Hiring Strategies

This is a guest post by Harshala Chavan, founder of Merrative.

A stronghold of technical concepts is necessary to write about any specific technology. But writing and coding are distinct skill sets, and hence, few experienced developers indulge in professional writing.

At Merrative, it took us multiple paid trials, hours of recruitment work, and a loss of USD 1000+ with unsatisfactory work to find our first 15 technical writers. In response to this, we designed a system to hire technical writers for our marketplace.

Read more to know how we scaled our technical writer talent pool from 15 to 150 and tips for hiring a technical writer.

Who is a technical writer?

A technical writer understands the underlying technology of a product to write technical documentation, blogs, whitepapers, or other communication formats.

At Merrative, we believe that talented tech writers should have the necessary expertise in the technical subject to understand how a product or feature works and write about it in simple, clear, and concise language. A technical writer is usually employed across companies in industries such as Technology, Healthcare, Finance, etc.

Job description of a technical writer

What sets technical writers apart from other professional writers?

Deep knowledge and understanding of technology. These skills are crucial to delivering solid technical documentation. Technical writers usually write for CTOs, developers, and even non-technical customers. Having such a varied audience means technical writers have to constantly tune their tone, information depth, and jargon usage as per the audience.

Also read: 5-Step Guide To Gender-Fluid Tech Job Descriptions (+Free Checklist)

Key responsibilities of a technical writer

Ensure your technical writer candidate can do the following:

1. Research the product and grasp concepts of the underlying technology used to make the product
2. Understand and follow technical content guidelines defined by the brand to draft technical documentation
3. Work with team members across Product and Marketing to draft appropriate technical content
4. Work with the Design team to create relevant diagrams, charts, code snippets, etc.
5. Take feedback from team members, customers, and beta testers to align the content with their requirements.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) for a technical writer

Use the following KPIs in the job description:

1. Technical accuracy: How well does your technical writer know your product? Are they adding correct code snippets to the content when needed? Define KPIs to measure how accurately the writer is presenting your product – a useful way is to design a technology or product onboarding for new joiners. Managers can also conduct regular tests or workshops about the product to align technical accuracy.

2. Readability: Technical content tends to get higher grades in online editors like the Hemingway app. This can be very misleading. Define an acceptable readability score for the hired technical writer or check how their published content performs. A great way to check the usability of written content is by asking for feedback. For example, Google takes feedback on its product support content by asking the reader ‘Was this article helpful’ with Yes/No options. This helps the support team understand the usefulness of the content published.

3. Adherence to content guidelines: Define non-negotiable key content guidelines that the technical writers should follow

4. Collaboration: Define KPIs that include getting feedback from customers, other teams, and/or testers as part of the review process.

Average expected pay for technical writers:

According to Salary.com, the typical salary for a full-time technical writer ranges from USD 54,945 to USD 68,512 in the USA. For a freelance writer, the compensation for a technical blog post ranges between USD 350 to USD 1000+ depending on the content format and expertise.

When should a technology brand hire a technical writer?

A technology business requires a technical writer to cover the following content formats:

1. User manuals: Step-by-step instructions about using the product
2. Whitepapers: Authoritative reports to educate potential customers about your product use case or industry
3. Developer documentation: Create guides and help tutorials for developers to build using your product’s ecosystem
4. Newsletters: Email periodicals about your product, new features, and other information critical for engaging potential customers
5. Technical blogs: Search Engine Optimized technical blog posts as per the company’s content marketing strategy.

Hiring a freelance technical writer v/s an in-house technical writer

Choosing between freelance and in-house technical writers depends on the number of content projects and expertise required.

For example, if your company plans to publish only three to five whitepapers a year, it doesn’t make sense to hire a full-time employee. On the other hand, if your publishing strategy includes multiple technical content formats, a freelancer may prove to be expensive.

What makes a good technical writer?

Apart from the non-negotiable exceptional writing skills, check for these top 3 must-have hard skills in your technical writer:

1. Technical research skills: A good writer must thoroughly study your product, technology, and user experience to craft well-researched content.
2. Writing skills: Technical content can be very dry and hard to understand. A good writer, usingspeech to text technology, not only writes grammatically correct content but also knows how to make really hard concepts easy to grasp for laymen, without sounding condescending.
3. Visual communication: A technical writer may have to present instructions using diagrams, charts, or infographics. For this, they may have to work with a designer or need adequate visual communication skills to showcase technical diagrams. It is important to know how and when to use visual communication in your content to create impact, as well as resonate with the audience.

Check for these top 3 must-have soft skills in your technical writer:

1. Empathy: A technical writer simplifies technology for common users. Empathy is key to ensuring they write what the reader can easily understand and implement.
2. Attention to detail: Without attention to detail, a writer may publish wrong instructions or help instructions that hurt the brand’s credibility.
3. Adaptability: Technology is constantly changing and a technical writer should know how to adapt and learn to keep up.

How to hire a technical writer? – the 5-step hiring process

At Merrative, we are a publishing talent marketplace that helps brands and publishers with thought leadership content. Here’s how we designed a process to hire a technical writer to save recruitment costs:

Step 1: Set the right expectations

Paid trials are expensive in the technical writing field. Hence, setting budgets and processes is key to ensuring you do not waste money in doing paid trials with unqualified technical writers.

1. Write technical documentation and create content guidelines

Creating content guidelines specifically for your technical content acts like a checklist for gauging how well the writer fits your requirements.

2. Create content brief templates for various content formats and topic segments that need to be covered

Having templates handy for the required content formats helps quickly assign paid trial tasks to selected writers. Save topic clusters for paid trials to test writers based on their experience.

3. Prepare agreements and fix a budget

Ensure that you sign agreements to protect your company data, product designs, and other key internal information as writing assignments may require sharing them. Have a budget in place to test technical writers accordingly. In our experience at Merrative, it is better to hire experienced writers who may charge more but produce quality output.

Step 2: Set up a ‘Write For Us’ program

‘Write for Us’ is one of the key ways in which writers and agencies approach companies they would like to work with for at least guest posting opportunities. This is a great way to collaborate with writers who are genuinely interested in contributing to your content library. It also reduces your recruitment efforts. Epilogue’s (Merrative’s in-house publication) ‘Write for Us’ page generated 100+ applications within 3 weeks of its launch.

Step 3: Create a technical writer interview checklist

Create a checklist of questions to ask potential technical writer candidates. Questions about company culture fit, professional experience, and technical expertise is a great mix.

Also read: 8 Unconsciously Sexist Interview Questions You’re Asking Your Female Candidates

Step 4: Set up a technical writer paid assessment workflow

At Merrative, a writer is selected based on our internal selection guidelines of educational qualification, industry experience, and professional writing experience. Then, we gauge the writing style and technical depth of the relevant samples shared by the writer as per our content guidelines.

We approach writers who meet our qualification guidelines for a paid trial assessment post negotiating budgets. On submission of the writing sample, we check how much they have adhered to our content guidelines and then proceed with more projects.

