According to her, the company must provide an opportunity for professional and personal growth
Recently, we have been talking to each other more and more often about the shortage of personnel. Now there are difficulties in finding a job seeker in the market, and we are talking about the fact that the recruitment period is stretched. We talked with Natalia Tanaeva, HR Director of the Etalon development company, about which professionals are in demand in development now, who has to be lured and maybe even outbid.
Natalia, tell us, which positions are the most difficult to close now? How many vacancies are open in the Etalon company in general?Natalia Tanaeva: It is most difficult to close traditionally senior positions due to the large number of requirements, vacancies in the IT field, and very highly specialized professions, for example in the field of pricing or product management. In general, about 200 vacancies are currently open in the Etalon group. This applies to the entire group of companies, that is, taking into account our general contractors, contractors, service businesses, completely different areas, and working specialties, among others. To a greater extent, this is due to the fact that the company is developing, entering new regions, forming teams in these regions, so, of course, we need specialists.Have there ever been cases when you had to outbid and pay an applicant a salary above the market? Can I have an example?Natalia Tanaeva: Well, of course, such cases sometimes happen, but this is more an exception than our practice, because we still focus on the figures that we put in the budget: we regularly analyze the labor market, purchase reviews that we use in our work, and still try to ensure that our requirements correspond to the level of salaries and incomes of candidates.Which searches are the most difficult to close now? Can you give me an example? What are these vacancies?Natalia Tanaeva: I would focus on vacancies in the IT field, of course, there is a serious shortage here. But, on the other hand, taking into account our regional expansion, engineering and technical positions are also very relevant. For example, highly specialized water supply and electrical engineers, that is, people who have both specialized education and relevant work experience. There is not always a sufficient choice of such specialists in the cities of our presence.Where do you usually consider applicants from? I have heard that employers are now willing to consider people from the regions, especially in the IT field. Can you confirm this?Natalia Tanaeva: You know, it seems to me that the time has already passed when IT specialists were cheaper in the regions. Now, taking into account the possibilities of remote, remote work, most candidates are guided by the salaries of St. Petersburg and Moscow. Therefore, the regions for us, yes, of course, provide an opportunity for wider coverage, but in no way saving on wages. And so, yes, for example, we have people working in Rostov. There is only one IT specialist working remotely. We always try to involve such specialists in our corporate life. If we have online holidays, there are no questions, but we also try to invite offline events to the cities of our presence, where we have an office. It is important for us that people feel involved in the company.Is there any record for the duration of job closures? In practice, I had such conversations with HR that a vacancy does not close for a year or even two, this happens. And it seems to me that there is a key answer here. If you find the source of the candidate correctly, then the vacancy is closed. What do you think about it?Natalia Tanaeva: Well, from the point of view of sources, we are probably going here, on the one hand, along the traditional path, of course, all employment sites. On the other hand, we actively use the personnel agenda on the social network: we tell you about the company, about our vacancies. And the most interesting thing, it seems to me, is still word of mouth. We have a huge number of employees who have a huge number of friends, acquaintances and relatives. And who, if not an employee of the company, can be the most important ambassador of his company. Therefore, we regularly send out newsletters on current vacancies among employees and ask them to recommend them if they have suitable candidates, and it works. It seems to me that 90% of vacancies are generally closed on recommendations, because colleagues recommend their colleagues, they know their strengths and weaknesses, they know what they are like at work, and you need to listen to the recommendations of those who used to work together, in my opinion. We strive for this, and indeed, if we talk about the quality of candidates and motivation, then, of course, they are much more motivated than those who just come there conditionally by advertisement.More aboutBlue-collar workers want to talk to you. They are considered to be the most in demand after IT personnel. And tell me, who is especially difficult to find now? Natalia Tanaeva: Yes, this is a really serious headache, probably for all developers. I suspect that not only developers. We are following the path of interaction with specialized secondary specialized educational institutions here. If a few years ago this was not such an urgent issue, now it is already hot. For example, in Omsk we signed an agreement with a specialized university. We take the guys to practice and hope that they will stay with us to work. We are talking about specialists “on the line”: craftsmen, foremen on the construction site.But which educational institutions do you cooperate with? Surely you are looking at the personnel of other universities, yes, maybe, or from some special educational institutions.Natalia Tanaeva: Olya, we have been cooperating since school, because… An important note. Because in universities, as a rule, children have already chosen their field of activity, profession, and chosen the future. The only question here is the choice of an employer. At school, students do not always even understand which way to move, where to go to study. And even the president in his speech recently said that it is important to pay attention to the career guidance of the younger generation. And we are already moving in this direction. We support the Children’s Council under the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation. There are guys from seven to 14 years old. Within the company, we recently announced the “Standard to Life” project. The first project in our module is for teenagers aged 14-16, for the children of employees first of all. We will conduct lectures, master classes, and practical classes on the following topics: architecture, urbanism, design, and BIM technologies. We want the guys of our employees to have a clearer idea of themselves in their future professional life.Natalia, let’s think about what positions you can prepare a personnel reserve in advance, grow personnel, and for which it is difficult and necessary to take people from the market. Can you give me an