If you’re ready to hire a team of developers, you may want to get comfortable because according to Rootstrap, the average time it takes to hire a software developer is between two to 6 weeks– but that only applies to a typical software developer who’s hired for a very basic position. If you require a developer with specialized skills, as is often the case, your hiring timeframe could be weeks longer.

This is the reality of hiring a single software developer. But what if you need more than just one developer; what if you need an entire team? You’re tasked with filling multiple positions and in the process, you must be sure that you choose talent who can mesh well with others. A group of individuals does not constitute a team; you need to find developers who have a productive dynamic.

With that said, it’s probably no surprise that the recruiting and hiring process can be a long and rather frustrating one. This is especially true of staffing needs that relate to high-value or especially time-sensitive projects. In many cases, it is not uncommon for a company to spend 8-to-12 weeks or longer hiring a specialized team of software developers. To make matters worse, there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all developer, so you could find yourself in a scenario where you’re approached by a development team leader because they’re concerned about a new hire who just isn’t pulling their weight. In the haste to fill a position, a company may overlook the traits that are required to find the right tech talent for the job.

You may not be entirely surprised to learn that on average, there are five companies competing for every available developer. There is a tremendous gap between supply and demand in this talent pool, and that gap is expected to grow even larger. That’s because mobile technology, the Internet of Things, and everyday uses for technology — like summoning a ride via Uber or turning up your home’s AC using an IoT-integrated smart home app — are becoming more and more commonplace. According to U.S.News, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects 26% growth in this profession over the next 10 years, which is about 371,000 jobs.

Why is it So Challenging to Hire a Team of Developers (Quickly)?

The ability to call in a team of developers quickly is important for many companies, both large and small, as it gives you the flexibility to take on profitable projects that you might otherwise be forced to pass up. It also positions you to implement new software and other tech measures promptly.

You may know that you need team members with skills X, Y, and Z. But finding those developers precisely when you need them and assembling a team that can work in a cohesive, productive manner can be a challenge. There are many obstacles standing in your way, including the following:

• You must form a cohesive team, with individuals who complement each others’ personalities, working styles, and skill sets;
• Recruiters may have a limited understanding of what skills and attributes are required in tech talent, so you could end up with a team that’s poorly equipped to meet your needs;
• Many HR staff lack the knowledge required to properly evaluate tech candidates effectively, so they’re forced to cut corners or pull experts from an already-time-pressed tech department; and
• Company leaders may focus exclusively on technical capabilities, failing to consider the importance of soft skills and team dynamics.

When you combine a short timeframe with the typical challenges associated with hiring a software developer, IT experts, or other tech staff,  you may find that you’ve created a recipe for disaster. In the end, this can result in a scenario where you hire the wrong person (or people) — a potentially costly mistake. It’s not uncommon to hear of companies that spent months assembling a development team that had good dynamics and the collective skill set required to get the job done right. But you don’t have months. So what’s the solution?

IT Staffing Services and Other Hiring Solutions

An alternative option is to turn to a tech staffing service provider, who has the experience and knowledge required to assemble a winning team quickly. Staffing firms have several advantages over the internal HR department. They have refined the tech recruiting, screening, and vetting processes, and their extensive knowledge of the tech industry means they’re well-positioned to find the right person for the position. Tech staffing firms also maintain a massive database of candidates who are open to new opportunities, so they can often assemble a cohesive team with minimal recruiting.

Tech staffing firms like iTech specialize in temporary on-site staffing services, which provides companies with an added advantage: you’ll get the right talent precisely when you need it, thereby allowing you to seize opportunities that you would normally pass up. iTech deals in temporary staffing solutions, so if your need is long-term, your company will get the time it needs to properly assemble a permanent team. The temporary team serves as an interim solution, fulfilling your needs in the short term. We also offer tech consulting services, so our experts can provide you with the guidance you need to improve your recruiting and hiring process for developers and other tech staff.

iTech’s development teams are well-established groups, with members who have already learned how to reach maximum productivity as a cohesive unit. This means you’ll see the best results right out of the starting gate, which is good news if you’re on a tight deadline.

iTech is based in Dallas, Texas and we work with clients locally and beyond DFW, Houston, and Austin. If you need help to hire a team of developers, contact us today

The post Are You Struggling to Hire a Team of Software Developers? first appeared on iTech.

IT Staffing Agencies Do the Screening, Interviewing and Vetting

One of the immediate values of using an IT staffing agency to access software engineering talent comes from the screening, interviewing and vetting processes. When you tap talent from an IT staffing agency, you’ll know that the professionals working for you not only have been screened for the correct development languages and other software engineering proficiencies, but also have the right set of soft skills to fit your company and its culture.

