All-In Recruitment is a podcast by Manatal focusing on all things related to the recruitment industry’s missions and trends. Join us in our weekly conversations with leaders in the recruitment space and learn their best practices to transform the way you hire.
Transcript
The transcript has been edited for clarity.
Lydia: Welcome to the All-In Recruitment podcast by Manatal, where we explore best practices and trends with leaders in the recruitment space. If you like our content, please subscribe to our channels on YouTube and Spotify, and stay tuned for our weekly episodes.
My name is Lydia, and joining us today this week is Irina Constantinescu, who is the People Partner for Tech Recruitment and Employer Branding at Groundfog. Hello, Irina. Thank you for joining us today.
Irina: Hi, Lydia. Thank you for the invitation. It's really awesome to be here.
The Right Way to Build HR Function from the Ground Up
Lydia: So, Irina, you've worked in the recruitment space, mainly technical recruitment, for a few years now. And in recent years, you've also worn many heads in the companies that you've worked for.
What kind of aspects of people and HR do you have to look into while you help companies build their people strategies from the ground up?
Irina: That is a very good question. You need to have a lot of things in mind when starting on, let's say, an HR department. In our case, you need to start with the priorities because we use Holacracy.
You need to have some admin functions. I'm talking about contracts, salaries, and so on. You need to make sure that you are offering all the support to the people that work for you, no matter where they are employed.
Moreover, you need to be in line with the business strategy. And you need to make sure that you are also putting in the effort on the recruitment side. You need to make sure that you are bringing the human capital topic into HR. And you need to ensure that you are also providing support for the business to fill in the roles that you might have open. Those are necessary for the business.
Another thing to consider would be when you hire people, you are offering them support, but you also need to retain them, right? This is a really competitive market. We are talking about people maybe staying one, two, or three months, testing out the company, and then moving on if they're not happy.
So you need to make sure, especially in the first month of employment, that you offer them a great onboarding experience. You need to make sure that they are receiving all the support they can get and that they are happy with their project, with the technologies that they use, and so on and so forth.
“As a company, when you are hiring someone, you are making some promises, and they're also making some promises to you. So, I think it's a two-way street. And both parties need to hold on to their promises.”
Retention, hiring recruitment, admin topics, there are a lot of sub-texts when you are an HR, especially if you are alone in a startup, which was the case for me in many of the companies that I’ve worked with.
Lydia: And setting up an entire function, as we just described, is a major task. What are the first few steps you have taken to ensure that your early strategies for this startup fall in line with the business strategy?
Irina: For example, you need to create a recruitment strategy. And when I'm talking about The recruitment strategy, I'm talking about investigating what the business needs. It also depends on the type of business. If you are a product company or if you are a service company, you might have different requirements. You might want a higher volume. You might want to grow more organically. It also depends on what kind of industry you are in, as well as the business that you are that you activate in.
One of the first steps that I took was creating a recruitment strategy or a recruitment workflow and deciding on the tools that we wanted to use to establish the headcount. Then making some market prospects.
There are a lot of things that you need to put in place and ensure that you are compliant with and in place with everything. You need to set up an admin part and create an employer branding party.
“You need to create some visibility for the company if there is none. Maybe create some social media pages and also add content, create content, and maintain content.”
Crafting a Solid Recruitment Strategy: What to Consider?
Lydia: You mentioned building, rather, crafting a recruitment strategy that would fulfill the business needs. But there's also forecasting where the business is headed in a year or two. What might be some of the challenges or disruptors that will come? And what might be some ways, in your experience, to think about future-proofing recruitment?
Irina: Again, it really depends on the business. If you are a service company, you need to find a balance between bench and people that are working on projects, in my opinion, because when you are offering software services, you are not a product company. You don't always have a clear forecast or visibility of the future.
You might be in the process of winning the client, and then you are not sure if you are going to win it or not. Then you win it. And you suddenly need to hire 15 people to accommodate that project. You might not always have those 15 people on the bench. So you actively need to work on populating that project. And also to accomplish that project.
On the other hand, that might not be necessary for a product company. Maybe they have a clearer forecast, and they are able to provide you, as a recruiter, a clearer forecast on the number of people they need because they have a solid plan of what to add to their products. So they know how many people they would need for that project.
The service area is a bit more difficult to create a very clear forecast. So I would suggest you have a healthy balance between people on the bench and people that are working on projects. Just make sure that you can have a project, you know, maybe hire in advance. Just look into your most difficult roles to fill. For example, it might be developers. Or if you have a more challenging technology that is rare and in demand on the market, maybe just keep that in mind and hire in advance. Even if that person is not working for two or three months, it's an added value when you are going to have that demand for that project.
Lydia: And as you said, to look out for them early and have enough people on the bench, it comes down to the task of approaching the in-demand tech talent today. And I understand that Groundfog has reached its talent target mostly through networking. Correct?
Irina: Exactly.
