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How Smarter Interviews Will Win NZ's Best Engineering Talent

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:01:27 GMT

How Smarter Interviews Will Win NZ's Best Engineering Talent

Data demonstrates that Engineering job ads in New Zealand remained at very weak levels in early 2025, having fallen steeply over the course of 2024. New job ads in mid 2025 were still 20–30% lower than a year earlier, resulting in intense candidate competition and record applications per vacancy. But from mid‑2025 we began to see stabilisation and recovery, with month‑on‑month increases in ads, all be it off of a historically low base.

With indicators now pointing to a sustainable job market recovery during 2026, it got me to thinking about what I'd seen working well in securing the best engineering talent, as opposed to missing out on a top hire.

What worked well in 2025 and what is imperative for employers in 2026

Talent Hive achieved an 86% offer acceptance rate from engineering candidates last year. A key factor in this acceptance rate was the quality of the hiring manager interview process. When reviewing the 14% of declined offers, there was a common denominator. The lack of a robust, well-structured, interview format had led candidates to question whether the business was truly the right environment for them to excel in.

A well designed and executed interview process can be a critical lever for employers in attracting and securing talent, especially as the market for top engineers heats up. Interviews are both a "shop window" for your organisations culture as well as a structured way to identify the best performers in the market. Both attributes will contribute to hiring success as skilled engineers become both scarcer and more selective.

The Interview as a Competitive Advantage

Candidates today, especially in the engineering disciplines, cite organisational culture and career development opportunity amongst their top reasons for choosing a new employer. The interview experience is a core way that they judge both. The structure, tone, and attention to detail during interviews doesn't just assess candidates, it showcases your team's professionalism, values, and growth opportunities. A poorly run or inconsistent interview can cause top candidates to walk away with doubts, while a strong process can distinguish your business, attracting rare talent even in a competitive market.

How Great Interviews Uncover Top Performers

Over the summer break I read a great article from Lou Adler with his take on the "Universal Traits of Top Performers.” It’s clear that high achievers consistently exhibit traits like ownership, systems thinking, learning agility, influence, communication, and a growth mindset. The best interviews reveal these qualities through accomplishment based questions and persistent follow-ups that go beyond technical skills.

Ask candidates to describe their most significant work accomplishments, then drill down: probe the challenges, their approach, people influenced, impact achieved, and what they learned.
Target specific universal traits with direct questions: for example, “Tell us about a time you took on responsibility outside your formal role,” or, “Describe the biggest failure in your career and how you responded.”
Top performers have patterns of excellence, multiple real examples while average candidates struggle with specifics. Use these insights to distinguish those who will add the most value to your teams.

Optimising the Interview Process in 202

Structure, Consistency, and Feedback: Standardise your interviews with clear frameworks and rubrics, which not only reduce bias but enable consistent comparison between candidates (we have helped numerous clients this year in optimising their interviews, so do reach out if you wanted to have a chat with me around this). Provide prompt, targeted feedback to all candidates, this is a major driver of positive employer brand, especially noted on online forums and feedback we regularly get.
Culture as a Focus: Ensure every interviewer can clearly articulate your organisation's purpose, ethos, and career development path. Authentic conversations about culture, opportunity, and values are what candidates remember.
Continuous Improvement: Regularly review and update your interview process based on candidate feedback and outcomes to ensure you’re continuously evolving with talent market expectations.

What Are Leading Employers Doing Differently

Firms that get it right treat interviews as both a critical evaluation and a marketing opportunity. They:

Showcase their best people in interviews, those who best communicate company values and growth stories.
Invest in interviewer training to reduce unconscious bias and ensure a positive, professional tone.
Align every step from scheduling and communication to the questions asked with the your unique employer brand.
Gather structured, actionable data from every interview to guide ongoing improvements and make strategic hires.

A great interview process does much more than fill roles, it amplifies your employer brand, signals to the market that you value high performers, and ensures you are always ahead as competition for skilled staff intensifies. This is going to be the key to success as the talent market intensifies.

Just finally, please get in touch if you have any resourcing needs in the coming year, I’d be happy to catch up to discuss your plans and forecasted requirements for 2026!

All the best for 2026
Matt Love-Smith

See my Bio Here

Engineering Talent Insights - July 2025

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 00:08:29 GMT

Back to the Future - As New Zealand business confidence ticks up more companies are signaling the move back to 'future focused' hiring. How should leaders balance this with retaining the talented engineers they already have?

Of the approximately 46,700 New Zealanders who emigrated to Australia in the year ending March 2025, it is estimated that between 2,300 and 4,700 were engineers, (based on industry trends and migration patterns). The ongoing engineering skills shortage in Aotearoa is exacerbated by this outflow and the true pain will be felt as infrastructure and economic growth really gets going again.

Retaining skilled engineers is a crucial strategy in today’s competitive talent market, especially as many of our 25-39 year old professionals are drawn overseas by the allure of higher salaries and accelerated career progression. Below, I've listed some key insights gleaned from the latest EngineeringNZ Remuneration Survey together with a few highlighted opportunities and suggestions that could be leveraged to keep engineering staff engaged, committed and contributing to the growth and development of New Zealand .

Market Competitive Compensation & Benefits: Salary remains the number one consideration for engineers, especially when evaluating job offers (followed by work-life balance and satisfying work).

Regularly review remuneration level & models, benchmarking internally and externally. Additional leave can help offset salary disparities.
Consider enhancing the scope of employment packages -

- 89% of employers have kept their kiwisaver employer contributions at the same level since 2023

- 62% of employees do not receive any additional compensation for working beyond their contracted hours

- Only 29% of engineers feel their professional development is recognised by their employer, yet recognition through career progression, new opportunities, and remuneration is highly valued.

Support Professional & Career Development: 87% of engineers say their employer encourages participation in continuing professional development, and 82% have their professional programmes paid for.

Develop well documented career pathways, reviewing and sharing them frequently. Invest in training, conferences and development opportunities .
Provide clear pathways for advancement, mentorship, and ongoing training.
Opportunities for learning and professional growth are strong motivators for engineers considering overseas roles.
Involve engineers in a variety of projects, including those with significant impact or technical complexity, to keep them engaged and growing professionally.

