As the tech talent war intensifies and more companies chuck large sums of money to poach talents, it is no doubt why 65 per cent of those looking out indicated salary as the primary reason. After all, senior software engineers at the 90 percentile earn US$11,500, according to the Tech Talent Compensation 2021/2022 Report by NodeFlair and Quest Ventures.

However, not all companies are fortunate enough to be armed with a massive war chest to compete with the tech giants like Bytedance, Foodpanda and FAANG. After all, these companies pay at least 25 per cent above the market median on average.

So, how can you survive the talent war against these tech behemoths? 

I have hired the talents: What do you mean I’m not done?

Many companies spend a lot of time and money competing and recruiting the best talents. However, only a handful allocate sufficient resources to talent retention.

Non-technical leaders need to understand that talent churn is significantly more expensive for the engineering team. It goes beyond a simple one-off recruitment cost (which could amount to over US$25,000 per hire nevertheless).

More importantly, there is a hidden cost incurred from the loss in productivity in replacing them and onboarding the new joiners.

Also Read: Tech salary is escalating: How can companies survive the talent war?

Some companies have an abnormally high attrition rate and an average tenure of under a year. It raises many questions about how much work these engineers can contribute, given that it takes two to three months to fully onboard and offboard.

One of the ways to achieve this is through a strong employer brand. According to the whitepaper “Why Your Employer Brand Matters” by LinkedIn, a company with a strong employer brand, especially one that resonates with current employees, will have a 28 per cent lower turnover rate than companies with a weaker employee brand.

It’s not only about money

Besides salary, non-compensation benefits play a deciding factor when choosing which company to join. According to Stack Overflow, the top three non-compensation push and pull reasons for tech talents are:

• Wanting to work with new technologies
• Wanting better work-life balance
• Seeking growth or leadership opportunities.

Companies can re-evaluate their existing working environment based on these aspects. Some changes include getting rid of rigid working hours and granting flexibility to work from anywhere. 

The team can also be structured such that talents could learn from people beyond their immediate circle through initiatives like a weekly Friday engineering sharing.

“Sorry, you only have 9 of the 10 skills we are looking for”

We all have that dream candidate who checks all the boxes. This candidate has all the skill sets we want, everything from Frontend to Backend to DevOps to Data Engineering, and the list goes on. 

The issue: this candidate does not exist. 

Even if this candidate exists, it will likely be out of your budget. After all, software engineers at the 90th percentile are paid up to three times more than those in the 10th percentile.

The truth is that many of these requirements are not crucial. In addition, a big bulk of these skills is transferable as long as someone has experience with similar technology. 

Instead, have two separate lists: the must-haves and good-to-haves. The must-haves list should only have three to four requirements at most, while the rest of the requirements should be on the good-to-haves list.

Reject candidates only if they do not have the must-haves, and then evaluate and rank candidates based on how many good-to-have checkboxes they ticked. Doing so can widen your pool of candidates and reduce the time needed to hire the right person.

“I am interested in the role, but…”

At NodeFlair, we saw how many companies struggle with hiring by having too many ineffective interview rounds than they need. Worse of all, most of the assessments are not conclusive in determining if a candidate is suitable.

Also Read: Singapore faces talent crunch for engineering and product manager roles: Report

Instead, companies should actively reflect and remove interview rounds that are repetitive and ineffective. 

On the other hand, adding a call with HR can add the human touch and show candidates that you respect them. From experience, this increases the percentage of candidates who will complete the interview process, especially when the first assessment is a challenging technical round.

Doing so can complete the entire interview process much faster and reduce the chance of candidates withdrawing their applications. Also, it can improve the health of your hiring funnels as fewer candidates are repelled and dropped off the pipeline.

Build your engineering presence

At any time, only 20 per cent of the market are active job seekers, while 54 per cent are passive and open to new opportunities. 

The top two methods talents learn about companies are through their network and reading about news and articles about the company. Thus, invest in non-traditional recruitment methods, such as attending and meeting candidates at local meetups. 

We at NodeFlair did a poll and found out that 64 per cent say the ideal employer page should contain information about the engineering culture and rationales behind the company’s tech stacks and decisions.

After all, 45 per cent say engineering culture influences their decision to choose a job. You can show that you prioritise engineering by maintaining an active engineering blog. Use it to document technical challenges faced by the team and how you overcame them.

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