Good execution of Step–1 is crucial to ensure smooth trials in Step–3.

Step–5: Onboard the hired technical writer into your content production system

Like any new recruit, the newly hired writer, too, has to adjust to your company’s workplace culture. Having a good onboarding process ensures they are trained in using the product and tools used in your organization. Set up a meet and greet with the existing team for smooth collaboration.

Hiring rubric used by Merrative to filter the top 5% of technical writers

Here’s a hiring rubric used by Merrative to hire technical writers:

If you would like to understand more about our technical writer hiring process, feel free to email hello@merrative.com to schedule a chat. You can also download this hiring rubric and more resources from our free writing resources section.

5 tips for hiring the best technical writer

Here are 5 best practices used at Merrative that might help you streamline your technical writing hiring process:

1. Stress on experience: At Merrative, we have experienced how writers who had graduated with a software degree, have worked in the software industry, or wrote about software as a hobby produced the best content compared to other candidates.
2. Don’t take unprofessional behavior lightly: One of our writers in the talent pool submitted content with 3% plagiarism and defended it by saying how ‘3% is alright’. Eventually, we observed how the writer indeed slacked off multiple times in terms of adhering to defined content quality standards. Seemingly small but unprofessional behavior can add up as you work together and eventually become a problem.
3. Review writing samples or portfolio: it is possible to understand a writer’s skill by gauging how they have structured their portfolio. For example, a diverse portfolio suggests a lack of subject matter expertise. Ask for relevant samples on topics your brand aims to cover and check the depth of writing. Carefully analyzing portfolios helps avoid unnecessary paid writing tests.
4. Do not use job templates: using job description templates may dilute your branding and may not be enough to attract the right applicants due to being ‘general’. Carefully research what you require in your candidate and state that in your job description, or consider leveraging a writing assistant for personalized and effective job postings.
5. Use screening tools: it is common to receive thousands of technical writer applications. There are many dedicated hiring tools like LinkedIn, Upwork, Workello, etc that help with test assignments and recruitment.

Before you invest in hiring an employee, you need to ask yourself this one question: “What is the cost of hiring a new employee?”

The costs involved in every organization are different. For some, the costs are lower and for some, they are higher. If the cost per hire for your new hires is lower, you’re doing it right.

But if it’s the latter, you need to revisit your recruitment costs and optimize them. And how to do it?

Well, this article outlines everything that you need to know:

• What is cost-per-hire?
• What is the cost-per-hire formula?
• How to calculate this metric?
• How to use cost-per-hire data?
• Which factors influence the cost per hire?
• How can you reduce your cost per hire?

Let’s read.

What is cost-per-hire?

Cost-per-hire is a recruiting metric that measures costs associated with hiring employees. These expenses include:

• Sourcing and recruitment advertising costs
• Onboarding
• Referral bonus program costs

Put simply, cost-per-hire is the average amount you spend on a new hire in a given period.

For example, if you plan to hire 100 new employees in the current year with a budget of $2,00,000, the cost-per-hire will be $2,000.

What is the cost-per-hire formula?

The cost-per-hire formula is the sum of internal and external recruiting costs divided by the total number of hires in a given time frame.

Cost-per-hire = (Internal recruiting costs + external recruiting costs) / total number of hires within the timeframe

Internal recruiting costs

Internal recruiting costs refer to the internal staff, capital, and organizational costs of the recruitment function. These costs include:

• In-house talent acquisition team salaries
• Salary costs of hiring managers’ time
• Learning and development costs of your recruiting team

For example, referral bonuses offered to employees and people outside your company are considered internal costs of recruiting.

External recruiting costs

External costs refer to any expense incurred by external vendors or vendors during the recruiting process. These include:

• External agency fees
• Posting on job boards
• Aptitude test providers
• Employer branding activities
• Live video calls
• Relocation expenses
• Applicant tracking system fees

For example, the premium fee paid to job boards like Crunchboard to hire developers is considered the external cost of recruiting.

Also, read: Optimize Your Hiring Process With Recruitment Analytics

How to calculate cost-per-hire?

To calculate the cost-per-hire, you need to follow the following steps:

Step 1: Collect the cost data

First, locate the cost report for a specific period. Divide them into monthly reports to calculate monthly expenses.

If you don’t have the report, ask your finance team to get it for you.

Also, get cost data for your entire recruitment team separately.

For example, HR and talent acquisition cost data should be separate.

Step 2: Record your internal costs

Capture all the costs of your in-house recruitment team. Next, list all the expenses in one column and the associated expenses in the second column. Add up all internal expenses and calculate the total cost.

Internal costsMarch (in USD)Cost of sourcing3000Talent acquisition team cost5000IT equipment and support800Training and development1000Office1300Total cost11,100

While listing down these expenses, be mindful of the total number of people in your department you’re calculating the costs for.

For example, if you can’t find the separate cost data for your recruitment team, and only have the cost data for HR, calculate the total number of people you have in HR including the talent acquisition team.

Here’s the breakdown:

Suppose you have 10 HR team members, 4 of which are from talent acquisition. Now, to calculate costs, divide the number of talent acquisition team members by the HR team members i.e., 4/ 10 = 0.4

If you convert the result to a percentage, it means 4% of the internal costs are related to the talent acquisition team.

Step 3: Add your external costs

Similarly, list down all external expenses in one column and their costs in the second column, and calculate.

External costsMarch (cost in USD)Background checks3000Pre-screening expenses1500Recruitment agency fee2000Marketing costs7000Technology expenses5000Relocation expenses4000Total22,500

Step 4: Add the total number of hires

Finally, add the total number of people you hired in the specific month.

Total number of hires made in March6

Step 5: Complete the calculation

Now, based on the formula, calculate the cost per hire.

Cost-per-hire = ($11,100 + $22,500) / 6 = $5,600

So, your cost-per-hire for each hire you made in March is $5,600

Also, read: 5 Steps To Creating A Recruiting Dashboard (+ Free Template)

How to use the cost-per-hire data?

So now you know how to calculate the cost-per-hire. What next?

Ask yourself these two questions:

• What will you do after getting the cost-per-hire for each hire?
• What will you do with those insights?

Know this: knowing how to calculate cost-per-data is futile for you is you have no idea on how to use it to optimize the hiring process. So, here are a few ways you must know to use cost-per-hire data the right way.

1. Track the cost-per-hire regularly

Keeping track of your cost-per-hire helps you do two things: build your budget for each hire realistically and understand how your business is performing.

As calculated above, the cost-per-hire for each employee you hire is $5,600. However, your budget is only $4,500. Clearly: you’re over budget and spending far beyond your budget on new hires. This can directly impact your business performance too, as the budget allocated for other aspects of your business will get affected.

It’s like tracking your personal expenses. When you don’t track your spending, you don’t know how much you’re spending. But the reality is, you’re overspending. Now you can calculate your tech hiring ROI.

