption, innovation, beta testing—for a while now, and the interest hasn’t petered out yet. Still, we notice that open hackathons with more non-developers than ever before are catching on as a reliable means to drive social change. With so many hackathons coming back year after year, it wouldn’t be presumptuous to claim that hackathons are certainly living up to their potential.
Creating gender-inclusive environments doesn’t seem to be happening at the pace one would hope for. Unfortunately, this seems to be true in the case of hackathons as well, with women-only events being just too few to be considered significant. In a time where diversity and inclusion are key goals for any agency, this finding only reinforces the fact that hackathons continue to be male-dominated.
Predictably, universities and high schools prefer to attract students to hackathons for the immense learning on offer. In the report, you’ll see that the most popular rewards for the winners are rarely cash prizes.
Over the years, the power of hackathons has been cleverly leveraged in other industries, aside from IT. Intensive collaboration in a short period of time to arrive at novel solutions seems to be working for the financial, communication, media, high-tech, and automotive industries equally well. From our data, we could conclude that hackathons are being increasingly conducted to accelerate the pace of digital transformation.
Hackathons are clearly helping companies go from idea to action. To know what hackathons are, how these problem-solving exercises are being used to create an impact, and why people are turning to external partners and platforms to navigate the mercurial landscape of innovation, download our full report.
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2023 is here, and it is time to look ahead. Start planning your tech hiring needs as per your business requirements, revamp your recruiting processes, and come up with creative ways to land that perfect “unicorn candidate”!
Right? Well, jumping in blindly without heeding what this year holds for you can be a mistake. So before you put together your plans, ask yourselves this—What are the most important 2023 recruiting trends in tech hiring that you should be prepared for? What are the predictions that will shape this year?
We went around and posed three important questions to industry experts that were on our minds. And what they had to say certainly gave us some food for thought!
Before we dive in, allow me to introduce you to our expert panel of six, who had so much to say from personal experience!
Meet the Expert Panel
Radoslav Stankov has more than 20 years of experience working in tech. He is currently Head of Engineering at
Product Hunt. Enjoys blogging, conference speaking, and solving problems.
Mike “Batman” Cohen is the Founder of
Wayne Technologies, a Sourcing-as-a-Service company providing recruitment data and candidate outreach services to enhance the talent acquisition journey.
Pamela Ilieva is the Director of International Recruitment at
Shortlister, a platform that connects employers to wellness, benefits, and HR tech vendors.
Brian H. Hough is a Web2 and Web3 software engineer, AWS Community Builder, host of the Tech Stack Playbook™ YouTube channel/podcast, 5-time global hackathon winner, and tech content creator with 10k+ followers.
Steve O'Brien is Senior Vice President, Talent Acquisition at
Syneos Health, leading a global team of top recruiters across 30+ countries in 24+ languages, with nearly 20 years of diverse recruitment experience.
Patricia (Sonja Sky) Gatlin is a New York Times featured activist, DEI Specialist, EdTechie, and Founder of Newbies in Tech. With 10+ years in Higher Education and 3+ in Tech, she now works part-time as a Diversity Lead recruiting STEM professionals to teach gifted students.
Overview of the upcoming tech industry landscape in 2024
Continued emphasis on remote work and flexibility: As we move into 2024, the tech industry is expected to continue embracing remote work and flexible schedules. This trend, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has proven to be more than a temporary shift. Companies are finding that remote work can lead to increased productivity, a broader talent pool, and better work-life balance for employees. As a result, recruiting strategies will likely focus on leveraging remote work capabilities to attract top talent globally.
Rising demand for AI and Machine Learning Skills: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) continue to be at the forefront of technological advancement. In 2024, these technologies are expected to become even more integrated into various business processes, driving demand for professionals skilled in AI and ML. Companies will likely prioritize candidates with expertise in these areas, and there may be an increased emphasis on upskilling existing employees to meet this demand.
Increased focus on cybersecurity: With the digital transformation of businesses, cybersecurity remains a critical concern. The tech industry in 2024 is anticipated to see a surge in the need for cybersecurity professionals. Companies will be on the lookout for talent capable of protecting against evolving cyber threats and ensuring data privacy.
Growth in cloud computing and edge computing: Cloud computing continues to grow, but there is also an increasing shift towards edge computing – processing data closer to where it is generated. This shift will likely create new job opportunities and skill requirements, influencing recruiting trends in the tech industry.
Sustainable technology and green computing: The global emphasis on sustainability is pushing the tech industry towards green computing and environmentally friendly technologies. In 2024, companies may seek professionals who can contribute to sustainable technology initiatives, adding a new dimension to tech recruiting.
Emphasis on soft skills: While technical skills remain paramount, soft skills like adaptability, communication, and problem-solving are becoming increasingly important. Companies are recognizing the value of these skills in fostering innovation and teamwork, especially in a remote or hybrid work environment.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): There is an ongoing push towards more diverse and inclusive workplaces. In 2024, tech companies will likely continue to strengthen their DEI initiatives, affecting how they recruit and retain talent.
6 industry experts predict the 2023 recruiting trends
#1 We've seen many important moments in the tech industry this year...
