By Jade Bennett COVID-19 has accelerated a change in pace for recruitment and we need to ensure that our current remote hiring strategies are up to the challenge. The future of work has irrevocably changed and we will see an increase in companies adopting a remote-first approach. As such, we on the front line of talent acquisition, people ops and HR need to be ready. To start, we must applying Design Thinking principles, creating a hiring process that considers the people we’re creating it for. To do this, here are the key areas that I recommend you consider and focus on. Strengthen your EVP (Employer Value Proposition) The misnomer that we’re now in a candidate-rich market, and will have our pick of top candidates, simply isn’t accurate in Product and Tech. More than ever, companies should focus on showcasing the company’s culture and benefits to potential candidates if we want to secure the ‘A-players’. We also need to facilitate a recruitment process that allows potential employees to feel at ease during a virtual hiring process. Ask yourself: does your online process ensure candidates can feel comfortable accepting an employment offer? Have they been provided with all of the relevant job, organisation and on-boarding information to make that decision? Consider including video in your candidate attraction and hiring process. Video is
How Airwallex Maximises Team Performance During COVID-19
With a large proportion of the workforce being thrust into remote working so abruptly, we’ve been exploring how teams are set up for success, specifically in Product Management. Who better to discuss distributed teams with than Rylan Dawes, VP of FX Product at Airwallex. Airwallex was named by KPMG as Australia’s highest ranked Fintech in the 2019 Fintech100 report, and their products are taking the world by storm. They seem to have read the play early when they launched their borderless cards product earlier this year, just before our borders literally closed. Embracing remote working during COVID-19 Middleton Executive Director, Jade Bennett, spoke with Rylan about how this high-growth fintech unicorn is supporting their remote teams during this challenging pandemic. Here’s what Rylan had to say about Airwallex’s approach to embracing remote working and how they’re supporting their teams with this transition. Jade: What has been Airwallex’s stance on working from home? Rylan: At Airwallex, flexible working arrangements have always been extended to our employees depending on their circumstance or need. Whether someone needs to tend to a sick child, oversee house maintenance or needs a different environment to focus on deep work, the option to work from home for the day is available to them. However, having a few team members occasionally work from home isn’t quite the same
Are Your Position Descriptions Biased?
By Jade Bennett. Diversity in Tech is a widely discussed topic, and has been for some time now with businesses becoming acutely aware of the many benefits that come from having a diverse and inclusive workplace. As tech recruitment specialists it’s exciting to witness first hand, the growth in companies committed to diversity. At Middleton Executive we’re seeing more businesses develop both enterprise-wide and grassroots initiatives in an effort to attract more women to the workplace. Mind your language This progress is encouraging. But we’re still seeing the use of interesting language in position descriptions, job advertisements and interview questions. Language that inevitably and unintentionally results in women opting out of the process. Language that hinders their opportunity to be considered favourably or fairly. For the most part, this is unconscious bias. It’s the language people have been accustomed to using and how roles have been positioned within organisations historically. Descriptive language that gets used to make a business or a role sound cool and appealing, such as: ‘Do you want to work in a fast-paced, high powered start-up unicorn?’ ‘Are you an expert with all things Product/ AWS/ Node’ (you get the gist)?’ Or how about… ‘If you’d like to finish your day with a kick-ass game of table tennis and a cold beer, this is the role for
5 Ways To Get Your Tech Recruiter Working For You
By Jade Bennett Recruitment agencies tend to get a fair bit of bad press with ‘recruiter bashing’ rife on social media. Like most professions, be it legal, accounting, and even technology, there are great operators and, let’s just say, some not so good operators. But more often than not, recruiters are doing their utmost to connect jobseekers with great employment opportunities. For jobseekers in the tech space there’s a lot to be gained by carefully selecting a professional tech recruitment partner to represent you. “Why?”, I hear you ask. Because if you build a good relationship with a specialist tech Recruitment Consultant, they will become your greatest ally as you navigate your career throughout the years. I’d like to share a few tips on how jobseekers can partner with tech recruiters (in particular) to maximise their career opportunity, but first, I think it’s important to clarify some recruitment agent misconceptions upfront. Firstly, recruiters do not derive fees from jobseekers; they are paid by their clients, whom they have more than likely had long standing relationships with. Secondly, recruiters typically spend a significant amount of time mapping out the tech market landscape, locally and globally, to source the best people for their clients. When they contact you the jobseeker, take it as a compliment. They’ve identified something about you that’s made
The Life And Times Of A Product Entrepreneur
I recently attended a Product Anonymous networking event hosted by A Cloud Guru: The Life and Times of an Entrepreneur, featuring special guest speakers, Grant Hatamosa from Zen Ecosystems, Shannon Gilleland from Form-I-Baby and Carl Rigoni from SixSix. The event was geared toward coming together as a product management community and supporting each other through our individual journeys; whether it be as an entrepreneur, a product engineer or anyone with a slight interest in product management. Right up my alley! Kicking off with the presenters each sharing a lightbulb moment, we heard tales of how passion drove them each to become an entrepreneur, and what this means for them on a day to day basis. Whilst each story was unique, there were some common and complementary perspectives from these entrepreneurs so I thought I’d share with my product community some key takeaways… What makes a Product Manager ‘great’? Often referred to as the mini-CEO, this person wears many hats. They have a good grasp on all the skills and attributes that make up the role, and have the ability to deliver on those being all those things eg. support, engineer, designer, etc. They are rounded enough to be able to influence all the disciplines that go into the product from inception all the way through to the market launch and