In addition to supplying temp workers, the right IT staffing agency can also provide you with entire teams of software developers and engineers assembled specifically to produce optimal results from the start. Most hiring managers know how difficult and time-consuming it can be to hire and grow a full-time team that works well together. The same concern applies to recruiting freelancers, too. Unless you’ve worked with a freelancing candidate before, you’re taking a risk not just on their job-specific skills, but also on their ability to perform well within your environment—and with others.

If you aren’t highly technical yourself, the screening process comes with an extra level of difficulty, as you’ll need to consult with experts who can ascertain whether a candidate has the right mix of skills and workstyle you need. Having an IT staffing agency handle that for you saves time (and, in the long run, money).

Accessing Top IT Talent While Lowering Risk

Using an IT staffing agency gives you immediate access to top-level software developers and engineers without the risks of hiring the wrong talent. Even if you have enough money to fast-track the process, you can end up expediting the hiring of the wrong people. In many cases, hires aren’t necessarily missing required job skills; instead, it’s their inability to work effectively with your team that causes problems. With an IT staffing agency, you can make sure the talent you bring in will gel with your colleagues and workflow.

The best IT staffing agencies recruit globally, ensuring you get not just the best talent in your area, but the best talent, period. Tapping into the worldwide IT talent pool will be increasingly necessary as it becomes more difficult to entice the best US-based devs.

Although it would seem that using an IT staffing agency would automatically make your staffing dollars go further than if you hired a full-time staff yourself, there is a caveat: Make sure your agency divulges the percentage their talent gets. If you pay, for example, $100 per hour and the agency takes half, you’re getting half the value you expected. iTech talent receive competitive compensation, and our clients benefit from that. You’ll know upfront that you’re getting the level of talent for which you paid. [bctt tweet=”If you pay $100 per hour and a staffing agency takes half, you’re getting half the value you expected. ” via=”no”]

If you have any questions about the level of IT talent you can access for your budget or would like to know how long it takes to get a software developer or team on-board, we’d like to hear from you.

The post How to Hire Top Software Engineers on a Budget first appeared on iTech.

Many erroneously believe that the added complexity of hiring someone who lives in a far-off location is not justified, especially when the talent would need to cross international borders. However, the impact of hiring a less-than-ideal candidate can be far greater. You may see a lower quality of work, poor team dynamics and time overruns.

This leads to less-satisfied customers, lower productivity levels and ultimately, significant harm to your bottom line. This can far outweigh any added time and effort it takes to recruit global talent. This is an ideal point to mention that, contrary to popular belief, the process of recruiting global talent is not necessarily more costly, nor is it inherently more time-consuming. And when you work with the right tech and IT staffing company, they’ll oversee these matters on your behalf.

H1B Visa Sponsorship, Relocation and Other Considerations When Recruiting Global Talent

When hiring staff from far-off locations whether they’re from out of state or another continent you will have additional considerations. This is particularly true if the individual is a citizen of another nation. In these cases, you’ll need to consider things like visa sponsorship and the individual’s ability to work in-country.

One of the most common U.S. work visas is the H1B visa, which requires the individual to have a company that’s willing to serve as a sponsor. The sponsor basically says, If you allow this individual to enter the country, I will employ them. The process of getting an H1B visa can be rather complex, but most companies that go this route will agree that it’s worthwhile. What’s more, many tech workers can work remotely with relative ease, so this is always an option in cases where you require help straight away, but have yet to secure a visa for your talent. Depending upon the nation, it can also be possible for the talent to enter and work in-country on a temporary basis until they secure a visa.

You’ll also need to address the issue of travel and relocation, as hiring globally entails some unique obstacles. These obstacles are in addition to all of the usual talent acquisition challenges that you can expect to encounter. In the case of hiring temporary onsite staff, it’s fairly standard for companies to foot the bill for their accommodations and travel. Companies that routinely hire temporary staff may opt to acquire condominiums or homes that can be used to accommodate talent and their immediate family members.

For a permanent (onsite) position, it’s logical that the worker may choose to relocate to your region. This can be associated with a slight delay between the individual’s hire date and their official start date something you must account for in your planning. Many companies even offer to cover some or all of the person’s relocation costs. This practice is becoming more commonplace within the tech industry, due to the high demand for tech solutions and the comparatively small talent pool. In fact, the competitive nature of the industry has prompted many companies to start offering hiring bonuses.

There’s also the matter of evaluating for cultural fit and soft skills. Cultural and language differences can pose some obstacles, so it’s important that you’re aware of any potential challenges and develop a plan to address them. This plan can include everything from team-building workshops to English lessons for those who need a bit of help with it. Often, language barriers are fairly minimal, as many learn English as a second language starting at a very young age. What’s more, immersion is one of the best methods for improving communication skills in another language. So most barriers in this area can be overcome with some basic instruction and immersion.