Rado: In my opinion, a lot of those will carry over. I felt this was a preparation year for what was to come...
Mike: I wish I had the crystal ball for this, but I hope that when the market starts picking up again...
Pamela: Quiet quitting has been here way before 2022, and it is here to stay if organizations and companies...
#3 What top 3 skills would you like HR professionals/engineering managers to add to their repertoire in 2023 to deal with upcoming challenges?
Rado: Prioritization, team time, and environment management.
I think "prioritization" and "team time" management are obvious. But what do I mean by "environment management"?
A productive environment is one of the key ingredients for a productive team. Look at where your team wastes most time, which can be automated. For example, end-to-end writing tests take time because our tools are cumbersome and undocumented. So let's improve this.
Mike: Setting better metrics/KPIs, moving away from LinkedIn, and sharing more knowledge.
Metrics/KPIs: Become better at setting measurable KPIs and accountable metrics. They are not the same thing—it's like the Square and Rectangle. One fits into the other but they're not the same. Hold people accountable to metrics, not KPIs. Make sure your metrics are aligned with company goals and values, and that they push employees toward excellence, not mediocrity.
Freedom from LinkedIn: This is every year, and will probably continue to be. LinkedIn is a great database, but it is NOT the only way to find candidates, and oftentimes, not even the most effective/efficient. Explore other tools and methodologies!
Join the conversation: I'd love to see new names of people presenting at conferences and webinars. And also, see new authors on the popular TA content websites. Everyone has things they can share—be a part of the community, not just a user of. Join FB groups, write and post articles, and comment on other people's posts with more than 'Great article'. It's a great community, but it's only great because of the people who contribute to it—be one of those people.
Pamela: Resilience, leveraging data, and self-awareness.
Resilience: A “must-have” skill for the 21st century due to constant changes in the tech industry. Face and adapt to challenges. Overcome them and handle disappointments. Never give up. This will keep HR people alive in 2023.
Data skills: Get some data analyst skills. The capacity to transfer numbers into data can help you be a better HR professional, prepared to improve the employee experience and show your leadership team how HR is leveraging data to drive business results.
Self-awareness: Allows you to react better to upsetting situations and workplace challenges. It is a healthy skill to cultivate – especially as an HR professional.
Agility: Allows professionals to move with market conditions. Always be as prepared as possible for any situation to come. Be flexible based on what does or does not happen.
Resourcefulness: Allows professionals to do more with less. It also helps them focus on how to amplify, lift, and empower the current teams to be the best they can be.
Empathy: Allows professionals to take a more proactive approach to listening and understanding where all workers are coming from. Amid stressful situations, companies need empathetic team members and leaders alike who can meet each other wherever they are and be a support.
Steve: Negotiation, data management, and talent development.
Negotiation: Wage transparency laws will fundamentally change the compensation conversation. We must ensure we are still discussing compensation early in the process. And not just “assume” everyone’s on the same page because “the range is published”.
Data management and predictive analytics: Looking at your organization's talent needs as a casserole of indistinguishable components and demands will not be good enough. We must upgrade the accuracy and consistency of our data and the predictions we can make from it.
Talent development: We’ve been exploring the interplay between TA and TM for years. Now is the time to integrate your internal and external talent marketplaces. To provide career experiences to people within your organization and not just those joining your organization.
Patricia: Technology, research, and relationship building.
Technology: Get better at understanding the technology that’s out there. To help you speed up the process, track candidate experience, but also eliminate bias. Metrics are becoming big in HR.
Research: Honestly, read more books. Many great thought leaders put out content about the “future of work”, understanding “Gen Z”, or “quiet quitting.” Dedicate work hours to understanding your ever-changing field.
Relationship Building: Especially in your immediate communities. Most people don’t know who you are or what exactly it is that you do. Build your personal brand and what you are doing at your company to impact those closest to you. Create a referral funnel to get a pipeline going. When people want a job you and your company ought to be top of mind. Also, tell the stories of the people that work there.
The last couple of years transformed how the world works and the tech industry is no exception. Remote work, a candidate-driven market, and automation are some of the tech recruiting trends born out of the pandemic.
While accepting the new reality and adapting to it is the first step, keeping up with continuously changing hiring trends in technology is the bigger challenge right now.
What does 2024 hold for recruiters across the globe? What hiring practices would work best in this post-pandemic world? How do you stay on top of the changes in this industry?
The answers to these questions will paint a clearer picture of how to set up for success while recruiting tech talent this year.
7 tech recruiting trends for 2024
Recruiters, we’ve got you covered. Here are the tech recruiting trends that will change the way you build tech teams in 2024.
Trend #1—Leverage data-driven recruiting
Data-driven recruiting strategies are the answer to effective talent sourcing and a streamlined hiring process.
Talent acquisition leaders need to use real-time analytics like pipeline growth metrics, offer acceptance rates, quality and cost of new hires, and candidate feedback scores to reduce manual work, improve processes, and hire the best talent.
The key to capitalizing on talent market trends in 2024 is data. It enables you to analyze what’s working and what needs refinement, leaving room for experimentation.
