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Introduction: In the digital age, where job boards and applicant tracking systems dominate the recruitment landscape, the age-old art of networking still remains a formidable force. Networking is not merely a social activity; it’s a strategic approach that holds the potential to revolutionize your recruitment process. In this blog post, we’ll dive into the pivotal role networking plays in finding top talent and how it can elevate your recruitment efforts to new heights.

1. Building a Talent Pipeline: Networking isn’t just about making connections when you need them; it’s about nurturing relationships that can be tapped into when the time is right. By attending industry events, conferences, and workshops, recruiters can build a robust talent pipeline filled with professionals who might not be actively seeking new opportunities but are open to exploring them in the future. This proactive approach ensures a constant influx of potential candidates.

2. Access to Passive Candidates: Some of the most remarkable candidates aren’t actively job hunting; they’re known as passive candidates. These individuals might be content in their current roles, but if presented with the right opportunity, they could be enticed to make a move. Networking provides recruiters with the chance to identify and engage with passive candidates who may possess the skills and experience your organization needs.

3. Humanizing the Process: Recruitment is more than just matching qualifications; it’s about finding the right cultural fit and aligning values. Networking allows recruiters to interact with candidates in a more personal and informal setting. These interactions provide insights beyond a résumé, giving recruiters a glimpse into a candidate’s personality, work ethic, and potential contributions to the team.

4. Leveraging Referrals: Referrals are a goldmine in the recruitment process. When you’ve built a strong network, your connections can vouch for candidates they’ve worked with, providing valuable references that go beyond what’s written on paper. Referrals also tend to have a higher retention rate and a quicker onboarding process, thanks to the pre-established connections within the organization.

5. Innovative Sourcing Channels: Networking isn’t confined to in-person events; it extends to digital platforms as well. Social media platforms like LinkedIn offer recruiters the opportunity to connect with professionals worldwide, expanding their reach beyond geographic boundaries. Online communities, forums, and groups focused on specific industries also serve as rich sources of potential candidates.

6. Enhancing the Employer Brand: Networking isn’t just beneficial for candidates; it’s a chance to showcase your organization’s culture and values. When recruiters participate in events, contribute to discussions, and share valuable insights, they contribute to building a positive employer brand. Talented individuals are more likely to be drawn to organizations that are active and engaged within their industry.

7. Staying Ahead of Trends: Networking isn’t just about candidates; it’s also about staying informed about industry trends and best practices. Interacting with professionals from various backgrounds exposes recruiters to diverse perspectives and innovative ideas, helping them stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly changing job market.

Conclusion: In the digital age, where technology seems to dominate every facet of life, the power of personal connections still reigns supreme. Networking isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a strategic approach that allows recruiters to tap into a vast pool of talent, both active and passive. By building strong relationships, leveraging referrals, and showcasing your organization’s brand, networking can transform your recruitment process from ordinary to extraordinary. So, embrace the power of networking, and watch your recruitment efforts soar to new heights.

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IT staffing is the process of finding and hiring qualified IT professionals for your business needs. IT staffing can help you fill temporary or permanent positions, augment your existing IT team, or outsource your entire IT function.

IT staffing can benefit your business in many ways, such as:

• Saving time and money: IT staffing can reduce the cost and hassle of recruiting, screening, hiring, and training IT talent. You can access a large pool of pre-vetted IT candidates who are ready to work on your projects. You can also scale up or down your IT staff as needed, without worrying about payroll, benefits, or taxes.
• Improving quality and productivity: IT staffing can provide you with skilled and experienced IT professionals who can deliver high-quality work and meet your deadlines. You can also leverage their expertise and knowledge to improve your IT processes, systems, and solutions.

• Enhancing flexibility and innovation: IT staffing can allow you to adapt to changing market demands and customer expectations. You can access a variety of IT skills and specialties, such as web development, cloud computing, cybersecurity, data analytics, and more. You can also explore new technologies and opportunities with the help of IT experts.

If you are looking for a reliable and reputable IT staffing partner, look no further than Altamira Consulting Services. We have a large network of qualified and experienced IT professionals who can help you with any IT project or challenge. Whether you need one IT consultant or a whole IT team, we can match you with the best fit for your business.

Contact us today to find out how we can help you with your IT staffing needs. We offer a free consultation and a no-obligation quote. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

(905) 798-0841

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Staffing agencies are used by employers to locate applicants for job openings on their teams and to assist individuals in finding career possibilities in their field of interest.

These positions can be full-time or part-time, temporary, contract-to-hire, or on a direct-hire full-time basis.

Speed up your recruitment process

The hiring process is longer and more challenging now than it was in earlier decades due to the significant changes in the employment market over the last several years. It is quicker and simpler to work with a staffing firm.

