Job boards seem stale and old fashioned. A company posts a long laundry list of requirements, but neglects to share what job seekers want to know: the compensation range, what the boss is like, how much turnover the organization has and whether there is a future within the organization.
With the proliferation of job boards, online corporate career sections, job aggregation sites, LinkedIn easy-to-apply listings and other platforms, it makes it easy for job seekers to “spray and pray,” submitting their résumés everywhere, hoping for a hit, much to the chagrin of human resources personnel who have to wade through all of the irrelevant submissions.
Job seekers, hiring managers, recruiters and human resources talent acquisition professionals wonder why this area hasn’t evolved, especially as tech is revolutionizing most aspects of business and life. It looks like one company is bringing the staid job board into the future.
I spoke with Hired CEO Josh Brenner to learn more about how his company improves the hiring process, and what he sees happening in the current job market. Hired, a division of one of the largest global staffing and talent firms, the Adecco Group, offers a better, more modern-day solution. The company is the largest AI-driven hiring marketplace that matches talent with top-tier companies, like Dropbox, Coinbase and Zillow. Hired combines intelligent job matching with unbiased career counseling to help people find a job they love and reach their full potential.
Brenner says that the Hired platform serves as the go-to platform for hiring managers, recruiters, and C-level executives to connect with the best talent. Hired is also committed to strengthening equity in the hiring process by offering “a more representative talent pool, using bias reduction features, customized assessments and salary bias alerts to help remove unconscious bias when hiring.”
Here’s how it works. A person who is open to finding a new job will post their profile on the platform. They may be asked to take some tests to demonstrate their proficiencies. Companies will be automatically, via AI software, matched with appropriate candidates.
Since this is accomplished through technology, the hiring manager may not know about the person’s race, ethnicity or other factors that could bring along biases to the equation. With remote work becoming the new norm, particularly in technology and sales, which is the primary focus of Hired, companies can recruit people from all across the country.
An applicant in the Midwest that never had a chance to work on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley because of the geographic barriers, now has a game-changing opportunity to score an interview with firms that would be unattainable only two years ago because of the lack of wide adoption of remote work.
In an effort to share what is happening in the tech-related marketplace, Hired released its annual report, “Hiring in the Great Resignation: 2021 State of Tech Salaries.” This study is based upon the findings and analysis of over 525,000 interview requests and 10,000 job offers facilitated through Hired’s marketplace from January 2019 through June 2021. Hired also surveyed over 1,200 tech employees about their remote work, salary and benefits preferences.
The results disclose how the shift to remote work impacted tech salaries across different markets, roles and industries. The report provides insights on compensation, benefits and remote work trends in tech. It also offers guidance on how to navigate changing candidate preferences and hiring needs amid the Great Resignation.
Key findings include the following:
- An increase in global tech salaries in most cities, including a 5% increase in average remote salaries from 2020 to 2021
- Increased demand for junior candidates lowered overall salary averages in New York City and San Francisco between 2020 and 2021
- Salaries for experienced candidates (2+years) increased across all markets
- Average tech salaries for remote roles and candidates in smaller markets (tier 2 and tier 3 in the 2021 State of Tech Salaries report) have seen the largest increases
- To keep up with the demand for talent, companies are hiring faster than ever across all markets, with 30 days to hire in the U.S. and 34 days in the U.K., down 25% on average from a year ago
“As companies look to maximize their talent pipelines and meet high demands, we see that the majority of open job positions on Hired’s marketplace are now open to remote—a 5x increase since January 2020. Remote work preferences from Hired candidates are also at a record high, with over 90% indicating a preference for remote roles,” said Brenner.
The chief executive added, “While the Great Resignation causes many challenges, employees leaving their jobs in droves also means that companies have an incredible opportunity to hire some of the best, diverse talent that’s on the market right now. Increasing hiring efficiency and offering the right benefits will be absolutely critical to compete for top tech talent.”
Additional key findings from the 2021 State of Tech Salaries report include:
Tech workers’ money would go much further in cities, such as Dallas and Atlanta, compared to major tech hubs.
When adjusting average salaries for cost of living, making the average $165k salary in San Francisco would be the equivalent of making $243k in Dallas. Only Washington, D.C. and New York City top San Francisco’s steep cost of living.
Flexible work options remain a necessity to compete for tech talent.
Almost all tech workers want to work remotely to some degree, with 52% favoring a remote-first model with flexibility to go to an office, and 33% wishing to stay fully remote indefinitely. Only 1% are interested in returning to an office full time.
Lowering salaries for remote workers might increase turnover.
Seventy-four percent of tech workers said they would start looking for a new job if their salaries were to decrease or if they were denied a raise over the next six months. Thirty-five percent expect salaries to increase up to 10% over the next half year.
Base compensation is not everything for candidates.
Seventy-six percent are willing to accept a lower base salary in exchange for other forms of compensation, such as equity and flexible work options. Younger, less-experienced tech workers value tuition reimbursement and more-experienced tech professionals count childcare services and paid parental leave as top benefits outside of compensation.
Employer transparency around remote compensation and other pay structures is critical.
There are mixed opinions among candidates on how remote salaries should be determined. Forty-five percent of candidates disagree with using the cost of living of the employee’s location as a baseline.
Source: Forbes