2. Calculate the cost data for each department

Cross-examine the cost-per-hire for each department and position. This helps you identify areas where you may be able to lower costs without damaging current processes or increasing them if necessary.

3. Estimate your cost-per-hire for future spending

When budgeting for personal expenses, you calculate the fixed expenses for the next month beforehand. You already know the salary credited to your account each month. Based on that, you’ll budget for your expenses, investments, and needs.

It’s the same with cost per hire costs. If you know the fixed estimate of the number of candidates you’ll need in each department beforehand, you can calculate the expenditure and budget for it. This will avoid the surprise of unexpected expenses.

Once you’ve calculated the fixed estimate of the number of candidates for each department, identify the average cost-per-hire for each department. Multiply this by estimated hires. This way, you’ll already know how much you’re spending on each hire if you hire a specific number of hires in a specific month.

Also, read: Data-Driven Recruiting: All You Need To Know

4. Evaluate it with other metrics

Measure your cost-per-hire against other metrics like quality of hire, or source of hire such as employee referrals, and optimize your hiring process.

What factors influence your cost-per-hire?

The main factors that influence cost-per-hire include industry, staff size, location, and position level and type.

Industry

If you have shopped at a local store and a premium brand, you know the difference in costs. To some people, apparel purchased from a local shop may seem costly whereas apparel purchased from high-end malls may be cost-effective.

This simply means that what seems costly to one may be cost-effective for another. The same applies to the cost per hire as well.

The cost-per-hire for different industries varies, which means if the cost per hire for one industry seems higher, it could be moderate for another industry.

Staff size

Larger companies, usually 200 and above aim for a lower cost-per-hire than smaller companies. Reason? Small and midcap companies don’t have enough resources to hire on a larger scale which makes each hire costly.

However, larger companies have the resources and budgets to hire. With a lower cost per hire, their hiring processes are more efficient with a lower time to fill—leading to a lower cost per hire.

Location

Bigger cities equal larger talent pools. When candidates live in such a large city, it is easier to access and hire them. But when you hire candidates remotely, or from another city, you must bear relocation and additional travel expenses. This simply adds up the recruitment costs making the cost per hire costly.

In such cases, two options work better: hiring employees from the same locations as yours where the company operates or working remotely. So, all you have to do is bear the charges for the laptop and accessories, and the software.

Position level and type

Which position the candidate is hired for matters.

Here’s the thing. The cost-per-hire for an entry-level or junior role will be lower than for an executive or leadership role. It simply boils down to the responsibilities they take on and the years of experience they have.

Evidently, that’s a huge difference, right? It simply boils down to the position, responsibilities, and years of experience that affect the cost-per-hire.

How can you reduce your cost-per-hire?

At this point, you know everything about the cost-per-hire to the formula and how to calculate it. But, that’s only half-baked information. So, what more?

Well, you need to know how to reduce the increasing recruiting costs for your company? Here are 5 ways you can do it:

Envision your ideal candidate

First, define your ideal candidate by developing a candidate profile. Here are the following steps you need to take:

• Define the job role and responsibilities—What responsibilities will the candidate handle? List them down in detail
• Consider company culture and values—Do your company values and the ideal candidate’s values align? Include the values your company abides by and those the candidate should share as well.
• Define hard and soft skills—What technical and soft skills do you look for in this ideal candidate’s profile?

Take a look at how HackerEarth has outlined the key role and responsibilities of the next engineering manager they are hiring.

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The company has used keywords like ‘responsible for’ to highlight the key responsibilities of the job profile.

They emphasize technical skills like Java and Python, and soft skills like building relationships and collaborating with others.

Screen candidates with skill assessments

Companies that use manual screening methods invest enormous time and effort increasing the cost-per-hire.

But by replacing manual screening with skill assessments, you automate the hiring process, further reducing the cost-per-hire.

And so, you need to start integrating technology in your screening process. One way to do it is by leveraging skill assessments to evaluate and screen candidates based on their skills instead of scanning through their resumes.

Zalora found it time-consuming to evaluate developers’ coding skills without skills-based assessment tools.

With their traditional recruitment method, technical recruiters had to go through each developer profile manually, and then interview the candidate, making the entire process cumbersome.

When developers attend interviews, we dedicate a lot of time. For instance, for each role, we get at least ten candidate applications. Normally, for each candidate, we would end up investing an hour in interviewing. Imagine doing that for ten people. Also, in the end, only 20% of candidates are selected, which means a lot of time is wasted.

– Phuong Huynh, Technical Recruiter, ZALORA

Due to this manual recruitment process, it used to take a month to close the offer. This made scaling the recruitment process and interview-to-hire ratio harder for Zalora.

👀Result: The quality of candidates and the interview process at Zalora was streamlined which improved the company’s interview-to-hire ratio and overall recruitment productivity.

Also, read: How ZALORA reduced shortened its recruitment cycle by 50%

Build a strong employer brand

When you build a solid employer brand, your social media channels highlight the company’s values and culture, current employees and projects, and the company’s overall progress.

By learning about the company’s vision and how they value their employees, a candidate is attracted to the company and applies.

Take a look at Evernote’s LinkedIn page where they have a section called Life where they showcase their company culture.

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Under the section Life, they have subsections: Life at Evernote and Engineering at Evernote.

• Life at Evernote—Under this subsection, you’ll see Evernote’s culture, values, company photos, and employee testimonials.
• Engineering at Evernote—Under this subsection, you’ll see what Evernote engineers do, their engineering leaders, and testimonials from employees.

This section on Evernote’s company’s page gives a glimpse of their work environment and how they operate. Plus, testimonials by employees are an effective way to strengthen a candidate’s trust in the company bringing in inbound candidates.

Image Source

Also, read: How Tech Recruiters Can Build Better Employer Branding with Marketing?

Automate your recruitment processes

With automated recruitment, recruiters can enhance their productivity in several ways such as:

• Speed up the time-to-hire
• Increase the number of resources available for candidate engagement efforts
• Improve process visibility across hiring teams
• Reduce unconscious bias in hiring decisions

When you automate your recruitment process, you can streamline several low-value and high-value tasks that would have taken you hours and hours. By automating these tasks, you can focus on more critical tasks that need your attention.

For example, Moengage relied heavily on manual screening and interviews. It was time-consuming especially when recruiters and hiring teams wanted to reach their hiring targets. That’s when they decided to take the automation route and opted for HackerEarth Assessments.

They could invite more candidates to take the tests and filter out the top performers. Finally, the company had to interview only 5-6 candidates instead of 15 candidates. It could complete the entire recruitment process from sourcing to onboarding in just 10-12 days.

Also, read: How HackerEarth Helped MoEngage Drive a 50% Improvement in the Quality of Candidates Interviewed

Leverage social media recruiting

Just like online shopping via social media, social recruitment has spread its wings across major social media channels like LinkedIn and Twitter.

According to CareerArc’s 2021 Future of Recruiting Study, 86% of job seekers use social media in their job search for relevant jobs. They apply for jobs directly on social sites and engage with job-related content.

