Finding the Needle in the Haystack: Navigating the complexities of hiring for a fluid and ever-changing role!
Every organisation has certain roles that are unique to them as per the organisational requirements. Recruiting for such a dynamic and evolving role requires a strategic and adaptable approach. It also demands a deep understanding of the organisation’s needs. Read on to find out how our PCS(Products, Captives, Startups) team in PeopleLogic successfully fulfilled such a requirement for one of our clients.
Premise: One of the top UK-based edtech companies approached our team with a requirement for a Principal Engineer for their product engineering team in India.
Challenge: The Principal Engineer of an IT team, popularly known as the Colonel of the Engineering team, sits at the top of the software development hierarchy, preparing for the transition into the first level of tech leadership. Extremely crucial to any product engineering team, Principal Engineers are like the scientists of the team. Their exposure to all the stages involved in software application development is very important. In addition to strong coding skills, they must be able to draw out a high-level design when necessary. In addition, every organisation has its career definition for this role and therefore the PEs in different organisations will have different kinds of experience, exposure and skill sets. So one cannot randomly assume that any PE working in any IT company would fit the bill. Most often, a Principal Engineer is selected based on the exposure they have as opposed to their skill set.
Therefore, finding the right fit whose previous experience and scope of work match the new role is like finding that needle in a haystack.
PeopleLogic Approach and Strategy
Requirement Analysis: A thorough analysis of the requirement was done by the team and the essential elements were mapped out using our JD Analysis tool. This tool is very effective in identifying the client’s requirements completely without overlooking even the smallest input given by the client.
Market mapping: All the target companies that are/were on similar “technology journeys” were identified and mapped. The companies were diverse ( medium to large) and the PEs have had adequate exposure in terms of their job role and the scope of work.
Talent Landscape Mapping: Major responsibilities of PE in every organisation that belongs to the same company cluster as the client organisation, were identified and mapped. The responsibilities could either be capacity management, design, integration, programming or optimization or a combination of any of these or all of these. Preference was given to candidates from premier institutions.
In-depth resume analysis and candidate study: Each resume that was shortlisted was analysed using the Resume Rating Tool, an indigenous tool developed by PeopleLogic to gauge the suitability of a profile. The team then connected with the shortlisted candidates and had exhaustive conversations (sometimes over multiple calls) where their exposure, experience and skill sets were validated, in addition to thoroughly understanding candidate aspirations.
Success: The combination of Requirement Analysis, Market Mapping, Talent mapping and Resume Analysis/ Candidate Study is always a winning combination. As a result of these strategies, our team was able to get a pool of profiles that were a perfect match. The requirement was successfully closed well within 30 days. The delighted client gave us a further list of requirements as they knew team PeopleLogic could be trusted with any kind of requirements.
