Ever since the horrors of the pandemic subsided in the recent past, the industry has been talking about the influx of jobs, which is likely to happen in the market. Presented with so many options, employees are spoilt for choice. This is making it much more difficult for employers to attract and onboard talent. When it comes to tech talent, in particular, the demand is pretty high and it is difficult to attract the best of talent.
Sebastian Rodriguez, VP & global head – talent, Netcore Cloud points out that finding engineering or tech talent is not a very big challenge for the Company, but successfully onboarding that talent and making them accept the offer is definitely a challenge that every tech-based or IT services company is facing in today’s time. And the reason for that is, people have numerous options in hand since many companies are targeting the same set of people.
Rodriguez shares with HRKatha, that the Company has been able to onboard the required amount of talent quite comfortably without any hindrance. He further shares that this year, in the second quarter, the Company has been able to onboard close to 128 people. On an average, since last year, Netcore Cloud has been onboarding 170 odd people every quarter, filling in major roles in the tech side. The way Rodriguez describes it, the hiring trajectory for Netcore has been fairly positive and the Company has been able to attract and onboard people very comfortably.
“Though the world has been talking about the ‘war for tech talent, so far, Netcore Cloud has effectively managed to attract the best talent with its in-place talent-management strategies”
Sebastian Rodriguez, VP & global head – talent, Netcore Cloud
So, how does Netcore successfully attract and onboard the best talent from the market?
Netcore Cloud is a Saas-based tech-solutions company, which offers marketing technology solutions to companies across sectors. Till now, Netcore Cloud has an employee strength base of 700 people, globally, but the Company is planning to hire 800 more people this year across roles and functions.
As a Saas-based solutions and tech product company, Netcore is always on a hunt for great tech talent — backend engineers, people with big data skills, as well as technology, android & OS app developers.
The Company prefers to keep a 60:40 ratio in terms of hiring tech talent laterally, and hiring freshers from the campus respectively.
Identifying talent through a hackathon
Rodriguez shares with HRKatha that as part of their talent-acquisition strategy, the Company organises a hackathon where programmers, coders and developers participate to prove their mettle. The winners get an opportunity to work with the Company. This year as well, Netcore offered jobs to about 22 to 24 people at the end of the hackathon challenge. For a change, however, the Company also announced a joining bonus of Rs 1 lakh to every winner. “This strategy worked for us and we were able to successfully onboard the best of talent identified through the hackathon challenge,” informs Rodriguez.
Making irresistible offers
To attract candidates, Netcore likes to offer a comparatively ‘magnetic’ offer (in terms of CTC) — one which is irresistible or cannot be refused. However, as Rodriguez says, just throwing money at people and onboarding them is not a culture that Netcore appreciates. For Netcore, it is more about offering value in terms of successful career growth.
Ensuring smooth onboarding
Since many organisations often face the challenge of mid-way drop outs, it becomes important to design a smooth on-boarding strategy. As part of Netcore’s onboarding strategy, the candidates are given access to some of the learning tools and content that not only keeps them engaged but allows them to further upskill themselves. Before the lockdown, candidates were given a feel of the workplace with an assigned buddy, who helped the candidate understand how things are done at Netcore Cloud. Rodriguez also reveales that the Company is all set to introduce another initiative called ‘Face to Face with Kalpit’, where new joinees get a chance to interact face-to-face with Kalpit Jain, group CEO, Netcore Cloud.
Giving growth opportunities
Similarly, to give growth opportunities to internal talent, the Company has something called the ‘RISE’ programme, which is Netcore’s very own management-development programme. Under this six-month mentorship programme, high performers are given an opportunity to receive executive coaching in cross-functional skills. They are then promoted to higher roles in their own domain (vertically) or into other functions, provided they show the calibre to go into another function.
Additionally, the Company also has an initiative known as ‘Udaan’, a three-month learning journey meant for young and first-time managers. ‘Udaan’ was formulated with the aim of nurturing the first-time managers with the help of executive trainers and coaches.
As Rodriguez puts it, “Though the world has been talking about the ‘war for tech talent’, so far, Netcore Cloud has effectively managed to attract the best talent with its in-place talent-management strategies.