Clearly: recruiters who are active on social media have a big advantage. Because they are active on social media, they can share job posts on their social media handles and reach candidates who’re already following them.

When more employees from their company share the hiring post on their social media channel, the reach increases, giving the job-related post more visibility.

Here’s how Emil Hajric, CEO at Helpjuice shared a hiring post on his LinkedIn profile.

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When a prospective candidate uses the keyword ‘hiring a developer’ or follows Emil, they’ll see this post shared by him and apply for the job.

Furthermore, if recruiters have a strong hand in social recruiting, they won’t have to spend money on job boards to publish job posts and attract candidates. How much does it cost to hire a new candidate?

Optimize your recruitment costs

It’s easy to get lost and overspend on your recruitment costs unless you’re aware of your internal and external costs. So, the best way is to take note of these recruitment costs, analyze your recruitment budget and optimize these costs (internal and external) based on your budget.

At the time of writing this, we’re all in the middle of a meltdown in the tech industry. Companies like Meta have had to lay off up to 13% of their workforce, and Amazon had to trim the salaries of 50% of its employees this year to manage budgets.

If you’re one of these companies that had to lay off members of your tech team or are finding it hard to hire due to fiscal constraints, then you’re undoubtedly facing a talent crunch.

Now, you have two choices:

Choice 1. Hire employees on a tight budget

Choice 2: Ask existing employees to take on the responsibilities handled by the employees who had to be laid off

The problem? Your existing employees don’t have the skills to take on those extra responsibilities. This results in halting the organization’s overall progress.

Upskilling and reskilling can be your weapons in such struggling situations. They put you at the forefront in helping your employees adapt to the new changes in the recession.

In this article, we’ll uncover:

• The difference between upskilling and reskilling
• Benefits of upskilling and reskilling
• Examples of companies leveraging upskilling and reskilling programs
• An important drawback of most learning platforms that employers need to be aware of

What is upskilling and reskilling?

Upskilling and reskilling sound very similar, but they both have different business goals. Your company needs processes for both in order to bridge the skill gap and boost growth.Let’s understand them in detail.

Upskilling

Upskilling refers to the process of acquiring new or advanced skills that are relevant to one’s current or future job, profession, or industry. It involves learning new techniques, technologies, or approaches to work that can help individuals increase their productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness in their roles.

Upskilling can be done through a variety of methods, including formal training programs, online courses, on-the-job training, mentorship, and self-directed learning. It is often pursued by individuals who want to stay competitive in their careers, keep up with industry trends, or advance their professional goals.

For example, a backend developer can join a full-stack development program that teaches them about React and Node JS in order to transition to a full-stack role.

The three key reasons why an engineering leader might want their team to go through an upskilling program are:

• Helping employees perform better in their current job
• Helping the workforce adapt to new and future changes in the industry
• Helping the workforce stay confident in their skills and adapt to new industry changes

Also, read: How to Assess Programming Skills Before Hiring

Upskilling is no longer a luxury—it’s a survival skill,” says Riccardo Ocleppo, founder and director of the EU-accredited Open Institute of Technology (OPIT). “Our flexible online MScs in Computer Science and Data Science let professionals earn a recognised degree without pausing their careers.”

Reskilling

Reskilling refers to the process of learning new skills that are different from one’s current job or profession, with the aim of switching to a new career or industry. It involves acquiring a completely new set of skills that are relevant to a different job or profession. However, the skills employees learn may or may not overlap with their current role.

Reskilling may involve pursuing formal training programs, apprenticeships, internships, or other learning opportunities to gain the necessary skills and knowledge required for a new profession. It may also require significant investment in time, effort, and resources, as individuals may need to start from scratch in a new field.

One example of reskilling in the tech world is when a software developer decides to transition to a career in cybersecurity. This would involve acquiring a completely new set of skills and knowledge, such as understanding different types of cyber threats, security protocols and measures, and the tools and technologies used to mitigate these risks.

Scenarios in which engineering leaders might ask their team members to reskill include:

• Transitioning to new projects or initiatives that require skills that are different from the current expertise.
• Adapting to new technology such as when rewriting their code base or changing their underlying infrastructure.
• Retaining high-performing existing employees whose roles have become redundant
• Filling vacant roles in the organization through lateral hiring.

How are upskilling and reskilling different?

Now you know what exactly upskilling and reskilling mean. So let’s weigh in the differences both the terms have for better clarification:

UpskillingReskillingIt helps employees learn additional skills to perform better in their current job.It helps employees to learn new skills to perform a different job.The skills they learn are relevant to their current job.The skills they learn are not related to their current job.It involves employees polishing their current skill sets.It usually involves a change in career.More employee-focused. Upskilled employees can get new opportunities and develop talent for personal growth.More employer-focused. It helps organizations retain their best talent by providing them with growth paths

Why are upskilling and reskilling important?

According to the book Organizational Learning and Development During Recession by Marianne Reyes, Martin Clarke, Director of General Management Programmes at Cranfield School of Management, stresses:

It is vital to give your top people the support they need, especially during economic downturns” because a “well-trained and skilled workforce will be instrumental in supporting organizations during the downturn as well as after economic recovery and growth resumes.

The author talks about a survey conducted by Boston Consulting Group and the European Association of People Management that found cutting down the training and development costs during the recession can have a serious impact on the organization in the longer run.

Clearly: upskilling and reskilling of employees is crucial for the individual’s growth as well as the organization’s growth, and it becomes even more important during a recession. According to The Future of Jobs Report 2020, companies say that about 40% of workers will require six months of reskilling, and 94% will have to learn new skills on the fly. Why? Because tech leaders anticipate the in-demand skills to change in a few years, and the current hiring freeze has left them without the option of onboarding specialized talent.

This is not to say that skill improvement has benefits only during an economic downturn. The pandemic taught us that technology and business needs can change on a dime, and tech teams need to be prepared for more such “out of the left field” moments. However, it is true that learning and development programs have significant value in keeping the product pipeline churning during a hiring freeze.

With that said, let’s look at some of the ways in which timely learning programs can help your tech teams during crunch situations (with real-life examples):

#1— It can reduce skill gaps (the IBM example)

In 2009, the global recession significantly impacted IBM’s revenue and growth. To overcome this challenge, IBM decided to launch a program called the Skills Initiative that aimed to train and retrain IBM employees in high-demand skills, such as cloud computing, data analytics, and cybersecurity.

As part of the program, IBM offered employees a range of learning opportunities, including online courses, virtual classrooms, and hands-on training. The company also provided financial incentives for employees who completed training programs and achieved new certifications.

The Skills Initiativehelped IBM to retain its workforce during the recession and equipped its employees with the skills and knowledge needed to meet the changing demands of the market. By upskilling and reskilling its tech team, IBM was able to remain competitive and even expand its business into new areas, such as cloud computing and data analytics.

#2— It can boost productivity and retention (the AT&T example)

During the 2008-2009 recession, AT&T faced a decline in its revenue and was forced to lay off a significant number of employees. To reduce costs and remain competitive, the company decided to upskill its remaining workforce to improve productivity and retain employees.