Lydia: When it comes to reaching out to talent who are very much in demand. What may be the best way to communicate the opportunity, so that you capture their interest early and allow them to see the value in joining a company?
Irina: First of all, it also depends on where in time you are with the company. If you are a startup, in my opinion, everyone needs to be involved in recruitment, not only just the recruiter. It's a thing that starts from the CEO, from the owner. He should be the first promoter of any employer branding initiative and every recruitment initiative. It starts from the top, and then it cascades with everyone that works in that company.
What usually happens with startups or with new companies is you start with a very trustworthy team. This is the case for Groundfrog. This is how it started. And this is something that we want to maintain in time. All the people that work at the company are involved in recruitment.
When reaching out to candidates, employer branding and social media presence play a big part. So, you have people that actively apply to your open roles. But in the tech industry, this is rarely happens. Or you may have people applying, but they might not be the right profile for you. So, you need to reach out to people with an effective approach, for example, via social media, which will help you create a great network.
This is what I did when I started recruiting for a role. I reached out to the people that I worked with, maybe in the past, or people who I kept contact with. So, I think this could be the most valuable thing when hiring a recruiter. And if companies are wondering why they should hire a recruiter, it's like with a salesperson. You are not necessarily hiring that person. You are hiring for their skills and their assessment skills.
You are also hiring them for the network. It's easy for me to get a project right now. Because whenever I hear someone say, “I need a Java developer,” I already have a person in mind. So, it's a question of networking. It's a question of keeping those contacts close to you and having them trust you.
And when you are coming up with a role, they will, of course, want to talk to you, you need to keep that going, and you need to make sure that you build trust. This goes for every job in any industry.
Strong EVP Is a Key
Lydia: You mentioned trust. A very trustworthy group of employees who then showcase what they're doing and then attract that sort of talent organically into the company. I think that's very interesting in the development of an EVP, for example. So it goes back to what you said about employer brand being one of those things that pull in the champions around it.
In your experience, you've already reached your talent target. So, what are some steps to take now if you push your attention to developing an EVP? What are some steps to take to develop a strong EVP so that your talent strategy is getting people whose culture fit and skill are both aligned with the company.?
Irina: When establishing an EVP, of course, you need to be in touch with the market. You need to be in touch with what people want from a job right now. For example, if we are looking at the trend that happened after the pandemic, it's pretty clear right now that the talent market is divided between going back to the office and working from home.
“I'm pretty sure that we won't be coming back from working from home. This is something that is here to stay. I personally believe that the days when people wanted to work a nine-to-five job from an office are over.”
You need to keep in mind what people need. When developing an EVP, you also need to make sure that you know what your employees want. Know what their expectation from the company is. People have different needs. As a company, you need to make sure that you are satisfying as many needs as you can. Of course, you won't be able to do it all at once for everyone. At some point, someone will not be happy with the decision that is made. But you need to ensure that you are catering to as much as possible.
For the next steps, we are working on developing programs for learning and development for events that we want to organize. And we want people to be involved in it from the ground up. We are rethinking this because ‘rethink’ is one of our company values.
We are constantly allowing ourselves to rethink whatever we have. It's something that we strongly believe in. And right now, we are just putting the basis of what Grandfog should look like, which is a very challenging task because we all come with a lot of information about what we don't want, but we need to define what we want precisely. So, it's something that we want people to involve as many people as possible, maybe the entire company, because this is also one of our core values, which is ‘everyone has a voice.’
This is something that is streamlined and single-handedly handled by me. And it's not only my vision. It's basically the vision of the entire company of the people that we have right now. So, we are gathering ideas on how to make a place that everyone wants to work in that is inclusive and caters to as many needs and as many demands as possible.
This also covers taking care of people's growth. I think this is a necessary step when you are a people-centric company.
Lydia: We also see that employers today, especially post-pandemic, everyone's striving to strike a balance between productivity and well-being, as you mentioned earlier. So, what would you say is the role of the employer in fostering a balanced in a high-performance culture?
Irina: I think the role of the employer is very important. And when I think of high performance, I think about people working many hours and overtime. You need to clarify that high performance can also be a healthy and balanced performance. This is something that you need to keep in mind. As an employer, you work with people that have needs. They have issues. They have a personal life. There's a whole world around them that isn't maybe necessarily strictly related to the job.
“Keep in mind that you need to support people outside of their daily work as well. You need to support and understand them and also offer them the possibility to manage their lives around their job.”
I also think that it's a trust thing, as I said earlier. When you have people that you are giving them all the context, all the necessary tools, all the freedom to manage their time, manage their daily tasks, and manage to take care of their lives, their personal or their mental health, their physical health, they will, of course, appreciate what you are doing. And they are also going to take care of you and take care of the company as well as your customers.
Technology’s Role In Recruitment Today
Lydia: Let's talk about recruitment technologies, such as Manatal and ATS. How important is recruitment technology for hiring in startups? And what are the benefits that you've seen in your experience?