A staffing agency acts as a middleman between employers and workers, checking references, screening resumes, shortlisting candidates, scheduling interviews, and placing candidates who work on-site at the employer’s behalf.

Specialized hiring

Most employers lack the resources necessary to maintain a talent pool. You can relate to the frustration of conducting interview after interview with candidates and still not being able to fill all the open positions. You are forced to choose between using a staffing agency or continuing the drawn-out process in the hopes that the ideal candidate would respond to your ad.

A competent staffing firm spends years establishing its talent network through networking, referrals, and regular conversations with prospects. Your chances of hiring the ideal people will increase as a result of the significantly larger candidate pool. Employers who use staffing agencies in their niche (Altamira Consulting Services is specialized in hiring Software Engineering talent) also have access to the recruiter’s insider knowledge of qualified passive and active applicants who are available, wage ranges, and regional market trends.

Reduce hiring cost

The idea that using a staffing agency is too expensive to be worthwhile is one of the most common and inaccurate misconceptions regarding the practice because even though you may believe you are saving money up front, hiring a staffing agency may end up costing your business less overall.

Using a staffing agency comes with, on average, a 15% to 25% annual salary fee that varies depending on the industry and other factors. On the other hand having an in-house HR team can increase a company’s hiring costs by more than 50% when you factor in those team members’ annual salaries, insurance and other benefits. The costs of actual hiring and recruitment are not even mentioned here. A staffing company can significantly lower those expenses. When your financial resources are low, this is even more helpful.

Impact on day to day operations

The hiring procedure typically requires a significant time investment and could have a detrimental effect on your daily operations. Reviewing resumes, contacting prospective candidates, holding successful interviews and finding the right hire will take time, money and resources.

Working with recruiters while you’re short on time will ensure that your productivity levels don’t drop, save your business time and money, and allow you to replace the vacant position while still generating income. Employers can concentrate on business expansion, take on more short-term projects without increasing long-term personnel, and have the flexibility to reduce staff and overhead when projects are completed by using staffing agencies to hire employees.

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Time is the most crucial factor when it comes to hiring. The longer it takes to find someone, the more it costs and the more frustrating the whole process becomes and it can lead to make bad hiring decisions.

So how can we speed things up without sacrificing the best candidates?
To answer that question, we decided to gather expert methods that will quicken the procedure while producing fantastic outcomes.

1. Write more accurate job descriptions.
   If you’re finding that most of the candidates applying to your job openings are not qualified enough, the issue might lie in your job description.
   
   When writing your job description, you should use one general template including an accurate job title and clear description of the tasks; being transparent about the responsibilities helps candidates to visualize a typical day at work.
   
   Also most importantly you have to sell your job. Candidates need compelling reasons to leave their current workplaces or choose your job over others. To attract more candidates, describe the perks of your company or the role and explain how this role contributes to the company’s growth. This makes candidates feel valued before the first interview or interaction.
   
   In addition you have to be more specific about the type of employment and location. To ensure that you are targeting the correct candidates let them know whether you are looking for someone to fill a full-time or a part-time position and whether it is a remote position or relocating is needed.
2. Make use of technology.
   In an effort to create equitable and effective hiring procedures that result in diverse and highly qualified workforces, we should embrace technology. This doesn’t mean hiring managers or recruiters are no longer needed; rather, it just means that they have access to more intelligent tools.
   
   Using AI solutions helps organizations find the best, most qualified candidates by focusing on comparing skill sets, job history, experience level, education, and certifications, narrowing down the pool of applicants quickly, efficiently and without undue bias. With an approach that automates the hiring process, candidates can apply for a job, have their qualifications checked, schedule interviews, and get an offer in a matter of hours instead of weeks. This is especially beneficial for organizations whose employment requirements can change quickly. In short, touchless recruiting allows for a fast yet thorough hiring process that better supports both candidates and employers.
3. Try pre-screening.
   Pre-Screening interviews weed out unqualified candidates and advances those who might be a good fit for the job to the top of the list. For example employers can ask the candidates to fill a questionnaire that consists of their salary expectations, when they will be able to start the new role, personality related questions, and a task to test their experience and qualifications. This gives employers a chance to learn an overview of the candidate’s work experience and qualifications. It also gives employers an insight into the candidate’s personality.
4. Maintain a talent pool for future vacancies.
   A strong talent pool enables you to rapidly fill a position and minimize the effect on departmental production. According to research, talent pools have shortened the time to employ in 50% of organizations. This can include the current in-house employees and candidates who have previously expressed their interest of joining your organization. You will save valuable time as the screening and prequalifying of most of these candidates have already been done.
5. Consider hiring a recruitment/staffing specialist.
   A staffing agency serves as a liaison between employers and employees, helping to connect eligible candidates with organizations that have open positions.
   