Promote Flexibility and Work-Life Balance: 81% of engineers value flexible hours and work/life balance (68%) and workload (55%) are still considered the top two factors impacting employee wellbeing. 37% of employees selected both of these factors in their top three.

Offering Flexible start and finish times, Remote working – (including working from home) and Flexible or part-time are by far the most valued options
Support Wellbeing: Prioritize mental health and wellbeing initiatives to foster loyalty and reduce burnout.

As our economy reveals increasing confidence I am beginning to witness more clients signalling the move back to 'future focused hiring'. No doubt the demand for highly skilled engineers will yet again return to be the CEO’s #1 barrier to growth.

In terms of attracting new talent.

Check the profiles of our latest highly talented Engineers

Technical Engineering Leader

Project Engineer - Machinery /Production Automation

Mechanical Engineers

Reliability Engineering Leader

Project Manager/Mechanical Engineer

Mechatronics Engineer

Contact Me for advice or to answer any talent attraction/acquisition questions you may have.

Consider the following -

Strengthen the Domestic Talent Pipeline

Support STEM Education: Invest in initiatives that encourage more students to pursue engineering and related STEM fields, addressing the long-term skills gap.
Develop grass route Graduates: Offer internships, graduate programs, and early-career support to keep young engineers engaged and committed to the local industry

Balance this with

Engagement with Global Talent

Actively market roles internationally and participate in cross-market talent acquisition, especially with Australia, to tap into a broader pool of skilled professionals.

Streamline Immigration and Recruitment Processes

Responsive Immigration Policies: Recent changes in 2025 have made it easier to hire overseas engineers by removing wage thresholds and reducing experience requirements, improving processing times, and relaxing some compliance burdens.
Support for Migrant Engineers: Help new arrivals integrate by recognizing international qualifications, providing local upskilling, and connecting them with professional networks.

Matt Love-Smith

Director Engineering Recruitment

Temp & Contract Recent Trends

Wed, 01 May 2024 23:03:50 GMT

The economic conditions are influencing the contract employment landscape in several ways. Here are some of the trends Talent Hive has seen recently.

Demand Shifts

NZ firms facing economic headwinds are hesitant to commit to FTE hires but with projects and deadlines still to deliver on, there is likely to be more reliance on temporary and contract solutions to manage workloads in the coming months.

Available Talent

Although not widespread, layoffs and restructures in the Tech sector could lead to a larger pool of candidates available for temporary and contract work, and Talent Hive has seen an increase in enquiries from people looking to understand how they might set themselves up for contract engagements. This has the potential to increase competition but could also provide businesses with access to qualified talent on a flexible basis.

Tech Sector Specifics

We are seeing an increase in demand for contract staff recently, particularly Software Developers, Integration and Solution Architects, and Business Analysts. This upswing in demand is reflected in the recent Seek job listings data. There are 207 Contract IT/Tech roles advertised on Seek today and 23% of those contract roles have been listed in the last 7 days. 52 of the 207 contract roles advertised are for Software Eng/Developers with 30 listed ads for Contract BA’s.

Wage Control

In Stats NZ’s latest update, New Zealand's salary rates actually increased by 4.1 percent in the year to March. That labour cost growth slightly outstripped inflation, which was sitting at 4 percent. Contract hourly rates in the Technology sector have stabilised in recent months as hiring demand has decreased and we may even see hourly rates come back a little, particularly for role types where there is an oversupply of contract talent.

Hybrid Work Trend

One trend we are certainly seeing in the contract market are fewer remote work opportunities. Increasingly there is a requirement for contractors to have the ability to work some of the week at a designated office and this is restricting the opportunities contractors are able to go for. Full remote work options aren’t completely gone but they are significantly reduced. Contract candidates must be open to in-office work for at least some portion of their engagement.

Overall, the current climate creates a complex landscape for both businesses seeking talent and professionals exploring temporary and contract opportunities. Success for Contractors will depend on adaptability, flexibility around rates, and contract length.

Talent Hive's Value

Talent Hive's understanding of the current market dynamics, along with our strong network of skilled professionals, positions us uniquely to support both clients and candidates

Addressing Uncertainty: For businesses navigating hiring uncertainty, Talent Hive offers flexible staffing solutions. We have access to contract talent that are ready to fill immediate skill gaps and help organisations manage fluctuating workloads.

Beyond Just Tech Skills: We understand that finding the right technical expertise is only half the battle. Talent Hive's strong connections within the contractor talent pool allow us to identify professionals who are not only technically capable but also a strong cultural and organisational fit for our clients. This approach ensures smoother onboarding and a positive impact for both the contractor and the employer.

We would like to share some of the contractors we’re working with at the moment. Click below to view some of the great IT talent we're working with to find roles at the moment.

We won at the SEEK awards!

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 02:58:26 GMT

We're extremely proud to say that we won at the SEEK awards: Small Recruitment Agency of the Year!

IT Recruitment Director, Marc (middle) and Engineering Recruitment Director, Matt (right)

A proud moment

We're surrounded by many incredible small agencies in our industry, so winning this award means a lot to us and our team, who we couldn't have done this without.We'd also like to thank our excellent candidates and valued strategic clients for partnering with us. And finally, thanks to SEEK for hosting these awards and an evening full of celebrations.

A few words from our Engineering Director, Matt...

"Yes, I was truly stoked that Talent Hive was judged to be the most worthy recipient of this award, Small Agency of the Year 2023. We were one of the few (if not only) South Island based business in the room last Thursday evening, as I was often reminded on the night by some of our industry peers.

On reflection, this is what I was most proud of in our SARA submission:

- The examples of the relationships that we have forged with our clients over the past few years.

- The partnership trust afforded to us by some very smart, growing, New Zealand companies that are all on a mission to make a positive difference in the world. Well, that is something that I am both proud of and value highly.

- Partnering on sustainable talent engagement strategy, that envelopes the stories of what these companies achieve, how and most importantly ....why they do what they do. Then engaging the best engineers, who are considering how to take the next step in their careers, and advising to ensure that it's the 'right step' is another highly rewarding part of our success.

