Communications of the ACM
On the Hunt for Tech Hires
Credit: The Wall Street Journal
Without the cachet of a Silicon Valley address or the allure of a hot technological innovation, Fortune 500 companies are experimenting with new tactics to convince sought-after technology professionals to accept a job offer. At tech conferences and other high-profile networking events, companies want to show potential tech hires that they are a place where opportunities for innovation and creative thinking are ripe. For a company not located within Silicon Valley, it needs to prove to prospects that it is imaginative, dynamic, and offers intellectual rewards. As a result, companies are getting creative with their recruitment tactics, everything from hiring street teams to hosting Meetups to handing out unique gifts that appeal to tech workers.
Even Fortune 500 companies with global brands have their own challenges convincing would-be candidates that their firm is a good fit. As a result, recruiters and executives from these companies are finding new ways to put themselves directly in front of IT professionals at events and conferences. For example, GE promoted its tech-friendly image at last month's SXSW conference in Austin, TX, a tech and culture festival. Nokia, in its hunt for engineers sent recruiters for the first time to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas as well as the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, hoping to convince techies that the company is the right place for them.
View a video of WSJ reporter Lauren Weber discussing employers' unconventional efforts to attract technical talent.
Hiring managers tend to bypass traditional HR processes only when they think that IT workers within the technology industry are not embracing their company's messages. They have to convince techies that hardware can still yield cool projects when other local firms are offering jobs in hot fields like cloud computing and nanotechnology. One tactic is to send top candidates personalized gifts after studying their social-media profiles. As anecdotal evidence suggests, sometimes these customized gifts make all the difference, helping candidates consider companies they might not otherwise.
From The Wall Street Journal
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