Having a strong employer brand that supports a clear Employer Value Proposition (EVP) is crucial to influencing a candidate’s decision to work with your company. Perks like upskilling opportunities, remote work, and flexible hours are top EVPs that attract qualified candidates.
A clear EVP builds a culture of balance, mental health awareness, and flexibility—strengthening your employer brand with candidate-first policies.
Trend #3—Focus on candidate-driven market
The pandemic drastically increased the skills gap, making tech recruitment more challenging. With the severe shortage of tech talent, candidates now hold more power and can afford to be selective.
Competitive pay is no longer enough. Use data to understand what candidates want—work-life balance, remote options, learning opportunities—and adapt accordingly.
Recruiters need to think creatively to attract and retain top talent.
Trend #4—Have a diversity and inclusion oriented company culture
Diversity and inclusion have become central to modern recruitment. While urgent hiring can delay D&I efforts, long-term success depends on inclusive teams. Our survey shows that 25.6% of HR professionals believe a diverse leadership team helps build stronger pipelines and reduces bias.
McKinsey’s Diversity Wins report confirms this: top-quartile gender-diverse companies see 25% higher profitability, and ethnically diverse teams show 36% higher returns.
It's refreshing to see the importance of an inclusive culture increasing across all job-seeking communities, especially in tech. This reiterates that D&I is a must-have, not just a good-to-have.
Trend #5—Embed automation and AI into your recruitment systems
With the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT, automation is being adopted across every business function—including recruiting.
Manual communication with large candidate pools is inefficient. In 2024, recruitment automation and AI-powered platforms will automate candidate nurturing and communication, providing a more personalized experience while saving time.
Remote interviews expand access to global talent, reduce overhead costs, and increase flexibility—making the hiring process more efficient for both recruiters and candidates.
Trend #7—Be proactive in candidate engagement
Delayed responses or lack of updates can frustrate candidates and impact your brand. Proactive communication and engagement with both active and passive candidates are key to successful recruiting.
As recruitment evolves, proactive candidate engagement will become central to attracting and retaining talent. In 2023 and beyond, companies must engage both active and passive candidates through innovative strategies and technologies like chatbots and AI-powered systems. Building pipelines and nurturing relationships will enhance employer branding and ensure long-term hiring success.
Recruiting Tech Talent Just Got Easier With HackerEarth
Recruiting qualified tech talent is tough—but we’re here to help. HackerEarth for Enterprises offers an all-in-one suite that simplifies sourcing, assessing, and interviewing developers.
Staying ahead of tech recruiting trends, improving hiring processes, and adapting to change is the way forward in 2024. Take note of the tips in this article and use them to build a future-ready hiring strategy.
Developers. Are they as mysterious as everyone makes them out to be? Is coding the only thing they do all day? Good coders work around the clock, right?
While developers are some of the most coveted talent out there, they also have the most myths being circulated. Most of us forget that developers too are just like us. And no, they do not code all day long.
We wanted to bust a lot of these myths and shed light on how the programming world looks through a developer’s lens in 2021—especially in the wake of a global pandemic. This year’s edition of the annual HackerEarth Developer Survey is packed with developers’ wants and needs when choosing jobs, major gripes with the WFH scenario, and the latest market trends to watch out for, among others.
Our 2021 report is bigger and better, with responses from 25,431 developers across 171 countries. Let’s find out what makes a developer tick, shall we?
“Good coders work around the clock.” No, they don’t.
Busting the myth that developers spend the better part of their day coding, 52% of student developers said that they prefer to code for a maximum of 3 hours per day.
When not coding, devs swear by their walks as a way to unwind. When we asked devs the same question last year, they said they liked to indulge in indoor games like foosball. In 2021, going for walks has become the most popular method of de-stressing. We’re chalking it up to working from home and not having a chance to stretch their legs.
Staying ahead of the skills game
Following the same trend as last year, students (39%) and working professionals (44%) voted for Go as one of the most popular programming languages that they want to learn. The other programming languages that devs are interested in learning are Rust, Kotlin, and Erlang.
Programming languages that students are most skilled at are HTML/CSS, C++, and Python. Senior developers are more comfortable working with HTML/CSS, SQL, and Java.
How happy are developers
Employees from middle market organizations had the highest 'happiness index' of 7.2. Experienced developers who work at enterprises are marginally less happy in comparison to people who work at smaller companies.
However, happiness is not a binding factor for where developers work. Despite scoring the least on the happiness scale, working professionals would still like to work at enterprise companies and growth-stage startups.
What works when looking for work
Student devs (63%), who are just starting in the tech world, said a good career growth curve is a must-have. Working professionals can be wooed by offers of a good career path (69%) and compensation (68%).
One trend that has changed since last year is that at least 50% of students and working professionals alike care a lot more about ESOPs and positive Glassdoor reviews now than they did in 2020.
To know more about what developers want, download your copy of the report now!
We went a step further and organized an event with our CEO, Sachin Gupta, Radoslav Stankov, Head of Engineering at Product Hunt, and Steve O’Brien, President of Talent Solutions at Job.com to further dissect the findings of our survey.
Tips straight from the horse’s mouth
Steve highlighted how the information collated from the developer survey affects the recruiting community and how they can leverage this data to hire better and faster.