AT&T implemented a comprehensive training and development program called Workforce 2020, which aimed to upskill its employees in emerging technologies, such as cloud computing, big data analytics, and machine learning. The company invested heavily in online training programs, workshops, and mentoring to help employees learn new skills and apply them to their jobs.

The upskilling program had several benefits for AT&T, including heightened productivity, reduced errors and defects, and improved customer satisfaction. Additionally, the program helped AT&T retain its employees during the recession by offering them new opportunities to grow and develop their careers within the company.

#3— It definitely can save your budget! (the Microsoft example)

Imagine hiring a new employee during a recession. The process of starting from scratch is time-consuming. Instead, it is always easier to bridge the skill gap through learning programs than conducting the hiring process from scratch and bringing in the new hire.

In 2018, Microsoft announced a new initiative called Microsoft Leap, which aimed to reskill and retrain thousands of its existing employees who were at risk of being displaced by automation and artificial intelligence. The program included a four-month training course that covered both technical and soft skills and provided hands-on experience with emerging technologies such as machine learning, data science, and artificial intelligence.

Through the Microsoft Leap program, the company was able to reskill more than 10,000 of its employees and retain them in new, high-demand roles within the company. According to an article in Forbes, Microsoft was able to save approximately $30 million in recruitment fees alone by reskilling its existing employees instead of hiring new ones. The company also reported that the reskilling program led to a 38% increase in employee satisfaction.

Also, read: Internal Hackathons: Drive Innovation and Increase Engagement in Tech Teams

The drawback of most upskilling and reskilling programs

While the upskilling and reskilling programs are commendable initiatives taken by organizations, they come with a drawback: no measurable ROI, which means there is no clear way to see real skill development.

To understand this further, I sat down with our Founder, Sachin Gupta to understand skill benchmarking and why it is critical in today’s world. Here’s what he said:

• The technology landscape is changing so rapidly that organizations have to continuously adapt to the cumulative skills of their employees—to keep them in line with the tech innovation curve.
• Large organizations find it challenging to have an accurate picture of the skill map of their teams and data in HCM tools.
• While many organizations have learning programs, they struggle to measure the ROI from such programs.
• While employees intend to upskill, they may not always have a sense of their skill baseline as they may not know how they are progressing in their skill development journeys.

How to develop an upskilling and reskilling strategy for your employees?

According to LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report, 89% of L&D pros agree that proactively building employee skills for today and tomorrow will help navigate the evolving future of work. That’s the reason organizations need to double down on their efforts to upskill and reskill their employees. But how?

Here’s a 5-step process you can use to develop an upskilling and reskilling strategy.

Step #1—Conduct a skill gap analysis

A skill gap analysis is an assessment conducted by HR teams to identify whether or not the current skill sets of employees can meet the overall needs of the company.

For example, the organization conducts a survey where they ask questions to their employees about the current skills they possess and how they have upskilled themselves. Employees fill out the survey, and the HR team analyzes submitted data.

To conduct a skill gap analysis:

Plan

Perform skill gap analysis at two levels—individual and team.

• For individuals, identify the skills a job needs and compare them to the employee’s actual skills.
• For teams, determine whether employees have relevant skills to work on a new project or will the company need to hire externally.

Identify key skills

What skills do we value as a company? What skills do employees need to do their work well and will need in the future? Answering these two questions will help you understand the skills you require.

Measure your current skills

Create a skills spreadsheet for each position, and list the skills employees in these positions have.

Step #2—Integrate upskilling and reskilling into your employee development plans

Emphasize the importance of learning and reskilling for employees. There may be times when employees cannot upskill themselves due to their key responsibilities. That’s where you as an organization need to integrate learning and development programs into employees’ annual goals and objectives.

For example, offering eLearning assets to employees every quarter, such as an eBook relevant to their expertise.

These employee learning programs can fuel knowledge and skills in employees, and help them stay prepared for the future.

So, make sure the goals are:

• Specific
• Obtainable
• Time-bound

For example, developers on the engineering team need to learn at least two skills within the period of 6 months.

Step #3—Choose your training methods

There are several training methods to choose from:

• eLearning
• On-the-job training
• Instructor-led training
• Role-playing
• Coaching
• Simulation training
• Group activities
• Video training
• Cross-training
• Job shadowing
• Case studies

But before choosing a specific training method, make sure the learning and development team understands employees’ learning styles and uses the right format for them.

For example, the L&D team uses group activity learning format for employees who prefer learning one-to-one.

Step #4—Leverage technology

To streamline the development of your employee development program, you need to amplify technology. Here are two primary technologies you’ll need when you plan to create your own learning and development programs.

1. Learning management system

A learning management system handles all aspects of employee training—from creating to delivering and tracking training material. It helps both the organization and employees by:

• Tracking employee’s progress toward meeting their learning goals
• Collecting data for improving the learning process.

For example, Paycore, a corporate LMS helps administrators organize learning programs for individuals, teams, or departments. With this software, administrators can create interactive online course content with surveys, quizzes, and assessments.

2. Digital adoption platform

A digital adoption platform integrates with the company’s training program applications. It helps employees navigate the platform by offering step-by-step instructions to complete a specific task.

For example, Whatafix is a digital adoption platform that helps L&D teams create in-app content such as step-by-step guidance, walkthroughs, task lists, and smart tips to guide employees through complex digital processes.

Step #5—Follow up and track progress

The ultimate goal of the upskilling and reskilling program is not just to get your employees to upskill but to check if they have learned new skills. That’s where you need to measure the training program’s effectiveness and monitor KPIs. Some of the KPIs include:

• Course completion rate
• Training progression rate
• Assessment score
• Lowering skill gap analysis
• Improving proficiency.

So, use the following metrics to measure the effectiveness of the learning and development program:

Employee feedback

Once the training program is complete, ask employees about their experience with the training program. What have they learned from the program? Was the program in-depth or did they need more resources to strengthen their skill development? How are they planning to use these skills in their job?

Skill assessments

A skill assessment platform helps L&D teams see whether or not employees have learned the subject and topic well from the training program.

For example, HackerEarth’s learning and development program offers an assessment platform.

This is where L&D teams can create their assessment platform for their employees to take assessments after completing the training program. Further, the platform also provides employees’ progress reports to their managers.

Post-training job efficiency

Observe your employees and see how they have executed the newly learned skills on the job. But the problem with tracking the employee’s progress?

Even after observing their work, there is no documented data of how much of the newly learned skills they implemented and whether or not they are ready to take up the additional role or move to an entirely different role.