At first glance, it may feel as though the extra effort and added expenditures fall into the realm of less than ideal. But the bottom line is this: when you’re hiring the best person for the job, these added considerations are more than worthwhile because you see such a tremendous difference in work quality and overall productivity. So the return on investment is usually quite significant.

Recruiting the Best Possible IT Talent for the Job

One way to recruit globally is to work with IT staffing services companies like iTech. We are committed to finding and hiring the best person for the job, regardless of location. You’ll be provided with the ideal candidates individuals with talents and skill sets that can far exceed those that you might see in the best local candidate. This is especially true for companies that are located in a region that lacks a thriving tech industry. A business in Boston or the San Francisco Bay Area may have access to local talent that is amongst the best of the best. But the top programmer in or around Livingston, Montana may be only moderately skilled.

This is a scenario where it’s useful to work with a company such as iTech. We handle all aspects of the recruiting and pre-hiring process. In some cases, this can include H1B visa sponsorship if the best person for the job happens to be a citizen of another nation. Our insourcing practice is unique: We hire talent worldwide and dispatch those experts to work onsite for clients on a temporary basis. You’ll have access to resources precisely when the need arises. You’ll also have the ability to leverage your existing onsite resources as needed. That’s something you don’t get with standard outsourcing arrangements.

If you’re seeking to hire IT staff, such as temporary software developers or a team of IT professionals, iTech is ready to assist. We invite you to contact our team today to discuss your staffing needs.

The post Should You Be Recruiting Global Talent? first appeared on iTech.

Even for those who last more than a few weeks, the stats are still discouraging. It’s estimated that one in three individuals will leave a new job shortly before or around the six-month mark. A 66% long-term retention rate is far from the ideal, regardless of the position or industry. A failed hire is more than just frustrating. It’s costly, yet many hiring managers fail to accurately quantify the expense. In fact, the real cost of hiring a developer is hard to pin down, especially when you consider that it varies dramatically on a case-by-case basis. But no matter how you cut it, the cost can be significant in terms of time and resources. But precisely how and why is the hiring process so involved and costly? And how can you avoid bad hires? We all know about the costs of hiring a recruiter and listing the position, but there are many other factors at play.

The Cost of Evaluating Your Needs

Many companies struggle to articulate their own needs and requirements for a new position. Time-pressed managers often skip the process of developing comprehensive job specs, which are then used to develop a detailed list of job requirements. And too often, the resulting job description is purely focused on technical skills, with little attention to the non-technical and soft skills that can ultimately make or break a project. These factors frequently combine to result in a recruiting effort that goes awry. This leads to a bad hire where the individual doesn’t mesh with your company or their skill set fails to meet your needs.

In order to properly evaluate and identify your precise staffing requirements for a specific position and project, you’ll need to consult with members of your team. A tech team leader can provide you with the insight and information that you need to craft an effective job description and project specs. This is a crucial step, as you may discover the hard way when you attempt to “recycle” and then modify existing specs and job descriptions. You may use the old specs and description as a starting point, then make adjustments to suit. But this rarely works. More often, you end up with an inaccurate view of your needs, which in turn, results in skewed hiring decisions that can carry a hefty price tag.

The Cost of Screening, Vetting and Interviewing

Screening and vetting potential candidates can be a very time-consuming process. It’s not uncommon to encounter scenarios where you invest an inordinate amount of time attempting to evaluate applicants. We’ve seen managers interview over half a dozen candidates over a period of three weeks for each position. That’s costly, since you’re investing time, money and resources, pulling team leaders off current projects to help aid in the hiring process, and/or even delaying the start of a project because you just haven’t found the right person.

Once you’ve identified the individuals who show promise, you’re tasked with verifying their credentials and experience, in addition to evaluating any work samples that they provide. Then you must identify those who are worth a closer look, whether it’s an interview, a test project or another evaluation tool. Many managers also forget to consider the candidate’s personal plans, such as planned vacations, resulting in nasty unexpected surprises down the line.

Oh, and if you lack lots of high-level tech experience, you may need to call upon your tech team yet again to help with these evaluations. It’s virtually impossible for a layman to know which questions to ask or what to look for when examining an individual’s experience, skills and tests/work samples. The more time your tech team spends assisting with the staffing process, the less time they can spend doing what they do best — tech work. This results in productivity dips and an adverse impact on your bottom line. This can be detrimental in some cases, particularly if you’re seeking to call in additional resources because you can’t handle the current workload.

Once a new hire arrives, many companies simply toss them into the pool with little or no onboarding. The result is that they often swim in the wrong direction…or drown.

The Cost of Hiring the Wrong Talent

Hiring the wrong person (or people) for the job can be very costly, particularly in cases where you have a critical need for new team members and subsequently invest a lot of money to fast track the process.