   It takes a lot of time to review hundreds of resumes, qualifying candidates, performing background checks, etc. Staffing agencies have a broad network of candidates and connections. Staffing services have a pipeline of qualified candidates. And, they have a further reach into the community of passive candidates. The hiring manager or business owner will interview the staffing agency’s choices before making a final hiring decision. This saves your organization a considerable amount of hours that you would otherwise spend sorting through countless applicants.

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Full disclosure – My view on this topic is somewhat colored by the fact that I think people work well when they are together in the same geographical location. However most teams don’t seem to have the luxury of having their members working at the same office due to various reasons.

This blog focusses on the software engineering teams that are engaged in building great enterprise applications. As for other types of teams, It is hard to get a general sense how remote work affects businesses as it seem to generate a mixed reaction.

Some high performing teams have all their members working remotely. How do they do it?

• Jelled teams that already have established relationships among members seem to have an easier time transiting into working remotely. Mature teams are comfortable in improvising and adapting various techniques to ensure maximum participation and accountability by team members. For example
  • Schedule multiple standup meetings instead of just one per day.
  • Establish a rule to always have the video camera on during team meetings, it always helps when yo can read the body language of the participants.
  • Maintain constant communication via tools such as Slak.
  • Adjust communication plans according to the situation, planning and design phase of the projects will require more participation from team members, sometimes all day meetings are necessary, meddle period is when less meetings and more project work happens.

• Organizations that have experienced leadership teams are able to adapt to remote working environments easily, Servant leaders that are empathetic, seem to succeed in making remote teams jell. They still manage to create a team environment that closely resembles the team that is working in a physical office space. Also it is important to understand there is always going to be periods of downtime, for example it is typically not a problem if someone takes an extended lunch break at work, so they should be able to do the same when they work remotely as well.

Challenges of working remotely

Apart from the typical issues such as security, accountability, technical problems, reliance on the internet service provider of choice etc. individual contribution to an organization has become a gray area with remote working arrangements. No business can thrive on an environment where people contribute just enough to earn a pay check. Hopefully this is not the case with your business.

Building a new team of people comprised entirely of members from geographically dispersed locations is always going to be a challenge. For example remote teams, where members work in an office in Argentina can be managed from New York city without too much trouble, it gets tricky if the individual members work from different locations.

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Why do we need to modernize applications?

The idea of converting your legacy applications to a newer technology stack may be enticing, but first we need to take a closer look at the reasons for modernizing and ensure that any modernization project makes business sense. Here are some questions that will help You decide if modernization is a good idea for your application.

Is the current technology stack used by your application becoming an impediment when it comes to implementing business objectives?

• If the business requires new features, the application should be able to accommodate those in a reasonable amount of time.
• Modifications to the existing codebase should be relatively easy.
• The development team should not be in a constant firefighting mode, fixing bugs.
• Depending on the use case, the application must be nimble at all times in order for the business to be able to compete.

Are critical elements of the technology stack for your application going out of support?

• Consider all the dependencies including OS version, DB version etc. so that you can make an informed decision when determining if it is important to modernize.

Are there potential security vulnerabilities in the application that will be difficult to resolve?

• Is your application using outdated opensource frameworks that have known security issues?
• Too many security holes in the code

Are you facing staffing issues due to aging technology?

• Is it difficult to hire and retain talented resources because your technology stack is outdated?
• Is there constant negative feedback from the development team as well as the support staff?

  Other considerations

• Economy – How much is the modernization project going to cost ? Can the business afford to commit the resources to the project ?
• Alternative – This happens very rarely in enterprise applications but it is always worth to look around and see if there is an off the shelf or SASS type application that fits your needs.
• Certainty – What is the level of certainty that your modernization strategy will be successful?
• Latest Frameworks – How can you avoid constantly playing catch up trying to upgrade to latest frameworks?

Sometimes there may not be a choice when it comes to modernization, for example in the case of a merger or acquisition the business may decide to go with the latest technology.

Once you have made the decision to modernize and have the buy in from all the important stakeholders, Next step is to come up with a solid strategy and roadmap to produce the new and improved version of the application.

The least invasive strategy for modernization is to create all new features in the target technology and integrate into the application. Then you can rewrite the smaller sections of the application. The problem with this approach is that it may not be suited to your application.

Alternatively you can modernize the whole application in one shot, depending on the size of the application this will require the business to commit considerable resources, additionally business may be required to enforce a moratorium on any changes to the current application to prevent duplication of work.

What ever the strategy you choose it should align with the business objective in order to be successful.