example?Natalia Tanaeva: We are trying to grow the talent pool in all our traditional areas of activity. Everything related to development, sales, and support units. Even when selecting, for example, we are ready to take a person who may not have the necessary qualifications to the end, send them to study so that they receive the necessary certificates, for example, if they are not enough. Within the company, we give you the opportunity for career growth. And this process is understandable when we understand exactly where we are going. But, for example, the Etalon group is now engaged in a new promising, interesting direction. This is the development of modular construction using LSTS. And, of course, there have never been such competencies in Etalon, so the specialists we attract are people from the market, and even there are very few such specialists on the market. Most often, these are specialists of sufficient age, with very narrowly focused work experience. There is an example. We just hired a technologist over the age of 60 some time ago. It seems to me that this is just a great addition to the group. His eyes are brighter than some of the younger ones.In many cases, when we talk about a shortage of personnel, of course, in my opinion, this is not quite a real shortage. It seems to be artificially created, because I notice that sometimes employers have an overabundance of requirements. Does it happen to you that during the search you realize that some requirements can be waived, simplify the description of positions and remove any unnecessary restrictions?Natalia Tanaeva: Of course, this is a huge headache for all recruiters, when any department head wants an ideal employee who knows everything and everything, has specialized education, narrowly focused experience, and breadth of thinking. Probably, there are such employees on the market, the question is the duration of the search. Therefore, when my employees come to me and say that we have a problem with closing a particular vacancy there, we always look at two things. To the salary level, to be sure that we are in the market. And the requirements that we place on a specialist. Because most often the root of a long search lies in this. We are having conversations with our department heads. We tell you that if he needs a specialist, then it means that he needs to learn on the spot, invest in a new employee. You can look for the perfect one, but it takes a very long time.Natalia, well, you feel that employers are becoming more flexible, that they take candidates of any age, yes, and earlier we said that there was some kind of ageism, some kind of discrimination. Is there flexibility now? Have you felt this through the example of your company?Natalia Tanaeva: Yes, of course, we felt it. I cannot say that we were discriminated against before, but now we have stopped. Of course not, we have always been flexible enough with our applicants, we have always tried to adapt, including to the requirements of candidates, to find some compromises. I can say that we have, as an example, quite young people, even vice presidents, that we employ people in their early 30s in such high-status positions. And at the same time, when searching for candidates, the age factor is now almost fading into the background. We recently hired a 1C programmer specialist. He’s over 60 years old, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If people have a lot of professional experience, I think this is more of a plus for the company than a minus.Let’s reflect on what has fundamentally changed now. Recently, the selection has become more difficult. We say that the search has not been closed for longer. I know that there are a lot of chatbots based on artificial intelligence being introduced now. For example, LinkedIn helps job seekers to create resumes and write cover letters using a chatbot. How do you feel about this as an HR director? How do you look at job seekers who use artificial intelligence to prepare resumes? And do you implement artificial intelligence technologies in your company in the form of chatbots, for example?Natalia Tanaeva: To be honest, we are not using AI yet, because it seems to me that it can still have the greatest effect now with mass selection in networks, in chain stores, maybe in production. We have quite high requirements for specialists, and I don’t think that a chatbot can significantly save time or help you select better than a professional recruiter does.And what else has changed in terms of recruitment recently? What did you feel? Maybe people’s motivation is changing somehow, they want more flexibility or some kind of special treatment or some kind of privileges? What changes do you feel?Natalia Tanaeva: Of course, in market conditions it is obvious that the applicant is very demanding and very thoughtful when choosing a future job. And it often happens that an employee does not immediately accept our offer, but waits and looks at alternative options. Well, it’s a feature of time, probably. We are ready to flexibly approach the issue of the working day, because this is the most frequent request. Hybrid work schedule, remote work. We are ready to flexibly approach the start and end times of the working day. That is, we try, of course, to retain as much as possible those specialists who we are interested in attracting to our company.Let’s talk about the reason why you can refuse a candidate. Let’s imagine that there is some kind of scarce difficult position. You take a long time to select, for example, I don’t know, the selection has been going on for three months, there are no suitable candidates, and you refuse. There are probably some typical reasons why an applicant may be rejected. Let’s try to name them, these reasons. Natalia Tanaeva: Well, I think if you start with standard qualifications, work experience and education. Such formal requirements, as they say. If we talk about inappropriate reasons, then first of all we note the general negative attitude towards life in general, towards our previous employers and so on. It always repels and does not cause a desire to take such a person into the team. Plus, it happens that candidates lie. Unfortunately, this also happens. We also refuse such people. The main thing is motivation. The main thing is that a person really wants to work, because if there is no motivation or it is so small that it is difficult to feel it, there is no point in taking this person. It will be a story about a short-lived collaboration and separation.You mentioned the attitude towards previous employers. Is it possible to talk about some kind of toxicity here and that it has become very important? Maybe employers would prefer to hire a person somewhere less qualified, but at the same time friendly, who has no toxicity? Is there such an opinion?Natalia Tanaeva: I completely agree with this opinion. First of all, the team is important to us. If a person does not fit into the team, and toxic people rarely fit into the team, then this is not our person.
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