But the work that I have personally been most excited by this year has been the opportunity to improve the percentage of female graduate engineers that we supported into the local engineering industry. In combination with our new partnership with Women in Engineering Christchurch , the opportunity to play just a small part in addressing the gender imbalance in the New Zealand engineering community has been both very humbling and warmly rewarding.

2023 has been a great success story for Talent Hive that's been just over nine years in the making. A massive thank you to everyone that's played their part in our journey so far, I am immeasurably grateful to you."

What do our candidates want in 2023?

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 01:54:17 GMT

IT and Engineering Recruitment Specialists, Matt Love-Smith and Marc Denholm discuss the changes they're seeing in recruitment. With forty years experience between them, they take a look back at the industry and discuss what candidates are looking for in 2023.

IT Recruitment Director, Marc (left) and Engineering Recruitment Director (right)

From then to now…

With the recruitment process constantly evolving, Matt and Marc reflect on the changes that the recruitment industry has undergone. Matt (Engineering Recruitment) explains that back then, recruiters spent their time advertising for roles—to then wait for responses before reviewing the candidates. The 2023 recruiting process for highly-skilled professions looks much different. The recruiter searches for the ideal candidate, using LinkedIn, and job sites such as Seek. The idea of "headhunting" executives now applied to more people and more professions, Love-Smith said. "We tend to take a sniper approach more than a shotgun approach."

What do candidates want in 2023?

Clear business goals to create a pathway for change

Discussing changes within the IT industry, Marc says that IT recruitment clients are now focussing a lot more time on telling the business story—"Employers are getting much better at presenting their mission, communicating their plans, and explaining how employees can contribute to achieving the company goals." This correlates with common questions that we're getting asked from IT candidates too. The most common question that candidates ask about the clients is : What is the product or service the company has, and how is it benefitting people/communities? Matt agrees that this is also an increasingly asked question for engineering candidates too—with them wanting to know how this job will assist them in making an impact on the community, or planet.

Innovation and challenging work

Marc explains that for IT candidates, they want to ensure that they're being equipped with challenging work that gives them the opportunity to be innovative. Questions such as: What technology stack does your client work with and why? are common, he explains.

Career progression

These candidates within IT recruitment understand the value they can offer, so career progression is naturally important to them too, with the majority of candidates focussing on what experience they can gain with one employer in the short-medium term. "Many IT candidates are looking at the next 2-3 year cycle and not much further than that, in the majority of cases (but not all)." explains Marc.

A positive work environment

"We're finding that remote working is less and less important" says Marc. He explains that questions about office culture, management style and success measurement are increasingly asked.

How to: Get your next engineering job & impress the interviewer

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 28 Aug 2023 04:01:17 GMT

We asked Talent Hive Director, Matt Love-Smith for his top 4 engineering interview tips, to impress your interviewer...

�� Pull together a portfolio of your work

Whether it's design or project delivery focused. Highlight the role you played and use lots of imagery. Bring it to the interview. It's a great way to keep your conversation on point and differentiate yourself.

�� Understand your engineering 'why'

Get really clear on what's motivating you to look at change. Is it about surrounding yourself and learning from engineering experts? Exposure to more interesting/challenging engineering projects? Or maybe the industry focus? Applying your engineering skills to make a positive change to the world!

�� Don't forget to have some solid examples of your 'soft skills' in action

Being able to talk to 'real work situations' where you've shown your ability to collaborate, influence, problem solve and lead people and projects. This can be more important than flexing your technical prowess!

�� Ask meaningful questions

Ones that are aligned to your motivations are always good. Just ensure the answers aren't already in the public domain, i.e on the company's website. Remember, you're looking to gain some real insights!

Celebrating Success: Talent Hive's Engineering Recruiter, Matt Love-Smith, Wins in Sourcr's 2023 Awards

sophie.stephens@enterprise.co.nz (Sophie Stephens) — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:11:10 GMT

For the second year, Director in Engineering Recruitment, Matt Love-Smith has won Sourcr's Best Recruiter in Engineering. What an achievement!

Matt Love-Smith's win in the 2023 Sourcr awards marks a well-deserved moment of triumph for him and the Talent Hive team. Sourcr, a leading platform for recruiting professionals, takes a unique approach in selecting winners. The winners are chosen based on verified client and candidate feedback, combined with review and quality data – without any involvement from judges. This objective process underscores the value that Matt brings to the table as an Engineering Recruiter.

Matt explains that this is a great moment for not just himself but the team:

"receiving client and candidate feedback relies on the team as whole representing the business with unwavering enthusiasm and expertise. This award is a testament to their hard work, and I am truly grateful to have such an exceptional team by my side."

The celebration of Matt's achievement was shared with the team at Talent Hive, who gifted him a lovely cake.

Meet Talent Hive co-founder: Marc

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 22:53:46 GMT

How was the Talent Hive born? We sat down with Talent Hive co-founder, Marc Denholm to find this out, and get to know a little bit about him...

What was the motivation for starting Talent Hive?

Marc: I was working for a global recruiter beforehand—there were lots of red tape that seemed to slow things down. Matt and I wanted an environment that was agile and focused on delivering outstanding service. I wanted to work with companies that we really believed in as well, rather than being directed by preferred supplier agreements and global contracts. So 9 years ago, we decided to start Talent Hive!

We now have the opportunity to get to be a part of many business journeys, which is extremely rewarding.

Tell us a fun fact about yourself...

Marc: As a child I was a mascot for an FA Cup game in 1991 between Liverpool and Everton. My dads company sponsored the match ball (half time oranges). After the game I got to meet the man of the match in the players lounge. My favourite player was John Barnes (he got MOM). I was catatonic at the prospect of meeting my hero. John Barnes did not come up to the players lounge that day. Instead they sent the mulleted substitute, Barry Venison in place of Barnes. I have never fully recovered from this disappointment. In Venison's defence, his hair smelt marvellous. A mixture of peach and lime. If I close my eyes, I can still smell that mullet...

What do enjoy doing in your spare time?