That’s where HackerEarth’s learning and development program helps organizations.It does not only provide you with a skill assessment platform but, as Sachin says:

• The product introduces a layer of objectivity to their upskilling program
• It creates a guided learning path where they can see their progress firsthand

According to Sachin, there are 4 things users can expect from this L&D product:

• Employees will get real-time and objective feedback on their skill development. Starting with baseline evaluations, through continuous evaluations, and ultimately a summative assessment. Over time, we will be able to recommend to learners what specific areas of skill development they should focus on.
• Employers will be able to measure ROI on their upskilling programs.
• Employers will be able to create a skill map for their organization. They can understand the current skill set in their team and plan for skill development over time.
• Accurate skill data can help employees and employers match people to opportunities they are most suited to.

All these things lead to greater output but also more engaged and retained teams.

You see? The goal here is for both employees and organizations to get a clear view. For organizations, it’s about whether or not employees have developed their skills, and if so, are they ready to take on more specialized roles?

For employees, it’s about seeing whether they have a clear career path to move forward on.

Use learning and development tools to upskill your tech teams

To sum up, learning and development programs should be an important facet of every tech team’s culture on any given day. However, during troubling times such as a recession, it can become a crucial weapon in fighting the wolves at the door.Upskilling and reskilling programs can help you:

• Retain your high-performing engineers
• Provide them paths to grow their skill sets and their career prospects
• Help your tech team stay ahead of time.

And so, choose the right learning platform to empower your employees in keeping up with changing technologies and on-demand skills. See their progress in real-time with HackerEarth’s learning and development platform that offers curated assessments and learning paths to your internal employees, and helps you quantify the benefits of every certification.

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.

Causes for layoffs in the tech industry

Why are tech employees suffering so much?

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.

Also, read: 6 Steps To Create A Detailed Recruiting Budget (Template Included)

Changes in demand

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 2025?

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.

Also, read: 4 Images That Show What Developers Think Of Layoffs In Tech

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:

Use tech layoffs tracker

Layoff trackers like thelayoff.com and layoffs.fyi provide up-to-date information on 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.

Also, read: What Recruiters Can Focus On During A Tech Hiring Freeze

Non-essential expense reduction

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 2025, 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 2025.

So recruiters, let’s join arms, distribute those layoff lists like there’s no tomorrow, and help all those in need of a job! 🙂

Indeed it’s true that 2020 was a tough year for the whole world to handle. However, the adverse effect of the pandemic also created new opportunities for people. It changed the way companies work. Remote working suddenly became the talk of the town. Even after the pandemic, the craze of remote working only kept growing. There are plenty of benefits and flexibility that remote work provides employees and companies with.

Employers started to use online management tech to efficiently manage their employees who were working remotely. Furthermore, remote hiring or online recruitment has also grown simultaneously with remote working. It has become a priority for recruiters and the HR team, but mainly, it has become a priority for job seekers. To land talented candidates, you need to offer them the flexibility of working from home. This is where tools like applicant tracking systems, online coding assessments, recruiting CRM software, and so on step in to make hiring easier and quicker.

Also, good talent acquisition software provides a recruitment marketing platform for your recruiting team to efficiently source, attract, engage, and hire the best suitable candidates.

Hiring top-tech talent is the highest priority of companies nowadays. In addition, the two factors, tech recruiters and online recruitment software have become an indispensable part of the process. Let’s understand what tech recruitment is and how to market it.

What is tech recruitment?

Tech recruitment is the process of sourcing, attracting, screening, engaging, and hiring talent for IT and technical roles. Recruiters need to have the technical knowledge and the ability to deal with technical people to interact with them.

Generally, tech recruiters approach recruitment by discovering and assessing suitable candidates and presenting them to hiring managers to reach realistic technical recruitment goals.

AI-powered recruiting software, such as applicant tracking systems, remote coding interview tools, and recruiting CRMs, has become a boon for recruiters and hiring teams. This recruitment automation software also helps in recruitment marketing.

Also read: How To Hire Tech Talent When You Don’t Have A Technical Background

What is tech recruitment marketing?

Tech recruitment marketing is practiced by tech recruiters to prepare to source, attract, engage, and hire candidates for tech roles. Following are the top tech recruitment marketing practices that you can implement to hire qualified talent.

Top tech recruitment marketing strategies for 2025

Tech recruiters need to have two essential skills, technical knowledge of the particular role and people skills. These skills are vital for tech recruiters who want to hire the best talent. Besides these two vital skills, recruiters must know the strategic approach to market their tech recruitment to hire top-notch talent.

1. A tech-savvy career page makes a difference

Nowadays, almost every candidate goes through the website of a company before applying to it. A survey by HR Dive found that 61% of job seekers visit company sites before applying. It is essential for recruiters to put compelling content on the career page of the website.

Recruiters can creatively produce and post videos of current employees talking about the positive work culture of the company, or they can put refreshing memories of company outings or a trip. A career site is a great way to convey the company’s culture. Additionally, visual elements such as creating a logo that reflects the company’s mission and culture can help build a stronger identity that resonates with prospective candidates.

The structure of the site is essential to attract tech talent. The blog page of the company could be a great help in giving an overview of the company’s values. Recruiters can send those blog articles to the applicants to show what the company really made of.

2. Effectively promote your employer’s brand

A survey by Glassdoor found that 69% of job seekers say that a company’s reputation is a vital factor, and they would not accept a job offer from a company with a bad reputation. Also, shockingly, 84% would consider leaving their current jobs if offered another role with a company with an excellent reputation. Hence, it is incredibly important for every organization to showcase a positive image to attract and retain top talent. Recruiters can encourage current employees to add a good review about your firm on a review platform as candidates look at it while applying for a job.

In addition, there are many ways to enhance employer branding. The following are the ways to create a powerful employer brand.

1. Create a strong onboarding and personalized training process for new hires.
2. Focus on improving the company’s values, vision, and culture.
3. Build a strong diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative.
4. Leveraging social media to promote the values and unique beneficial points your firm offers.
5. Share videos on social media platforms and job boards of your current employees talking about your amazing work culture.
6. Engage and interact with the candidates often while hiring and provide a positive candidate experience.
7. Offer the opportunity to learn new skills and development programs.

Also read: How Tech Recruiters Can Build Better Employer Branding With Marketing

3. Take part in local and online tech communities

Companies must participate in local social events that tech talent is known to attend. This way, the company can increase its brand visibility and build better relationships with its target audience.

On the other hand, online communities like GitHub are hotbeds of talent, and tech recruiters should spend some time scouting for suitable candidates here.

According to a StackOverflow survey, over 90% of developers use GitHub and recommend that it is a profound tool for developers. You need to increase engagement and interaction on such platforms to source and hire top-quality talent.

4. Organize in-person or virtual tech events

Recruiters can also arrange local and virtual tech fairs and invite tech talent to join these informative and educational events. These virtual or local events are essential for tech recruiters and companies to build and strengthen their network, which they could use in the future to hire the best people for growth. To enhance attendee interaction and simplify event access, recruiters can integrate The QR Code Generator (TQRCG) into their event strategy by providing scannable codes for registration, resources, or follow-up links.

Tech recruiters can use online tools such as vFAIRS to organize online or hybrid career events to connect with tech talent.

