Demand is continually outstripping supply in the tech sector.
A study by Manpower Group on closing the skills gap found that 54% of international businesses reported skills shortages; a number which has doubled in the last decade.
As a payment tech employer, you have probably noticed the speed with which the sector is moving, and the disconnect that there isn’t enough talent to fill new roles.
The tech sector is experiencing talent shortages, and after the events of last year, cybersecurity is particularly feeling the strain.
Cybersecurity experts are the sixth most in-demand demographic in the global skills shortage, so, understandably, attracting top-quality candidates to your organisation will be high on your list of priorities.
Today we look at some practical ways you can start updating your employer brand to attract top cybersecurity and payment tech talent.
The Covid Challenge
There’s no escaping the fact that Covid has changed large parts of our world forever. Employers are finding that shifts are happening in their teams and organisations as individuals and businesses evaluate where they are and where they want to be.
For businesses, this means altering strategies and growth plans, perhaps restructuring or taking on new employees in new roles.
For employees, this means thinking carefully about the future of their career.
Any employee or potential candidate will have certain things in mind when thinking about their role within their current or a prospective new organisation. Questions such as:
- “what does my career path with this company look like?”
- “am I going to be developed in this role?”
- “do my values align with this business – how did they treat employees and customers during the Covid crisis?”
A good example of how Covid has shifted the goalposts to employer branding was revealed in a Lewis Cotter report. The study ranks the public perception of brands concerning how they handled the coronavirus outbreak. Companies receive a score of ‘good’, ‘mixed’ or ‘poor’ based on their handling of the crisis.
Businesses with a poor public perception not only struggle to win customers, but they will also fail to attract employees too.
Next, let’s look at how you can improve your branding to build your business confidence and attract high-quality employees.
Attracting the Payment Technology Talent You Want
A recent Mckinsey study of over 600,000 participants found that high performers are 400 per cent more productive than the ‘average’ person in the team.
When it comes to highly complex occupations such as managers and software developers, this number jumps to an astounding 800 per cent.
So you can see that attracting these candidates is a must for payment tech businesses.
The key areas to focus on when it comes to attracting talent include:
- Understanding and being able to spot high performers versus low performers
- Retain your high performers
- Develop your employees with effective training programmes
- Remove low performers
- And to recruit high performers
How many of these are you currently aware of and working on in your people strategy?
Once you are focused on the type of employer you want to be, and the type of people you want to attract, the next stage is to get them interested in your brand.
Ways to Enhance Your Employer Brand
The battle to be the best brand in your sector and geographical location isn’t easy. The first step to enhancing your employer brand is to stop doing things which are damaging to it.
This includes scoping your competitors and what they are doing to promote themselves as an employer and then see how you compare. It is a good idea to complete an audit if possible to see how your brand comes across to potential candidates and current employees. You could create and send an anonymous survey to current employees and past candidates to see what people think of your brand.
The next thing to focus on is letting the world (and your potential candidates) know why you should be the employer they want to develop their careers.
If a potential candidate wanted to research your company, would they find the following:
- What do you offer in terms of career progression?
- Are you pushing boundaries with your technology, your strategies and your people?
- Do you offer competitive employee benefits?
Social media is key in your branding strategy – the businesses with an ‘always-on’ internet profile garner the most attention and thus, increase awareness of your brand to attract applicants. Make sure your HR and marketing department are working together, and that they are equipped with top creatives who are continually promoting your payment tech company as a ground-breaking, innovative and exciting place to work.
A Talent-Attracting Recruitment Strategy
Talent attraction needs to be part of your recruitment strategy. It is possible for you to attract the highest-quality candidates to your roles this year. Working with a dedicated finance and payment technology recruiter is one way to achieve this.
We work with payment tech companies in the UAE to attract global talent to your vacancy. To find out more about how we can help you find the talent you need this year as the competition for talent gets tougher, get in touch with us today. Call us on +971 (0)4 564 6255 or contact our team here to find out how we can revolutionise your talent attraction strategy.
Thanks,
Mark
About Flow
The Middle East is a dynamic and growing market where identifying top talent and world-class professionals for the financial services and technology industry is highly competitive.
Flow provides an executive search service led by industry experts, geared to any level of role within the Financial Services and Technology Industries. This service is driven by innovative, established and proven research teams who customise each requirement from our clients.
Importantly at Flow, we meet with all our candidates face to face to gain an understanding of their requirements, ensuring we guide them in finding their ideal role.
To find out more get in contact with one of our team today.