Marc: I'm a sports tragic. I'd watch weasel wrestling if there was a competitive edge to it. Actually... I think I have watched weasel wrestling). My weekends usually revolve around waking up at some unholy hour of the night to watch football. I'm a Liverpool FC fanatic and every time I go home to the UK, I time the trip to make sure I can make the pilgrimage to Anfield. When I'm not watching football, it's boxing, MMA, cricket, rugby, golf, tennis, F1, whatever is going down! It's infuriating to my fiancé Anna and my children. In fact, I'm generally just an infuriating human. Don't seek clarity from anyone on this, they will attest.

What’s your favourite thing about what you do at Talent Hive?

Marc: There are two stand out things that I enjoy most of all. One is getting to know our client organisations, learning about their products and services and really working out what makes them tick. The second thing is mentoring people that join Talent Hive, particularly when it's someone new to recruitment and helping them on the pathway to a new career. They're the things I enjoy most of all!

How would you describe the culture at Talent Hive in a short sentence?

Marc: We've worked hard to create a culture of collaboration, creativity and candidness. We're always open and honest with each other and that translates to our client and candidate relationships too.

Click here to connect with Marc on LinkedIn.

AI and the disappearance of jobs

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 02:53:00 GMT

Change is well underway with the impact of AI on employment, but what does the future hold?

Back in 2015 I wrote a blog, titled ' how safe is your job ', about the impact of automation and AI on employment. My article was based around a 2014 Pew survey which posed the question, will automation, artificial intelligence applications, and robotics displace more jobs than they create by 2025? At the time, there was a pretty even split in terms of the poll findings. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since I wrote that article in 2015 and some water has even passed over the top of bridges as well, so I thought I'd have a quick look at some more current stats and thoughts on the impact of AI on the employment market.

The Global Risks Report 2023 issued by the World Economic Forum indicated that AI and technology are expected to displace around 85 million jobs by the year 2025. In the last few weeks IBM put a freeze on 7,800 jobs that could be replaced by AI and automation and BT announced it would cut up to 55,000 jobs by 2030, with about 10,000 of those predicted to be replaced by AI. A recent post from Techjury highlighted a range of "stats" (predictions might be more accurate) about jobs being lost to automation including the suggestion that automation will displace 85 million jobs globally by 2025. It led me to wonder how many people were actually in employment globally, approximately 3.32 billion in 2022 apparently (that's a tough head count).

Change is well underway, that much is clear but it's the pace of change and the speed of advancements with AI that is most notable. I've no doubt some of the stats/predictions highlighted will come to pass, and they may happen in the next couple of years, but change isn't new and neither is the fear of change. The image I used for my original article was of a couple of plucky Luddites going postal on some 19th century machinery, so fear of progress and technology in the workplace has been going on since Ned Ludd smashed up a couple of stocking frames in 1779. It's natural to feel threatened by advancements in technology and their impact on the workplace and job security.

It's worth highlighting that in 1991 there were, approximately (according to the t'internet) 1.04 billion people in employment around the world. Since then, we've seen huge change in the world of work including the creation of the internet, mobile technology, social media, cloud computing, global pandemics, remote working and the end of the Sopranos. We've survived it and more than 2 billion additional jobs have been created since then.

So, yeah, a lot of jobs will disappear due to AI and while automation has resulted in job displacement, it has also led to the creation of new job opportunities and entire new industries. Our team dedicates time every week researching new and upcoming recruitment focused AI tools and platforms so that we can keep innovating and making the experience of working with Talent Hive a better one. If we can see what's coming in the future, we can navigate change better and do things more efficiently and rather than shy away from it, we'll embrace it.

Talking of 1991, when I was 12, I heard the expression 'if you can't beat them, join them', except at the time I heard it as 'if you can't beat them, lick them'. It took me two years to discover there was no licking necessary and I achieved an inner peace that I have rarely experienced since.

Unlocking the Potential of Regional Tech Talent in NZ

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 03:20:49 GMT

While the technology sector in New Zealand is thriving, there is a significant disparity between our regions and main urban centres in terms of tech sector employment. Read my insights below as I unpack whether the data suggests untapped potential in our backyard that could help tackle skills shortages in the technology industry.

Looking at the list of 2023 Hi-Tech Award Winning Companies it really stood out to me that our main centres dominate the technology landscape in New Zealand. While this was always going to be the case as cities by nature draw more technology firms than smaller regional centres, I still think it's somewhat interesting that every single company that won an award was either based in Christchurch or Auckland. Where this opens a potentially interesting discussion is that on the other hand, both individual award recipients, Fraser Paine (Hi-Tech Young Achiever) and Janine Grainger (Inspiring Individual) are from Waikato and Bay of Plenty respectively. This disparity between where our top companies are choosing to base themselves and where some of our top tech talent is coming from begs the question: is there untapped potential in the regions that doesn’t come through because the majority of employers stick to the cities?

Across the board we have a skills shortage in New Zealand, by now this isn’t news but has been front of mind again since Stats NZ data for 2022 showed that in the past 12 months, annual net migration loss to Australia was the largest in almost a decade . Despite the tech sector's growth, the fact remains that we cannot compete with salaries overseas, and our high cost of living makes more grads question the sense in choosing to stay. From an employer's perspective it’s understandable, interns/juniors require time and resources to train and it is hugely competitive between firms for top talent. Small and medium businesses in particular are putting a lot of time and investment into people earlier in their careers, often only for them to leave within the first 24 months. This has been discussed and some great initiatives are happening locally in Christchurch being driven by Canterbury Tech , however there is only so much an employer can do and the fact is, our skills shortage isn’t going away anytime soon.

Looking at what other options are available, employers might want to consider looking into the possibility of increasing hiring in regional areas. I’ve been looking into the numbers, and it seems there is likely potential which isn’t being fully realised yet. Last month, NZ Tech released the Tech Sector Key Metrics 2021. At the end of this document there is a key table; breakdown of tech sector employment in NZ by region. The numbers show that our three main centres - I’m going to refer to Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch as our “main centres”, as these are the only regions which house over 10% of our population - are seriously over-represented when it comes to tech sector employment. This is because outside of these three main centres, the percentage of total tech sector employment is less than the percentage of the population that region makes up, and there is not a single exception.

