Speed and Automation Crucial to Nearshore Software Engineering Staff Augmentation – Nearshore Americas

It can take up to 90 days to hire a software engineer with skills in the top 5% of the talent pool. Lengthy processes like this can cripple a project or even an organization, particularly in the current context. Recruiting the right staff and keeping them throughout a project lifecycle is crucial to the success of Nearshore deployments. The changing landscape accelerated by the pandemic means that software engineering staff augmentation vendors need to move at the speed of innovation to address increasingly diverse and expanding client needs.

Hector Cerezo, VP of Operations and Talent Acquisition at Framework Science, says that being able to respond quickly to clients staffing needs is vital to Nearshore success. The demand for software engineering talent is high right now and lengthy processes will create candidate pipelines that are going to drop. Theres too much competition.

Ensuring that the right talent, aligned with and anticipating client needs, is in place in the shortest amount of time is a competitive advantage. Automation to select, hire, onboard and measure performance is thus critical in the new normal and those that retain more conventional approaches are likely to struggle not only to attract but also to retain needed talent.

The average job is open for more than 60 days and this is then lengthened by the interview, hiring and onboarding processes. The math is simple: if you can cut this time down you have a competitive advantage on slower organizations competing for the same talent. Automating the hiring process grants companies speed in movement that they need to meet the exponential demands that the tech industry imposes.

We have been able to shorten the time to hire to 49 days. Hector Cerezo

Such an approach really disrupts the Nearshore outsourcing industry. These are direct employees we hire; not contractors like other platforms, Cerezo says. We have been able to shorten the time to hire to 49 days, Cerezo says.

When demand for talent is high, as in the current context, shaving off days from recruitment processes can make all the difference. Vendors need to consider how they can address issues that often slow or frustrate such processes.

Automation can improve candidate experience at key points in the process. For example, bottlenecks often occur around candidate feedback post-interview in traditional recruitment processes. Automating these feedback processes means candidates receive information on request without the need for additional labor. Similarly, account management can be automated to allow clients to see progress quickly and easily.

Cerezo adds that addressing the culture of the company from an engineering point of view rather than a traditional operating point of view ensures that talent is matched quickly and appropriately and that vendors can anticipate client needs. Looking at things from an engineering perspective means you are better able to understand the problems clients face and address them from a skills and experience point of view rather than an HR one.

This means constantly reviewing engineers learning of new technologies and new frameworks and developing performance improvement plans to help candidates expand their skill sets across languages.

A platform that provides complete transparency across those processes with feedback from vendor and client and allows clients to track progress is key. Such systems allow for candidate sharing to be automated so that the right stakeholders within a client organization have access to needed information.

Using data collected at all stages of the process can also make for better matching of candidates to client requirements. When clients log on to the platform they can start commenting on profiles of candidates before the recruitment process has even started and this data can be used to better align candidates with client needs beyond the traditional job specification, Cerezo explains.

Identifying potential bottlenecks and leveraging automation to smooth processes that may hamper recruitment and retention strategies will separate companies and vendors as they continue to compete for the right talent in an increasingly demanding environment.

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Speed and Automation Crucial to Nearshore Software Engineering Staff Augmentation - Nearshore Americas