The insight where developer happiness is correlated to work hours didn’t find a significant difference between the cohorts. Devs working for less than 40 hours seemed marginally happier than those that clocked in more than 60 hours a week.
“This is an interesting data point, which shows that devs are passionate about what they do. You can increase their workload by 50% and still not affect their happiness. From a work perspective, as a recruiter, you have to get your hiring manager to understand that while devs never say no to more work, HMs shouldn’t overload the devs. Devs are difficult to source and burnout only leads to killing your talent pool, which is something that you do not want,” says Steve.
Roughly 45% of both student and professional developers learned how to code in college was another insight that was open to interpretation.
“Let’s look at it differently. Less than half of the surveyed developers learned how to code in college. There’s a major segment of the market today that is not necessarily following the ‘college degree to getting a job’ path. Developers are beginning to look at their skillsets differently and using various platforms to upskill themselves. Development is not about pedigree, it’s more about the potential to demonstrate skills. This is an interesting shift in the way we approach testing and evaluating devs in 2021.”
Rado contextualized the data from the survey to see what it means for the developer community and what trends to watch out for in 2021.
Node.js and AngularJS are the most popular frameworks among students and professionals.
“I was surprised by how many young students wanted to learn AngularJS, given that it’s more of an enterprise framework. Another thing that stood out to me was that the younger generation wants to learn technologies that are not necessarily cool like ExtJS (35%). This is good because people are picking technologies that they enjoy working with instead of just going along with what everyone else is doing. This also builds a more diverse technology pool.” — Rado
22% of devs say ‘Zoom Fatigue’ is real and directly affects productivity.
“Especially for younger people who still haven’t figured out a routine to develop their skills, there is something I’d like you to try out. Start using noise-canceling headphones. They help keep distractions to a minimum. I find clutter-free working spaces to be an interesting concept as well.”
The last year and a half have been a doozy for developers everywhere, with a lot of things changing, and some things staying the same. With our developer survey, we wanted to shine the spotlight on skill-based hiring and market trends in 2021—plus highlight the fact that developers too have their gripes and happy hours.
Uncover many more developer trends for 2021 with Steve and Rado below:
In today's competitive talent market, attracting and retaining top performers is crucial for any organization's success. However, traditional hiring methods like relying solely on resumes and interviews may not always provide a comprehensive picture of a candidate's skills and potential. This is where pre-employment assessments come into play.
What is Pre-Employement Assessment?
Pre-employment assessments are standardized tests and evaluations administered to candidates before they are hired. These assessments can help you objectively measure a candidate's knowledge, skills, abilities, and personality traits, allowing you to make data-driven hiring decisions.
By exploring and evaluating the best pre-employment assessment tools and tests available, you can:
Improve the accuracy and efficiency of your hiring process.
Identify top talent with the right skills and cultural fit.
Reduce the risk of bad hires.
Enhance the candidate experience by providing a clear and objective evaluation process.
This guide will provide you with valuable insights into the different types of pre-employment assessments available and highlight some of the best tools, to help you optimize your hiring process for 2024.
Why pre-employment assessments are key in hiring
While resumes and interviews offer valuable insights, they can be subjective and susceptible to bias. Pre-employment assessments provide a standardized and objective way to evaluate candidates, offering several key benefits:
Improved decision-making:
By measuring specific skills and knowledge, assessments help you identify candidates who possess the qualifications necessary for the job.
Reduced bias:
Standardized assessments mitigate the risks of unconscious bias that can creep into traditional interview processes.
Increased efficiency:
Assessments can streamline the initial screening process, allowing you to focus on the most promising candidates.
Enhanced candidate experience:
When used effectively, assessments can provide candidates with a clear understanding of the required skills and a fair chance to showcase their abilities.
Types of pre-employment assessments
There are various types of pre-employment assessments available, each catering to different needs and objectives. Here's an overview of some common types:
1. Skill Assessments:
Technical Skills: These assessments evaluate specific technical skills and knowledge relevant to the job role, such as programming languages, software proficiency, or industry-specific expertise. HackerEarth offers a wide range of validated technical skill assessments covering various programming languages, frameworks, and technologies.
Soft Skills: These employment assessments measure non-technical skills like communication, problem-solving, teamwork, and critical thinking, crucial for success in any role.
2. Personality Assessments:
These employment assessments can provide insights into a candidate's personality traits, work style, and cultural fit within your organization.
3. Cognitive Ability Tests:
These tests measure a candidate's general mental abilities, such as reasoning, problem-solving, and learning potential.
4. Integrity Assessments:
These employment assessments aim to identify potential risks associated with a candidate's honesty, work ethic, and compliance with company policies.
By understanding the different types of assessments and their applications, you can choose the ones that best align with your specific hiring needs and ensure you hire the most qualified and suitable candidates for your organization.
Leading employment assessment tools and tests in 2024
Choosing the right pre-employment assessment tool depends on your specific needs and budget. Here's a curated list of some of the top pre-employment assessment tools and tests available in 2024, with brief overviews:
A comprehensive platform offering a wide range of validated skill assessments in various programming languages, frameworks, and technologies. It also allows for the creation of custom assessments and integrates seamlessly with various recruitment platforms.