To show what I’m saying I’ll use Waikato to explain what this means. According to our most recent census 9.7% of New Zealand's population lives in Waikato, but the region only employs 6.2% of the technology sector workforce. The most extreme example of this is the Gisborne region, where the percentage of tech employment in the region is 80.2% less than the percentage of the population that lives there. On the other hand, over half of our tech sector roles are in Auckland, despite the city housing 33.4% of our population, meaning that Auckland is over represented by 55.4%. It is extremely rare when looking for trends like this in data that all results are consistent and there is not a single region to break this trend.

With those statistics in mind, it seems there is good reason for firms to consider whether hiring staff in the regions might be a good long term strategy, either by opening the doors more towards remote working or establishing teams/offices in regional centres. There are plenty of reasons that make our regions desirable places to live; housing affordability, outdoor pursuits, shorter commute/drive times and the rise of remote working. So it's more likely that there is a proportionally low number of tech roles in our regions due to companies being slower to look to the regions for tech talent, rather than there being less talent coming from the regions.

With all of this said, there are some fantastic companies regionally based across NZ which have all successfully built (or are building) teams in their respective regions, firms like Loaded (Queenstown), Timely (Dunedin) and LawVu + Robotics Plus (both Bay of Plenty/Tauranga) all come to mind. To truly tackle the long-term skills shortage in this sector, we need more companies like these in the regions to inspire young people growing up in these areas to envision a career in technology.

Talent Hive Named Agency of the Year at Sourcr Awards

courtney.collins@enterprise.co.nz (Courtney Collins) — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 00:32:20 GMT

Talent Hive is thrilled to have won 2 awards in the 2022 Sourcr Awards including overall Agency of the Year 2022 and Best Recruiter Engineering (NZ) 2022 for Matt Love-Smith .

The inaugural awards ceremony, which celebrates the best in the industry, was the culmination of 20,000+ independently verified client and candidate reviews placed on 4,000+ recruiters based across Australia and New Zealand We love receiving feedback from our happy clients and candidates through Sourcr. To be recognised as Agency of the Year signifies a delivery of unrivaled service, something the Talent Hive is proud to champion. Talent Hive Director Matt Love-Smith was recognised for his work in the Engineering recruitment sector and was awarded with Best Recruiter, Engineering (NZ).

"Talent Hive is so happy to be awarded overall Agency of The Year from Sourcr. Talent Hive is driven to provide a customised service of the highest level, to clients and candidates, and the feedback from those who chose to work with us has culminated in this award. We are very grateful. To be recognised as Engineering Recruiter of the year is personally the cherry on the icing on the cake!" said Talent Hive Director Matt Love-Smith.

HOW TO IDENTIFY A GOOD HEADHUNTER

Mon, 20 Sep 2021 05:41:34 GMT

Being contacted by a headhunter with an attractive offer is exciting if not a little flattering. The promise of a new opportunity for career growth is enough to turn even the most loyal of heads. But how can you identify a good headhunter from a bad one?

The headhunter’s agenda is to satisfy employers, yours is to find the perfect job. Those agendas frequently align – you just have to know how to recognize it when it happens.

Identifying a mutually beneficial scenario is all about asking the right questions, to wit:

‘How many positions have you filled for this employer?’ is straight to the point, and should return a quick response. If they have no history with the employer, they’re just fishing for CVs in order to find new contacts of their own. If they have a track record, they’ll be happy to talk about it.
‘What is your background?’ Again, don’t be afraid to ask such a direct question. The headhunter has contacted you out of the blue to suggest you consider changing jobs. They’re asking you to proffer personal data like your CV, and spend valuable time researching a position that may not even be in their power to give you. If someone tells you you qualify for a position you never sought, you have a right to ask why they qualify for the imposition.
‘Will you share my CV with other clients?’ Giving a headhunter permission to put you forward for a role does not entitle them to bandy your CV about with every other employer in the industry. That’s not in your interest. Instruct them to get written permission each and every time they want to share your CV with a client.

What Not to Do

Don’t simply send through your resume without understanding specifically the company and the role that the recruiter is hiring for. You should also find out what the process will be should you submit your resume, making it clear that you expect your application to be treated with the respect and care that it deserves.

Rejecting and Accepting

A reputable recruiter with a strong track record is worth having a good relationship with. Even if you aren’t interested in the position, or feel it’s beneath you, or if you just have an indignant attitude towards headhunters, your best interests are served by a calm, polite rejection and a door left open for future conversations (which may one day come with a more attractive offer). Something like:

“Thanks for contacting me about this role. I’m not looking for anything right now, but do let me know if any future opportunities present themselves.”

If you are interested, it pays to be a little coy at first. Whether they phone or contact you via LinkedIn, tell the recruiter you’d like to schedule a call over the next few days. If they’ve revealed any information about the position, this will give you the space to do some research, and consider whether you want to leave your current job.

WHAT ROLE WILL DATA PLAY IN MEASURING MY WORK PERFORMANCE?

marc@thetalenthive.co.nz (Marc Denham) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 05:36:17 GMT

In just a few years, data analytics has gone from a niche occupation, of interest only to market researchers and IT specialists, to become a driving force behind almost every business model.

It’s not just about building a clearer picture of industry and market trends. Analytics is also a powerful tool for assessing the efficiency of a workforce. As an employee, it’s important to understand how data is used to track and analyze your performance. The more insight you have into how your role is evaluated, the easier it is to position yourself for promotions and pay increases.

Though not all employers are using analytics for performance management, you should assume they are. Software developers are making it easier for the data-illiterate to gain insights, using visualisation to present statistics in a user-friendly way. Data collection and analytics is also becoming increasingly affordable, allowing smaller companies to compete with and out-wit big corporate rivals.

The level of sophistication provided by analytics tools is a positive development for hardworking team-players. Traditional performance review metrics tended to overvalue star performers (or ruthlessness), whilst overlooking employees who advanced team objectives. Now, call tracking and analytics can tell a company which employees were involved at every stage of the transaction, from lead generation to conversion. The unscrupulous loudmouth, happy to gazump his colleagues and claim the credit (and the bonus), could be a thing of the past.