5. Create exciting employee referral programs

Indeed, it’s true that skilled people know skilled people. According to a survey by Recruiter – an employer solution providing web found Employee referral programs can save companies $3,000 or more per hire! Recruiters or employers must set up employee referral programs by providing benefits and perks to those who recommend suitable candidates to the company. Also, one thing employers must keep in mind is that they must keep the employee referral transparent for the employees.

6. Build practical social recruiting strategies

Social recruiting has become the talk of the town because almost everyone uses social media nowadays. According to CareerArc, 86% of job seekers use social media in their job search to search for relevant jobs, apply to jobs directly from social sites, and engage with job-related content. Hence, recruiters must build practical strategies for social media and job boards to reach diverse candidates. A key aspect of social recruiting is ensuring compliance with communication regulations while engaging with potential candidates. Implementing FCC lead generation strategies can help recruiters connect with job seekers through consent-based outreaches while staying compliant with FCC guidelines. This approach ensures ethical recruitment practices while improving engagement rates.

Following are some key strategies recruiters and HRs can apply to get the maximum advantages to advertising tech recruitment.

1. Increase the visibility (traffic) of your website
2. Post content on your site to attract the relevant audience. In this case, tech-related content can attract more people who are curious and passionate about technology.
3. Build strong relationships with candidates on social media platforms
4. Arrange educational and informative virtual or local events for job seekers
5. Indeed, it’s true that skilled people know skilled people. Thus, you must use your employee network wisely to find and hire the most suitable people.

For you: Get your copy of the social recruiting checklist today!

7. Run ads to increase brand awareness

Recruiters can reach a new relevant audience through social media and advertising campaigns on platforms such as Facebook touch and Instagram to raise the company’s awareness. They can run Ads and target users based on the factors such as their current job titles, education level, interests, and location. This Ad campaign helps the hiring teams to target the prospects they want to attract in that specific location and can also include engaging content created through motion graphics video production to improve overall visibility.

8. Develop and nurture a strong talent pool

Recruiters actively discover and engage with suitable candidates even if the company is not hiring at the moment. Recruiters add the data of potential candidates to the talent pool database. When a specific requirement or a post is open, they can easily reach those candidates. Also, it allows them to engage with prospects who are passive candidates. Recruiters and HR teams can use recruitment software such as an Applicant Tracking System.

To manage the talent pool efficiently. Also, they can add candidates to the talent from employee referral portals in ATS. This way, recruiters can effectively manage the talent pool.

Also read: 10 Tech Recruiting Strategies To Find The Best Tech Talent

Final thoughts on tech recruitment marketing

With the rising evolution of technology, the hiring industry has transformed exponentially. Indeed, it’s true that leveraging the right strategy to advertise your job efficiently is incredibly important. It provides you with plenty of benefits for your company. For example, it allows you to hire top candidates and stay ahead of cut-throat competition. Recruitment marketing will enable you to attract a diverse range of candidates.

In this article, we’ve covered key marketing strategies that will be immensely helpful to recruiters in marketing their open positions to candidates far and wide. These strategies will enable them to attract, hire, and retain quality candidates within the company.

Goodbyes are dreadful. Especially, when they come one after the other—from your employees who joined just 6 months back.

“They are just running after a competitive salary.”

“They are just underperformers who don’t have the skills to work with us.”

“They weren’t ready to work 12+ hours.”

Excuses are lame when your employee churn rate is high. Many times, employees don’t leave for a higher paycheck or because they prioritize a healthy work-life balance. They leave because of unorganized company culture, failed growth, and hampered emotional health.

If you picture yourself in this scenario, it’s time to look back at your processes and create strategies that help you retain your existing employees.

In this article, we talk about:

• 10 employee retention strategies
• 4 employee-first businesses to take inspiration from

Employee retention strategies for job satisfaction

Ready to learn the strategies that wow your employees and help you build an ecosystem for employees where work would be fun? Keep reading.

Strategy #1—Create an interactive onboarding process

The next step after the new hire accepts the offer letter—creating a seamless onboarding process.

With an engaging onboarding process in place, employees feel included by the company.

In a general onboarding scenario, companies introduce new hires to the reporting manager, assign them tasks, and share the resources. But the right way to onboard employees requires more education and effort.

For example,

At HackerEarth, new hires are introduced to each department and the work they handle through weekly onboarding video sessions.

To make the onboarding process interactive at your company:

• Set up a meeting where you can introduce the new hire to all the different departments of the meeting.
• Give new hires access to all the relevant resources they need to accomplish their tasks. For example, get them to set up their company email ID and invite them to the company’s Slack channel where all the major communication happens.
• Provide interactive training and immerse the new hires into your work environment. To do this, assign training to team leaders of each department where they talk about how their department functions.
• Encourage the buddy system. With a buddy on the side, the new hire has someone they can rely on and reach out to every time they have concerns.

Strategy #2—Recognize your employees’ hard work

How do you support your employees when they deliver the work—appreciate them or highlight their weaknesses?

Here’s the thing: you don’t always need big paychecks to appreciate your employees.

Image Source

For example, Dribble orders short cameos from celebrities to give a shoutout to employees for great work.

A few ways to show appreciation to your employees include:

• Check in with your employees regularly. Talk to them about non-work related things. A simple “how was your weekend” and listening to what they say is a great way to start.
• Celebrate their success with the entire team and highlight the things that you like about them and their work.
• Say thank you to make the employees feel happy and confident and to encourage them.
• Give them non-cash gifts. For example, sponsor a course they have wanted to take for a long time, take them to a fancy dinner, or gift them an exotic trip.

Strategy #3—Give your employees flexibility with their schedule

Along with the different work options, employees want flexibility in their schedules. They don’t want to continuously glare at their computer screen even in a remote job.

Ask yourself:

• Do they want to work remotely?
• Do they want to work from the office?
• Do they want to work from 9-5 or from 12 to 7?
• Do they want to take a break between work and drop their kid at daycare?

Sidenote: Offer your employees a flexible work schedule.

But how?

Here are three ways to introduce a flexible work schedule in your organization:

• Pick a 3-4 hour time slot when your employees are available—for meetings, messages, or time-sensitive tasks
• Offer employees the opportunity to swap one working weekday with a Saturday or Sunday
• Introduce the 4-day workweek policy

Strategy #4—Provide learning and upskilling opportunities

Companies with the motto to constantly empower learning for themselves and their employees grow effortlessly. But the sad truth? Only 40% of companies invest in upskilling their employees, according to a 2022 PwC survey.

By working with an organization, employees aspire for their financial and professional growth.

When you offer them upskilling opportunities, you strengthen their skills.

For example, Workday supports the development of its employees by leveraging its technology platform. In 2021, the company rolled out a skill-based HR strategy that allowed the employees to find their weak areas and work towards the specific skill by connecting them with opportunities within the organization—like gigs, new roles, or extracting skills from experts.