Provides a broad selection of assessments, including skill tests, personality assessments, and cognitive ability tests. They offer customizable solutions and cater to various industries.
Utilizes gamified assessments to evaluate cognitive skills, personality traits, and cultural fit. They offer a data-driven approach and emphasize candidate experience.
Wonderlic:
Offers a variety of assessments, including the Wonderlic Personnel Test, which measures general cognitive ability. They also provide aptitude and personality assessments.
Harver:
An assessment platform focusing on candidate experience with video interviews, gamified assessments, and skills tests. They offer pre-built assessments and customization options.
Remember: This list is not exhaustive, and further research is crucial to identify the tool that aligns best with your specific needs and budget. Consider factors like the types of assessments offered, pricing models, integrations with your existing HR systems, and user experience when making your decision.
Choosing the right pre-employment assessment tool
Instead of full individual tool reviews, consider focusing on 2–3 key platforms. For each platform, explore:
Target audience: Who are their assessments best suited for (e.g., technical roles, specific industries)?
Types of assessments offered: Briefly list the available assessment categories (e.g., technical skills, soft skills, personality).
Key features: Highlight unique functionalities like gamification, custom assessment creation, or seamless integrations.
Effectiveness: Briefly mention the platform's approach to assessment validation and reliability.
User experience: Consider including user reviews or ratings where available.
Comparative analysis of assessment options
Instead of a comprehensive comparison, consider focusing on specific use cases:
Technical skills assessment:
Compare HackerEarth and Wonderlic based on their technical skill assessment options, focusing on the variety of languages/technologies covered and assessment formats.
Soft skills and personality assessment:
Compare SHL and Pymetrics based on their approaches to evaluating soft skills and personality traits, highlighting any unique features like gamification or data-driven insights.
Candidate experience:
Compare Harver and Wonderlic based on their focus on candidate experience, mentioning features like video interviews or gamified assessments.
Additional tips:
Encourage readers to visit the platforms' official websites for detailed features and pricing information.
Include links to reputable third-party review sites where users share their experiences with various tools.
Best practices for using pre-employment assessment tools
Integrating pre-employment assessments effectively requires careful planning and execution. Here are some best practices to follow:
Define your assessment goals:
Clearly identify what you aim to achieve with assessments. Are you targeting specific skills, personality traits, or cultural fit?
Choose the right assessments:
Select tools that align with your defined goals and the specific requirements of the open position.
Set clear expectations:
Communicate the purpose and format of the assessments to candidates in advance, ensuring transparency and building trust.
Integrate seamlessly:
Ensure your chosen assessment tool integrates smoothly with your existing HR systems and recruitment workflow.
Train your team:
Equip your hiring managers and HR team with the knowledge and skills to interpret assessment results effectively.
Interpreting assessment results accurately
Assessment results offer valuable data points, but interpreting them accurately is crucial for making informed hiring decisions. Here are some key considerations:
Use results as one data point:
Consider assessment results alongside other information, such as resumes, interviews, and references, for a holistic view of the candidate.
Understand score limitations:
Don't solely rely on raw scores. Understand the assessment's validity and reliability and the potential for cultural bias or individual test anxiety.
Look for patterns and trends:
Analyze results across different assessments and identify consistent patterns that align with your desired candidate profile.
Focus on potential, not guarantees:
Assessments indicate potential, not guarantees of success. Use them alongside other evaluation methods to make well-rounded hiring decisions.
Choosing the right pre-employment assessment tools
Selecting the most suitable pre-employment assessment tool requires careful consideration of your organization's specific needs. Here are some key factors to guide your decision:
Industry and role requirements:
Different industries and roles demand varying skill sets and qualities. Choose assessments that target the specific skills and knowledge relevant to your open positions.
Company culture and values:
Align your assessments with your company culture and values. For example, if collaboration is crucial, look for assessments that evaluate teamwork and communication skills.
Candidate experience:
Prioritize tools that provide a positive and smooth experience for candidates. This can enhance your employer brand and attract top talent.
Budget and accessibility considerations
Budget and accessibility are essential factors when choosing pre-employment assessments:
Budget:
Assessment tools come with varying pricing models (subscriptions, pay-per-use, etc.). Choose a tool that aligns with your budget and offers the functionalities you need.
Accessibility:
Ensure the chosen assessment is accessible to all candidates, considering factors like language options, disability accommodations, and internet access requirements.
Additional Tips:
Free trials and demos: Utilize free trials or demos offered by assessment platforms to experience their functionalities firsthand.
Consult with HR professionals: Seek guidance from HR professionals or recruitment specialists with expertise in pre-employment assessments.
Read user reviews and comparisons: Gain insights from other employers who use various assessment tools.
By carefully considering these factors, you can select the pre-employment assessment tool that best aligns with your organizational needs, budget, and commitment to an inclusive hiring process.
Remember, pre-employment assessments are valuable tools, but they should not be the sole factor in your hiring decisions. Use them alongside other evaluation methods and prioritize building a fair and inclusive hiring process that attracts and retains top talent.