This is undoubtedly a good thing for employee and employer alike. The best performers are by nature team-oriented. They thrive in collaborative environments and rarely call attention to themselves. Data analytics can quickly identify the hidden talent within an organization, and not just pinpoint the weak links, but establish precisely where they’re going wrong so that adequate training and feedback can be offered.

To help you understand how employers use performance management tools, we’ve compiled some typical inquiries, historically answered by a combination of hunches and personal bias, now easily solved by analytics:

Is everyone focused on what’s important? Strategic goals can be aligned throughout a company, allowing individual efforts to more accurately reflect and support the overall organizational strategy. Problem areas can be identified early, and resources re-assigned to where they are needed most.
Where are tomorrow’s leaders? Strong performers can be identified from individual performance metrics to create a pool of potential future leaders who will benefit from focused development and retention efforts.
Do we have the talent we need for future growth? Understanding whether the right talent exists within an organization or needs to be sourced externally can save companies time and money. As competency requirements are determined, recruiters can source candidates with the right experience – or develop talent already within the organization.

Automating performance management and data collection enables employers to apply the same high standards to human capital decisions as they do for other assets. In tandem with next-generation learning platforms, predictive analytics opens up new avenues for optimizing talent management, hiring processes and professional development. These powerful tools are already helping businesses remove any ambiguity surrounding employee performance, consigning gut-instinct and subjectivity to history. In a data-led employment culture, only good collaborators and consistently strong performers need apply.

INSIGHT SERIES – ENGINEERING YOUR CAREER

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 05:33:58 GMT

Finishing full-time education and entering the world of work is a time of uncertainty for anyone. But engineers face a specific set of challenges peculiar to their chosen profession. Each interview situation requires candidates to call on different areas of technical expertise, and demonstrate how they would apply their know-how in real world situations.

To help engineering graduates prepare for entering the jobs market, we sat down with Sergio Vallesi, an environmental and civil engineer with 12 years experience. Sergio answered some key questions facing engineering graduates, and offered some sound advice on planning a long, rewarding career in the industry.

Multi-discipline civil engineering students often have a hard time choosing a specific career path. Is there a ‘right time’ to commit to one particular discipline?

If you really want to commit to a discipline, first of all you’ll need to shift your focus from ‘what you expect from life’ to ‘what life is expecting from you’. Then the following groundwork will help you know when it’s the ‘right time.’

During the ‘learning phase’, it is important that you take the time that you need to develop your dreams, broaden your horizons, and gain different work experiences. This may include studying different subjects, undertaking overseas experiences, and trying out some trades.

During the ‘doing phase’, it is important that you remain true to yourself, develop a deeper sense of commitment and share your dreams. You will attract mentors (either inside or outside the organisation you are already working for) who will help narrow down your interests and introduce you to a specific discipline. In particular, a mentor will expose you to some really powerful insights and help you to focus. Generally, you will have to work really hard to convince this mentor that you are committed. This will fully ignite your pilot passion and help you to develop your own vision. As you share your vision, you will start inspiring and motivating others and this will help consolidate your choice of discipline. At that time you’ll become unstoppable!

During the ‘giving phase’, it is important that you continue to remain true to your values, while you assist others to find their way, commit to a discipline, and develop their own visions.

How important are mentors? What are your experiences of mentorship and how it complements theoretical engineering studies?

Mentorship is an essential step in everyone’s life, at work and on a personal level. For a number of years, from primary school through university, I waited for the right mentor to arrive in my life. Once graduated, I travel extensively to discover my professional dreams and start gaining some practical experiences.

During this process I met four mentors that exposed me to the following areas: a) entrepreneurship and selling skills; b) environmental research and education; c) engineering and analytical skills; d) professional behavior and commitment.

Although throughout this process I ended up remaining for quite some time in one discipline, I was still far from being committed to a particular cause. When I finally met a fifth mentor, he took me through one of the most fascinating and challenging learning journeys I ever experienced, which resulted in discovering my professional goal.

For graduates looking for their first position, does company size matter? What are the pros and cons of working for a large organization compared with smaller companies?

Company size will have positive and negative impacts in all three phases of your working life.

(On the plus side)… a large company would generally allow you to look around, learn from the different fields, ask questions, and even take training or delivering tasks in areas outside your role. (On the minus side)…due to the opportunities for internal advancement, financial gains, and long-term employment, the large system may dampen your professional dreams. There is a risk of getting stuck and ‘content’ within the company at the loss of your visions and values.

A small company will usually not have the budget and the variety to help you in widening your mind and experience, but this sense of frustration will help you figure out what you really want and (perhaps enable you to) implement it inside the same company. If this is not possible, at least you’ll find it easy to move on.

Statistically, engineering graduates have greater employment chances than most other professions. Is it wise for a graduate to pursue a career in their third or fourth choice of discipline because the market will favor them?

The main advantage to enter a discipline that is favored by the market (and not by us) is that it would enable us to rapidly develop our professional skills and network which we can then, in part, be used to enter into a discipline that is less favorable. This risk is that if you don’t stay true to yourself you might lose your professional dreams.

How important is it for new engineers to ‘get their hands dirty’ before seeking management positions? Is it ever too soon for a graduate to flex their management ambitions?

To manage anything you need vision, and vision comes from understanding the past mistakes of well experienced people. Ideally, you should get your hands dirty as soon as possible, even before/while studying if you can. If this is not practical, at least make sure you do this once graduated.

While it is paramount to get your hands dirty before any advancement in your career, the progression to a management role is not necessarily your path to follow. It clearly depends on the nature of your life goals. As mentioned earlier, if you focus on what life expects from you, you are likely to know if management is or is not the area where you can make the biggest impact.

Thanks Sergio!

Look out for future ‘Insight Series’ blogs from The Talent Hive, follow us on LinkedIn!