Irina: First of all, when you are working in the tech industry, it's really impossible not to have also technology in your daily work. When you have a big target, for example, when you are scaling fast, when you need to hire a lot of people, an Application Tracking System helps you track the candidates that you have.
Also, it's a great aggregator for other job boards and job platforms or social media platforms that help you distribute and share your opening on different platforms. It's really awesome to have everything in one place. It makes your job easier. It also helps you be in touch and constantly communicate with the candidates. Lack of communication with candidates usually becomes an issue when you have a lot of vacancies. It has happened to me before. And I know it's a major complaint. I saw a lot of posts on LinkedIn about recruiters not coming back to the candidates.
It's really difficult to keep track of the candidates. It’s also challenging If you don't have the technology to back that effort up and if you don't have a tool that helps you organize and helps you keep this communication flowing. Another factor is that you are in different stages with different candidates.
So, this is a great way to organize yourself as a recruiter. An ATS has the possibility to also generate some data and reports that you need when developing the next recruitment strategy, it's very important to have the data to back that up. So, any type of technology and way to automate tasks and recruitment is a blessing, in my opinion.
Irina’s advice to New Players in the Recruitment Industry Today
Lydia: I'm sure the audience would want to know what advice you would give to those who are starting up in recruitment today,?
Irina: You really need to love recruitment in order to thrive. You need to love the challenge. You need to be resilient and patient because recruitment is the type of job that has really high peaks and really low lows. For example, you have a candidate who just accepted an offer from you, and you are so excited that you managed to close that deal and it's a perfect fit for the candidate. It’s the role that you practically are a matchmaker between the two parties. You are happy with the fact that you gave an awesome opportunity to the candidate while closing the vacancy in due time, and the company is happy.
And then you get a call from the candidate in the next day or two. “I'm sorry, I accepted another offer.” Because it may be more financially motivated, or it is closer to home, or whatever reason that candidate might have.
So, in my opinion, when starting in recruitment, you need to study this area a bit, maybe get a mentor in recruitment, maybe talk to a more senior person that is already doing this, and make sure that this is something that you really want to do. Because as I said, it can be frustrating at times. It can be awesome, but it can also be frustrating at times.
Also, another major piece of advice that I would give to a technical recruiter is to learn your technologies and know what you are talking about, especially when hiring. For example, you need to know the difference between Java and JavaScript when you are talking to a tech person if you want to be taken seriously by the people that you are trying to recruit. This is something that I struggled with a lot in the beginning because I didn't know much about technology. So, it's something that I needed to learn on my own. And I learned from every source that I could find, from books, from the internet, and from my candidates.
And, of course, during this time, I got surrounded by all my friends who work in tech and large developers and system engineers. So, I learned from them. This is something that I really want to emphasize. If you want to be taken seriously in this industry.
“When you are going to interview and trying to assess a tech candidate, you need to know what you are asking and what's the right answer for that as well.”
These would be the main pieces of advice that I would give a new joiner that wants to start with recruitment. And, of course, also be a good salesperson, because recruitment nowadays is not necessarily only based on assessment. You also need to sell the role.
Lydia: You mentioned that you did some self-study, and you equipped yourself with the skill to understand technology in recruitment which takes a lot of drive. How long did it take you to gradually get into and get more comfortable with the technical recruitment space?
Irina: I think it took me around six months, maybe a year, to be very confident when I get into an interview. But I still get nervous at times because technology keeps on changing. I first started with PHP developers. We were hiring for an E-commerce company here, in Romania, which was growing really fast. And I knew nothing about PHP. So, I started studying.
But we had so many candidates. We were having 16 or 20 interviews per week. And this helped me learn about technology quickly. Of course, I read about PHP. I read about object-oriented programming and functional programming. So, I absorbed the information, but then again, talking to candidates made more sense. When you have 20 interviews per day, you get into it, and you learn the differences between the answers.
So, you need to start by researching the market and the technologies. It’s also very important to talk to the technical hiring manager. They're the first point of contact that you need to have when taking on a vacancy for a technical role. You have to have a kickoff meeting and ask all the questions that you need to find out about that role, about the team, about the technologies, about the priorities, and about the role in the team. So get all your information before starting recruitment for your role.
Connecting with Irina
Lydia: Those are great insights. And you've been very generous in sharing them. Thank you so much, Irina, for your time and your insights today. I'm sure the audience would like to find out more about how you build people's strategies from the ground up, especially in a brand new startup like you are in today. So, where can they connect with you?
Irina: They can find me mainly on LinkedIn. DM me with whatever questions you might have if you want to learn more. I'm there, and I'm always open to creating new connections and new friends.
Lydia: We have been in conversation with Irina Constantinescu, who is the people partner for tech recruitment and employer branding at Groundfog in Romania.
Stay tuned for more weekly episodes of All-In Recruitment featuring insights and best practices from recruitment leaders across the world.
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