There’s a market-share war occurring in technology, and its implications are widespread, presenting significant challenges to recruiters.
Market share is top-of-mind for executives and companies have high volume hiring goals to meet these ambitious targets. Companies are all competing for the same qualified candidates, and the pool of talent is finite.
Based on recruiting trends in 2019, hiring teams will be well-served to make these changes to achieve hiring goals in 2020.
Companies are spending far too much time and money sourcing senior openings. We recommend reallocating those resources on entry-level hiring. Our data shows that: 1) executives are twice as likely to respond to a recruiter than an entry-level candidate, and 2) most companies have far more entry-level openings at any given time.
Entry-level candidates are being overwhelmed with interview requests and are ignoring most. These candidates have so many opportunities they are ghosting companies after interviewing. These unique challenges mean that companies should build an entry-level talent pipeline.
Companies should reallocate their recruiting resources used on senior roles. Agencies and executive recruiters should be avoided; instead, those resources should be spent on creating a world-class candidate experience. Your experienced hires candidates should be excited about the prospect of working at your company.
Finding sales professionals is critical to B2B SaaS growth. Additional salespeople result in more accounts, markets, and revenue.
Experienced SaaS salespeople are in high demand. In fact, it’s more challenging to hire entry-to-mid level sales roles (Sales and Business Development) than it is to hire software engineers (2.8% engagement rate vs. 3.1% for engineers). Multiple recruiters, headhunters are contacting candidates, and hiring managers at any given time, and it’s becoming harder to recruit for sales.
Companies are becoming more creative in solving sales recruiting. Recruiters are being forthright and presenting compensation and bonuses in initial messaging in hopes of sparking a conversation. Companies are also leveraging satellite sales offices in cities like Austin, Denver, and Salt Lake City to engage new talent as well.
Companies are seeking new solutions for their hard-to-fill jobs. For technology and sales roles, companies are more inclined to hire remote workers. Instead of limiting your talent pool to a specific location, opening up remote positions drastically increases your talent pool.
Candidates are looking for these flexible work arrangements as well — interview rates are 44% higher for remote positions. Remote talent is an effective way to grow your team without sacrificing ambitious revenue targets or product innovation.
Companies now require increasingly specialized skills to build evolving technology, hit ambitious revenue targets, and manage industry trends. If companies stay focused on data and know how many candidates it takes to build a robust interview pipeline by role, companies should be able to manage ambitious growth and hiring targets.