INSIGHT SERIES – MOVING TO NEW ZEALAND

marc@thetalenthive.co.nz (Marc Denham) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 05:30:39 GMT

As more and more companies search for highly talented people beyond their own country’s shores, the employment market has truly gone global. But moving to another country for your dream job and a better life style can be a daunting prospect. Fortunately the team at The Talent Hive are experts in supporting Engineering and IT Professionals (and their families!) through the process of relocating to a new part of the world. Some of our team have experienced moving to New Zealand ‘first hand’ themselves, but all of us are well versed in helping others successfully transition into a new life in New Zealand.

Ensuring you have clear information about your new role and the business you’re joining is crucial but of equal importance is reliable information about the country and city that you are moving to. So The Talent Hive created a guide for international job seekers with some tips, guides and useful information to help uncover what it’s really like to live and work in Aotearoa. With the latest up to date information this free guide can be downloaded from our Living & Working in NZ page on our website.

In the mean time check out some real life stories from two people who recently made the move to New Zealand as they talk about their experience of emigrating and how they are settling in to Kiwi life.

Name: Ricardo de Azevedo Dutra

Job title: Electrical Engineer – Principal Engineer

I moved from: Rio de Janeiro – Brazil

I moved too: Wellington – New Zealand

I arrived in New Zealand: 5th May 2015

1 – What do you enjoy most about living in New Zealand and in your city?

I enjoy most the variety of different landscapes in so short distances. In about two hours you can go from a beautiful beach to an iced mountain. New Zealand is an awesome country for all ages. Rivers, waterfalls, beaches, lakes, mountains, are everywhere. Wellington, where I live, is an excellent city, with a smooth traffic, a fantastic variety of restaurants, coffee bars, and has always some event happening. But it is not a crowded city. There is a plenty of gyms and sports courts available for all at a very good price. The bus system is extremely efficient. There are buses to all corners of the city with a very good frequency and with a practical signaling at the bus stops. Another remarkable topic is the general organization. There is a great effort by the social welfare at all places. Everything is done to make people live better.

2 – What do you miss most about your home country?

The family, first of all. As it was possible to come with some relatives, we miss the ones that stayed there. But the technology nowadays helps a lot. We can keep in contact somehow. Another thing we miss very much is the wonderful weather we had there. Since I arrived here it has been quite cold. Although there are a lot of restaurants here we miss the traditional Brazilian food, as well. Some vegetables, fruits and sauces are not available here, unfortunately. All these things are very important for us.

3 – What was your biggest challenge in relocating to New Zealand?

The biggest challenge was to leave sons, daughter and parents in order to go so far way without an extensive knowledge about what you are going to face, how will be the new job and how will be your new life abroad. No matter how good is your consultant you always will have some expectations about the new environment you will find out there and about the financial aspects. I wanted so much to apply my knowledge in the new job, even considering that here many rules are so different.

4 – What is the best experience you have had since arriving in New Zealand?

Talking about places, there are a lot of amazing places to mention. As I am working I don’t have much time to travel. I have already known Christchurch and Wellington, as the biggest cities, and some very interesting towns like Porirua and Martinborough, during the weekends. This last one is a very good wine producer region. Maybe this was the best experience. We stayed in a cozy hotel and tasted delicious foods and excellent wines.

5 – What advice would you give to others who may be contemplating moving to New Zealand?

Don´t be afraid. New Zealand will receive you with open arms. People here are very familiar with the welcoming activities. The best you can do before you come is to research about the country and the cities. As much you read better and comfortable you will feel and in love you will be.

6 – What was your experience of working with The Talent Hive?

The Talent Hive conducted my process on a deep professional level. And at the same time they helped me a lot with the personal topics on a friendly way. I liked very much to work with them. It was really amazing.

Name: Rachel Sanders

Job title: Requirements Engineer

I moved from: Warwickshire, UK

I moved too: Christchurch, New Zealand

I arrived in New Zealand: 22nd July 2015

1 – What do you enjoy most about living in New Zealand and in your city?

I always wanted to live between the mountains and the sea and now I do! The suburb I live in is right on the coast so I can hear the surf from home and see the mountains as I drive into the city.

The outdoors is so accessible – I live right next to the Port Hills which are great for hiking and biking. The rest of the country seems pretty accessible too and weekend trips to Queenstown or Auckland are easy and affordable by plane.

New Zealand is also a really friendly place so it is easy to make friends. In Christchurch there are lots of newbies like me – mainly to help with the rebuild but the hospital and other engineering firms, like mine, are also bringing in lots of new people.

2 – What do you miss most about your home country?

Family. I think that is the same answer for almost every expat I talk to and was the biggest consideration coming here. The time difference also makes it a challenge sometimes to call home so that aspect is not ideal.

There are things you can do to help – I have a couple of nieces who I want to stay close to so, when we do manage to find a good time to call, we play board games – I have a dice which I roll on camera and they make my moves on the board! I know other people read stories together etc and obviously older relatives are good with chatting!

3 – What was your biggest challenge in relocating to New Zealand?

There are several things to juggle, especially if you are trying to line up work before arriving as I was. I have listed the key things I was juggling whilst working full time in the UK:

Checking out visas and deciding which route is right for you, finding work (and convincing them that you are a real prospect and committed even though you are overseas), sorting your house – to sell or to rent is a big question and, if the latter – who is going to manage it?, what work needs to be done to it? making sure you have researched enough about the differences with the cost of living (NZ is expensive and I am relatively worse off financially but I came here for the quality of life)

managing the difficult news with family (here you have to be realistic – you may not see elderly relatives again in person; family with small children are less likely to be able to afford to come to visit you so either you have to return to wherever “home” is at the expense of using your holiday time and money to explore the new area of the world you live in or face the fact that it will be a long time before you see them again – truly difficult.

4 – What is the best experience you have had since arriving in New Zealand?

Several that I can think of:

Within the first few days went to see the All Blacks live playing Argentina just down the road from where I lived.

Spent some time at the Audi Quattro Winter Games in Queenstown, watching some of the best snowboarders in the world on the halfpipe.

Hiking from my doorstep – in my t-shirt in winter (winter here is strange – some days are really warm and others are cold!)

5 – What advice would you give to others who may be contemplating moving to New Zealand?