Future trends in pre-employment assessments
The pre-employment assessment landscape is constantly evolving, with innovative technologies and practices emerging. Here are some potential future trends to watch:
Artificial intelligence (AI):
AI-powered assessments can analyze candidate responses, written work, and even resumes, using natural language processing to extract relevant insights and identify potential candidates.
Adaptive testing:
These assessments adjust the difficulty level of questions based on the candidate's performance, providing a more efficient and personalized evaluation.
Micro-assessments:
Short, focused assessments delivered through mobile devices can assess specific skills or knowledge on-the-go, streamlining the screening process.
Gamification:
Engaging and interactive game-based elements can make the assessment experience more engaging and assess skills in a realistic and dynamic way.
Conclusion
Pre-employment assessments, when used thoughtfully and ethically, can be a powerful tool to optimize your hiring process, identify top talent, and build a successful workforce for your organization. By understanding the different types of assessments available, exploring top-rated tools like HackerEarth, and staying informed about emerging trends, you can make informed decisions that enhance your ability to attract, evaluate, and hire the best candidates for the future.
Layoffs in the IT industry are becoming more widespread as companies fight to remain competitive in a fast-changing market; many turn to layoffs as a cost-cutting measure. Last year, 1,000 companies including big tech giants and startups, laid off over two lakhs of employees. But first, what are layoffs in the tech business, and how do they impact the industry?
Tech layoffs are the termination of employment for some employees by a technology company. It might happen for various reasons, including financial challenges, market conditions, firm reorganization, or the after-effects of a pandemic. While layoffs are not unique to the IT industry, they are becoming more common as companies look for methods to cut costs while remaining competitive.
The consequences of layoffs in technology may be catastrophic for employees who lose their jobs and the firms forced to make these difficult decisions. Layoffs can result in the loss of skill and expertise and a drop in employee morale and productivity. However, they may be required for businesses to stay afloat in a fast-changing market.
This article will examine the reasons for layoffs in the technology industry, their influence on the industry, and what may be done to reduce their negative impacts. We will also look at the various methods for tracking tech layoffs.
What are tech layoffs?
The term "tech layoff" describes the termination of employees by an organization in the technology industry. A company might do this as part of a restructuring during hard economic times.
In recent times, the tech industry has witnessed a wave of significant layoffs, affecting some of the world’s leading technology companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, Meta (formerly Facebook), Apple, Cisco, SAP, and Sony. These layoffs are a reflection of the broader economic challenges and market adjustments facing the sector, including factors like slowing revenue growth, global economic uncertainties, and the need to streamline operations for efficiency.
Each of these tech giants has announced job cuts for various reasons, though common themes include restructuring efforts to stay competitive and agile, responding to over-hiring during the pandemic when demand for tech services surged, and preparing for a potentially tough economic climate ahead. Despite their dominant positions in the market, these companies are not immune to the economic cycles and technological shifts that influence operational and strategic decisions, including workforce adjustments.
This trend of layoffs in the tech industry underscores the volatile nature of the tech sector, which is often at the mercy of rapid changes in technology, consumer preferences, and the global economy. It also highlights the importance of adaptability and resilience for companies and employees alike in navigating the uncertainties of the tech landscape.
Yes, the market is always uncertain, but why resort to tech layoffs?
Various factors cause tech layoffs, including company strategy changes, market shifts, or financial difficulties. Companies may lay off employees if they need help to generate revenue, shift their focus to new products or services, or automate certain jobs.
In addition, some common reasons could be:
Financial struggles
Currently, the state of the global market is uncertain due to economic recession, ongoing war, and other related phenomena. If a company is experiencing financial difficulties, only sticking to pay cuts may not be helpful—it may need to reduce its workforce to cut costs.
The tech industry is constantly evolving, and companies would have to adjust their workforce to meet changing market conditions. For instance, companies are adopting remote work culture, which surely affects on-premises activity, and companies could do away with some number of tech employees at the backend.
Restructuring
Companies may also lay off employees as part of a greater restructuring effort, such as spinning off a division or consolidating operations.
Automation
With the advancement in technology and automation, some jobs previously done by human labor may be replaced by machines, resulting in layoffs.
Mergers and acquisitions
When two companies merge, there is often overlap in their operations, leading to layoffs as the new company looks to streamline its workforce.
But it's worth noting that layoffs are not exclusive to the tech industry and can happen in any industry due to uncertainty in the market.
Will layoffs increase in 2024?
It is challenging to estimate the rise or fall of layoffs. The overall state of the economy, the health of certain industries, and the performance of individual companies will play a role in deciding the degree of layoffs in any given year.
But it is also seen that, in the first 15 days of this year, 91 organizations laid off over 24,000 tech workers, and over 1,000 corporations cut down more than 150,000 workers in 2022, according to an Economic Times article.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused a huge economic slowdown and forced several businesses to downsize their employees. However, some businesses rehired or expanded their personnel when the world began to recover.
So, given the current level of economic uncertainty, predicting how the situation will unfold is difficult.
What types of companies are prone to tech layoffs?
Tech layoffs can occur in organizations of all sizes and various areas.