Often, it’s not an individual’s skills (or lack thereof) that make for a bad hire. It’s often the person’s ability to work with your existing tech team. Soft skills and cultural fit matter, so if your new team members aren’t used to the dynamics and culture, then they may struggle to succeed in your company. In short, there is such as thing as a “bad fit.”

You’ll see losses in many areas, including reduced productivity, onboarding-related expenditures for the new team member(s). You essentially waste all of the time and money invested in the recruiting process since it didn’t lead you to the right person (or people) for the job. The cost of hiring the wrong candidate can be even higher in situations where you pay for relocation or additional training.

The bottom line is this: If you invest the time, effort and resources up-front, you can avoid incurring greater cost due to complications down the line. We offer staffing services for clients seeking to bring in a temporary on-site team to assist with a project. This approach gives you a team of tech staffing experts to oversee the recruiting process, so your company’s team members can focus on doing what you do best. What’s more, there’s no long-term commitment. The team remains on-site to work with your in-house talent, and once the project is complete, they return to iTech. So you pay only for the resources you actually use.

The cost of recruiting and hiring a software developer or other tech talent on a temporary basis can be exorbitant when done in the traditional way. You’ll see costs that are comparable to those that are associated with hiring a permanent team member. You’ll need to develop your specs and job description, advertise the position, screen and interview candidates, and oversee the onboarding process. This process essentially remains the same whether you’re hiring a part-time employee, a full-time staffer, a temporary team member or permanent staff. When you turn to a tech and IT staffing service provider, you will see a greater value for your dollar, combined with better quality talent, because you’ll be more apt to connect with the right person for the job. Contact iTech today to discuss your staffing needs and let us help you find the right talent, while improving your bottom line.

The post The Real Costs of Hiring a Software Developer first appeared on iTech.

It’s not difficult to find statistics about the rapid growth of the IoT and of course, predictions for future growth. It’s less common, however, to find discussions about the dramatic changes the IoT is likely to make in daily life and ordinary business practices. As technology and connections improve, people may be freed from most manual tasks. They can allow their machines to monitor their environment, communicate with each other, and even respond to changes. The real discussion isn’t about the number of connected devices; it’s about the way that the IoT will change the way that people live and work.

The Rapid Growth and Evolution of the IoT

As a reminder, the SAP^® blog used a variety of resources to remind readers about the IoT’s growth predictions:

• Within five years, the population of devices on the IoT is expected to reach 50 billion.
• By 2030, that population could increase to 200 billion.

People might still interact with the world of connected things by using mobile devices, laptops and PCs. Those devices may look and function somewhat differently, but they’ll probably be as recognizable as a QWERTY keyboard would be to somebody who traveled to 2030 from 1930. The visitor from the 1930s might not know exactly how to use the machine, but he or she would understand the accessory is used to type. However, the real work of processing information may turn these devices into portals to access cognitive platforms and cloud storage centers, where the real computing gets done.

According to the blog, about a third of today’s industry leaders believe that their own functions and positions will be disrupted during this drastic transformation. When all of the possibilities get considered, it’s sort of surprising that the number of executives and experts who wonder how the IoT will impact their own future is so small.

Let iTech Help Your Business Prepare for the IoT’s Disruption

Of course, we understand that the heart of the IoT will still be the people who live and work in new ways. That’s why your people need to talk to our people to find your own company’s path to success in this new age. At iTech, we’re optimistic about the future, and we hope to help you understand how your company can change for the better. Use our contact page to call or email us right away to discuss your IT strategy.

The post Enterprise Resource Planning Expects Disruption From the IoT first appeared on iTech.

How to Land Your Next Project Management Job

This information suggests that it’s a good time for technical professionals to hone their project management skills and seek these positions. Certainly, the easiest way to get considered for your next project management job is to already have demonstrated success when managing technology projects. Experienced project managers certainly have an advantage when they compete with a pool of applicants.

However, even if you’re currently working on the coding or analysis side of software development, you might have more project management experience than you think. Most team members need to keep track of task lists, interact with project managers, and familiarize themselves somewhat with their own team’s project management tools. If you’d like a hiring manager to consider you for project management jobs now or in the future, it’s a good idea to highlight this experience on your resume or application.

In addition, you can demonstrate your interest in and aptitude for project management in the following ways:

• Read about project management topics.
• Attend seminars on the subject of project management.
• Seek out mentors who can help you develop skills and assign management tasks.

At iTech, We Offer Project Management Careers, Not Just Jobs

We’re not just another IT staffing company; we’re an employee-centered organization with a very good record of retaining and developing our people. Of course, we need to hire and groom project managers to meet our client’s demands, but that’s good news for you if you want to take a step forward in your career. Visit our website to learn more and find your next project management job.

The post How to Get That Next Project Management Job first appeared on iTech.