Just like Workday, you can offer upskilling opportunities to employees. Here’s how:

• Organize weekly or monthly training within your organization and invite experts from different departments to share their expertise
• Run educational workshops and invite external experts to share their expertise
• Sponsor a learning program for the employees based on their skills
• Buy an online course, watch it with your team and learn together

Strategy #5—Stick with remote work options

When Apple transitioned from working remotely to hybrid work, many employees started quitting their jobs. Why?

The hybrid policy of the company. In his letter to the employees, CEO Tim Cook shared that employees would be working from the office on set days—Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays and can work remotely on the remaining days only if approved by their manager. He also mentioned that the employees will be permitted to work from anywhere for up to two weeks per year.

Because of this strict hybrid work policy, employees started quitting their job as they did not have a remote or location-flexible work option.

Employees love working remotely. According to Flexjobs’ employee engagement report, 48% of employers are maintaining some form of remote work for their workforce.

Bottom line? Remote work will continue to exist.

Even if your company is moving to a hybrid or in-office work model, give employees the option to work remotely.

When hiring for new roles, highlight the different work options in your job description and communication the new hires and employees can choose from.

Strategy #6—Be transparent with compensation packages

Who doesn’t love compensation? And competitive compensation packages play an important role in attracting and retaining employees. Here’s the proof: 55% of employees leave their job for higher compensation, according to Lattice’s SOPs report.

Image Source

Many times, it’s the compensation package that makes the employees feel undervalued—because they feel their efforts haven’t been rewarded with the compensation they *actually* deserve.

So make sure you study the salaries other organizations are offering for the same role, check your budget, and roll out the salaries.

Strategy #7—Empower moonlighting

Picture this: your employee works as a web developer during the day and runs a small business selling handmade soaps at night.

Would you be offended at them for making extra income or be happy for them?

Moonlighting has gained momentum in recent times—but in a negative light. Saurabh Deep Singla, HR Officer of UpGrad notes:

However, HackerEarth has a different take on this.

HR Director, Swetha Harikrishnan says,

Employees who moonlight are passionate people and bring in multiple skills making them high-value employees. When employers support their choices, they feel valued and likely to work with the organization for a longer period.

But, the big question for organizations is how to support them while making sure they focus on their primary job too.

The solution? Create permissive moonlighting policies.

Here’s how:

• Set expectations that the employee will consider their day job as the primary job and will not allow other jobs to interfere with the performance of their primary job
• Make sure the employee does not work with your competitor while they are working with you
• Make sure the employee does not reveal the techniques, strategies, and programs they learned in their company either to competitors or any other organization
• Make sure employees get approval from their employer to conduct their moonlighting work

Strategy #8—Provide job security by improving the turnover of the organization

Who enjoys being laid off? Literally, no one! Layoffs happen when the company is reducing business costs, or shutting down.

In both cases, one factor remains constant—company turnover. If a company’s turnover decreases, it impacts employees’ job security.

To make sure employees feel secure, focus on improving the organization’s turnover. For this, companies need their employees’ support. That’s why it’s crucial for companies to educate and be transparent with them.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Educate your employees on how their contribution can help in increasing the business turnover
• Implement open book management practice and share the organization’s financial information with the employees

Also read: 4 Images That Show What Developers Think of Layoffs in Tech

Strategy #9—Practice two-way feedback

Two-way feedback makes space for the employer and employee to improve and grow together. With constructive feedback, employers and employees achieve two things:

1. Employees: They know the weak areas they need to work on.
2. Employers: They know how to make their employees’ experience better at the organization.

At HackerEarth, we ask for feedback from the new hires once they have completed their 15 days of working in the organization. They receive an email from HR and a notification from the bot on Slack where they have to fill out the survey—which they can do anonymously too. These surveys are conducted every month to keep a constant check on employees.

Doing this helps the HR team understand the employee’s experience in their early days.

To make sure the feedback culture keeps moving, encourage each department to give and receive feedback internally.

Here are a few ways how the internal team can conduct feedback:

• Ask your employees the “hero” questions to help them reflect on important moments and understand what it took to reach that point
• Run employee pulse surveys and anonymous QnAs using a reliable pulse survey tool to get your employees to share their ideas and concerns
• Conduct virtual town halls where employees can ask questions, share feedback face-to-face and offer solutions.

Strategy #10—Maximize performance management programs

With a performance management program, you help the underperforming employees polish and improve their weak areas so that they can perform better at work. This is a great way to uplift these employees instead of analyzing them over a one-month period and announcing whether they are the right fit for the company or not.

To ensure yielding the best results with a performance management program, here are a few best practices:

• Set goals with the performance plan. For example, based on the employee’s role, set a goal of 3 months to help them polish their skill
• Monitor the progress of the employee regularly
• Coach them and help them identify the areas they lag on and what steps they can take to be better

4 employee-first companies to take inspiration from

Here are 4 businesses that share how they have been building an employee-first company and community for their employees.

Motivosity: Form employee resource groups (ERGs)

One of the employee retention strategies that Motivosity supports is forming employee resource groups (ERGs).

Logan Mallory, VP at Motivosity says,

Also read: What We Learnt From Target’s Diversity and Inclusion Strategy?

Hable: Be vulnerable with employees

When leaders become vulnerable with their employees and show how they feel, think and function, employees get to know them better—which strengthens their bond.

Rosie Hall, Communications Manager at Hable shares the core values of her organization—honesty, and bravery—which has led them to build a safe space for their employees.

Monterail: Supports emotional well-being

Supporting employees emotionally comes in different phases. You could check in with them by talking about non-work related things and their challenges.

According to the People’s team at Monterail, talking about employees’ challenges and things that may not be working well helps them build a safe space for their people. They further add.

Also read: 7 Ways to Reduce Burnout in Your Tech Teams

HackerEarth: Encourages diversity and inclusion

HackerEarth is an employee-first company that focuses on diversity and inclusion.

D&I is not just another number that our targets have to hit. It is baked into the DNA of our company. We believe inclusion should be placed at the heart of everything we do as a company. The culture here is inherently non-judgemental.

We fiercely champion the cause for LGBTQ+ inclusion from the front by giving our people the correct language to use, asking them to call out behaviors that are not ok, and educating and sensitizing others towards these behaviors. We have also partnered with an insurance company that provides coverage for same-sex partners. We believe in investing time, maintaining an open dialogue, educating people on ‘ally-ship’ and support – and not restricting their education to only the marginalized groups.

We also continuously modify our internal leave policies to better take care of our employees. We added 12 period leave days per year to our policy, which can be availed depending on how the employee feels. Our paternity leave policy has been extended from the usual 5 days to a month—our way of ensuring that our Hacksters and their families can experience the joys of parenthood without any hassles.

No more goodbyes…

You have all the employee retention strategies to build an employee-first ecosystem—focusing on giving back to their employees. Start small. Audit your ongoing processes and strategies and find the areas where you need to rework. Is it communication? Bonding with them? Giving work flexibility? Or, focusing on their emotional well-being? Once you find out the right answer, go back to the retention strategies you read above and start using them as a framework in your organization.