Following are some examples of companies that have experienced tech layoffs in the past:
Large tech firms
Companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Twitter, Better.com, Alibaba, and HP have all experienced layoffs in recent years as part of restructuring initiatives or cost-cutting measures.
Market scenarios are still being determined after Elon Musk's decision to lay off employees. Along with tech giants, some smaller companies and startups have also been affected by layoffs.
Startups
Because they frequently work with limited resources, startups may be forced to lay off staff if they cannot get further funding or need to pivot due to market downfall.
Small and medium-sized businesses
Small and medium-sized businesses face layoffs due to high competition or if the products/services they offer are no longer in demand.
Companies in certain industries
Some sectors of the technological industry, such as the semiconductor industry or automotive industry, may be more prone to layoffs than others.
Companies that lean on government funding
Companies that rely significantly on government contracts may face layoffs if the government cuts technology spending or contracts are not renewed.
How to track tech layoffs?
You can’t stop tech company layoffs, but you should be keeping track of them. We, HR professionals and recruiters, can also lend a helping hand in these tough times by circulating “layoff lists” across social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter to help people land jobs quicker. Firefish Software put together a master list of sources to find fresh talent during the layoff period.
Because not all layoffs are publicly disclosed, tracking tech industry layoffs can be challenging, and some may go undetected. There are several ways to keep track of tech industry layoffs:
In addition, they aid in identifying trends in layoffs within the tech industry. It can reveal which industries are seeing the most layoffs and which companies are the most affected.
Companies can use layoff trackers as an early warning system and compare their performance to that of other companies in their field.
News articles
Because many news sites cover tech layoffs as they happen, keeping a watch on technology sector stories can provide insight into which organizations are laying off employees and how many individuals have been affected.
Social media
Organizations and employees frequently publish information about layoffs in tech on social media platforms; thus, monitoring companies' social media accounts or following key hashtags can provide real-time updates regarding layoffs.
Online forums and communities
There are online forums and communities dedicated to discussing tech industry news, and they can be an excellent source of layoff information.
Government reports
Government agencies such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publish data on layoffs and unemployment, which can provide a more comprehensive picture of the technology industry's status.
How do companies reduce tech layoffs?
Layoffs in tech are hard – for the employee who is losing their job, the recruiter or HR professional who is tasked with informing them, and the company itself. So, how can we aim to avoid layoffs? Here are some ways to minimize resorting to letting people go:
Salary reductions
Instead of laying off employees, businesses can lower the salaries or wages of all employees. It can be accomplished by instituting compensation cuts or salary freezes.
Implementing a hiring freeze
Businesses can halt employing new personnel to cut costs. It can be a short-term solution until the company's financial situation improves.
Businesses might search for ways to cut or remove non-essential expenses such as travel, training, and office expenses.
Reducing working hours
Companies can reduce employee working hours to save money, such as implementing a four-day workweek or a shorter workday.
These options may not always be viable and may have their problems, but before laying off, a company owes it to its people to consider every other alternative, and formulate the best solution.
Tech layoffs to bleed into this year
While we do not know whether this trend will continue or subside during 2023, we do know one thing. We have to be prepared for a wave of layoffs that is still yet to hit. As of last month, Layoffs.fyi had already tracked 170+ companies conducting 55,970 layoffs in 2023.
So recruiters, let’s join arms, distribute those layoff lists like there’s no tomorrow, and help all those in need of a job! :)
In today’s fast-paced world, recruiting talent has become increasingly complicated. Technological advancements, high workforce expectations and a highly competitive market have pushed recruitment agencies to adopt innovative strategies for recruiting various types of talent. This article aims to explore one such recruitment strategy – headhunting.
What is Headhunting in recruitment?
In headhunting, companies or recruitment agencies identify, engage and hire highly skilled professionals to fill top positions in the respective companies. It is different from the traditional process in which candidates looking for job opportunities approach companies or recruitment agencies. In headhunting, executive headhunters, as recruiters are referred to, approach prospective candidates with the hiring company’s requirements and wait for them to respond. Executive headhunters generally look for passive candidates, those who work at crucial positions and are not on the lookout for new work opportunities. Besides, executive headhunters focus on filling critical, senior-level positions indispensable to companies. Depending on the nature of the operation, headhunting has three types. They are described later in this article. Before we move on to understand the types of headhunting, here is how the traditional recruitment process and headhunting are different.
How do headhunting and traditional recruitment differ from each other?
Headhunting is a type of recruitment process in which top-level managers and executives in similar positions are hired. Since these professionals are not on the lookout for jobs, headhunters have to thoroughly understand the hiring companies’ requirements and study the work profiles of potential candidates before creating a list.
In the traditional approach, there is a long list of candidates applying for jobs online and offline. Candidates approach recruiters for jobs. Apart from this primary difference, there are other factors that define the difference between these two schools of recruitment.
AspectHeadhuntingTraditional RecruitmentCandidate TypePrimarily passive candidateActive job seekersApproachFocused on specific high-level rolesBroader; includes various levelsScopeproactive outreachReactive: candidates applyCostGenerally more expensive due to expertise requiredTypically lower costsControlManaged by headhuntersManaged internally by HR teams
All the above parameters will help you to understand how headhunting differs from traditional recruitment methods, better.
Types of headhunting in recruitment
Direct headhunting: In direct recruitment, hiring teams reach out to potential candidates through personal communication. Companies conduct direct headhunting in-house, without outsourcing the process to hiring recruitment agencies. Very few businesses conduct this type of recruitment for top jobs as it involves extensive screening across networks outside the company’s expanse.
Indirect headhunting: This method involves recruiters getting in touch with their prospective candidates through indirect modes of communication such as email and phone calls. Indirect headhunting is less intrusive and allows candidates to respond at their convenience.Third-party recruitment: Companies approach external recruitment agencies or executive headhunters to recruit highly skilled professionals for top positions. This method often leverages the company’s extensive contact network and expertise in niche industries.
How does headhunting work?
Finding highly skilled professionals to fill critical positions can be tricky if there is no system for it. Expert executive headhunters employ recruitment software to conduct headhunting efficiently as it facilitates a seamless recruitment process for executive headhunters. Most software is AI-powered and expedites processes like candidate sourcing, interactions with prospective professionals and upkeep of communication history. This makes the process of executive search in recruitment a little bit easier. Apart from using software to recruit executives, here are the various stages of finding high-calibre executives through headhunting.
Identifying the role
Once there is a vacancy for a top job, one of the top executives like a CEO, director or the head of the company, reach out to the concerned personnel with their requirements. Depending on how large a company is, they may choose to headhunt with the help of an external recruiting agency or conduct it in-house. Generally, the task is assigned to external recruitment agencies specializing in headhunting. Executive headhunters possess a database of highly qualified professionals who work in crucial positions in some of the best companies. This makes them the top choice of conglomerates looking to hire some of the best talents in the industry.
Defining the job
Once an executive headhunter or a recruiting agency is finalized, companies conduct meetings to discuss the nature of the role, how the company works, the management hierarchy among other important aspects of the job. Headhunters are expected to understand these points thoroughly and establish a clear understanding of their expectations and goals.
Candidate identification and sourcing
Headhunters analyse and understand the requirements of their clients and begin creating a pool of suitable candidates from their database. The professionals are shortlisted after conducting extensive research of job profiles, number of years of industry experience, professional networks and online platforms.
Approaching candidates
Once the potential candidates have been identified and shortlisted, headhunters move on to get in touch with them discreetly through various communication channels. As such candidates are already working at top level positions at other companies, executive headhunters have to be low-key while doing so.
Assessment and Evaluation
In this next step, extensive screening and evaluation of candidates is conducted to determine their suitability for the advertised position.
Interviews and negotiations
Compensation is a major topic of discussion among recruiters and prospective candidates. A lot of deliberation and negotiation goes on between the hiring organization and the selected executives which is facilitated by the headhunters.
Finalizing the hire
Things come to a close once the suitable candidates accept the job offer. On accepting the offer letter, headhunters help finalize the hiring process to ensure a smooth transition.
The steps listed above form the blueprint for a typical headhunting process. Headhunting has been crucial in helping companies hire the right people for crucial positions that come with great responsibility. However, all systems have a set of challenges no matter how perfect their working algorithm is. Here are a few challenges that talent acquisition agencies face while headhunting.
Common challenges in headhunting
Despite its advantages, headhunting also presents certain challenges:
Cost Implications: Engaging headhunters can be more expensive than traditional recruitment methods due to their specialized skills and services.
Time-Consuming Process: While headhunting can be efficient, finding the right candidate for senior positions may still take time due to thorough evaluation processes.
Market Competition: The competition for top talent is fierce; organizations must present compelling offers to attract passive candidates away from their current roles.
Although the above mentioned factors can pose challenges in the headhunting process, there are more upsides than there are downsides to it. Here is how headhunting has helped revolutionize the recruitment of high-profile candidates.
Advantages of Headhunting
Headhunting offers several advantages over traditional recruitment methods:
Access to Passive Candidates: By targeting individuals who are not actively seeking new employment, organisations can access a broader pool of highly skilled professionals.
Confidentiality: The discreet nature of headhunting protects both candidates’ current employment situations and the hiring organisation’s strategic interests.
Customized Search: Headhunters tailor their search based on the specific needs of the organization, ensuring a better fit between candidates and company culture.
Industry Expertise: Many headhunters specialise in particular sectors, providing valuable insights into market dynamics and candidate qualifications.
Conclusion
Although headhunting can be costly and time-consuming, it is one of the most effective ways of finding good candidates for top jobs. Executive headhunters face several challenges maintaining the g discreetness while getting in touch with prospective clients. As organizations navigate increasingly competitive markets, understanding the nuances of headhunting becomes vital for effective recruitment strategies. To keep up with the technological advancements, it is better to optimise your hiring process by employing online recruitment software like HackerEarth, which enables companies to conduct multiple interviews and evaluation tests online, thus improving candidate experience. By collaborating with skilled headhunters who possess industry expertise and insights into market trends, companies can enhance their chances of securing high-caliber professionals who drive success in their respective fields.