I don’t think I can advise anyone on whether it is right for them as, just because it was a good idea for me (despite how it may turn out i.e. if it all goes downhill and I decide to move on I don’t regret coming) does not mean it would be for someone else. If you have a family then clearly there are considerations for their well-being which I have not had to take account of.

Fundamentally – do your research. Understand what you want from your lifestyle, environment, work and then evaluate whether the opportunities available meet those requirements. There are lots of areas online for free advice (simple Google Search) and there are also cheap expos (certainly in the UK) where you can get information and where some jobs are advertised.

For anyone wanting to move (anywhere in fact) but are hesitating – take some time to understand why you are hesitating and be honest with yourself. It is normal to fear the unknown and natural to allow that fear to create “reasons” for not doing something which are in reality only excuses – only you will know, deep down, which it is. If you find that they are “excuses” then take the plunge – there will be support along the way, whether it comes from your visa agent, recruitment agent, someone you met on holiday, the person you sit next to on the plane or train next to in the gym, work colleague present or past… the list of sources of help is endless and, truly, the help is there if you look for it.

6 – What was your experience of working with The Talent Hive?

I dealt with Matt Love-Smith and from the start found him to be professional and personable. The time difference between the UK and NZ is less than ideal but a combination of phone calls and emails worked well and I felt well informed throughout the process.

Even after arriving in NZ Matt has stayed in touch to see how I am getting on / settling in and in-fact, picked me up from the airport when I arrived which was a godsend after such a long flight.

As a business they are appointed by the recruiting company, however, their personal interest and manner gives consideration to the candidates too and works well.

SEEKING JOB SECURITY & HIGH WAGES?

marc@thetalenthive.co.nz (Marc Denham) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 05:27:44 GMT

Since 2013, New Zealand’s unemployment rate has been bouncing between 5-7%, settling bang in the middle at 6% at the end of Q3 in 2015 . In most industries, it’s an employers market, with hiring managers able to pick and choose from a large pool of job seekers. There is a notable exception. The digital/ICT sector is suffering a drought of qualified candidates. So pronounced is the shortage of homegrown ICT skilled workers that software companies are increasingly hiring from offshore or conducting research and development overseas.

It’s been estimated that the number of digital jobs are expected to grow between 23-53% over the next decade. High demand, great pay and creative opportunities mean that now is a good time to consider a job in the digital industry.

According to the most recent Occupation Outlook report from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, job prospects for software developers and ICT technicians are very good. For ICT business and systems analysts, they’re practically foolproof. Demand in these fields has consistently outstripped the number of suitable graduates, and both occupations are mainstays of Immigration New Zealand’s list of long-term skill shortages. That means the country is actively encouraging skilled workers from overseas to fill vacancies.

To demonstrate just how bright the future is for workers with these skill sets, let’s crunch some government data:

As of 2013, 71% of people with a Bachelor’s degree in information systems were employed within a year of graduation (compared with 54% qualified in other industries). The estimated average income for ICT business and systems analysts was $73,100, and graduates were earning an average of $40,200 one year after their studies were complete (our own experience of recruiting graduate roles in the ICT sector this year suggests that the average entry level salary is much higher, coming in at $51,200). After five years, average income had increased to $58,400. With the average cost of a three year BA in Computer Science working out to $18,500, and demand for ICT-skilled workers expected to remain high over the next decade, you don’t need to flex your analyst muscles too much to spot the potential. If the world of ICT interests you, now is the time to take action, while entry level salaries are so favourable.

If your ambitions extend beyond mere averages, the figures start looking very attractive. A quick search on seek.co.nz reveals more than 80 jobs listed at pay rates of $100k+. For short term contracts, day rates go as high as $1500. Such sums are not unusual for the industry. According to Paul Matthews, head of the Institute of IT Professionals:

“The skills shortage today is as bad as it’s ever been, which is a crazy situation when you consider overall unemployment. But we have a significant problem attracting people with the right skills into the industry.”

Matthews – interviewed for the NZ Herald – identifies the industry’s image as a ‘geek-only’ domain as a big part of the problem. Ministry of Education figures show the number of students finishing computer science degrees has been falling since 2005, indicative of a real perception problem among young learners. That may be changing. Future-focused school districts are expanding their curriculums to teach digital technology as an achievement standard under the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) – a significant improvement on the low-level computing courses currently offered by most authorities.

But if anything can refresh the public image of ICT, and encourage a new generation of homegrown talent to break through, it’s the bountiful job opportunities and eye-watering salaries currently going begging in New Zealand.

IS SLOW HIRING HURTING YOUR BRAND?

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 05:20:29 GMT

One of the most fundamental errors made by inexperienced recruiters is slow hiring. You can see the logic behind it. An organisation may have a culture of working long hours to pave the way for business success. They rightly take pride in their meticulous planning and execution of established process and when the time comes to hire new talent, they’re damned if they’re going to start to become more agile. Hire slow, fire fast is a well worn business mantra.

But a protracted recruitment process does not translate into better hiring outcomes. The longer you deliberate, the likelier you are to lose quality candidates to a competitor. Industry analysts reckon the average time taken to fill roles is now as high as 25 days – two and half times longer than the average candidate stays on the jobs market.

Too many employers obsess over the cost-per-hire metric, a short-termist approach which completely ignores the potentially astronomical costs of hiring a so-so candidate who adds little value to the business. Advocates of ‘speed hiring’ focus on snapping up high quality candidates who have plenty of other job options and are unlikely to hang around for much more than a few days after submitting their application.

Of course, a quick hiring process doesn’t mean lowering your standards. It simply means understanding your ‘key ingredients’ for the role, being able to recognise these in the candidate, and being ready to execute on the essential steps to hire. So that when your candidate arrives your in a position to move fast.

Let’s examine the reasons why slow hiring damages your business:

Candidates in high demand don’t stay on the market for long. Drag out the hiring process and the most sought-after prospects will have more opportunities by the day. If your competitor makes a quick acceptance offer when you’re still halfway through the process, the candidate is left with a choice: go for the soon-to-expire offer or wait for a possible future offer from you. Unless you’re a corporate powerhouse with prospective employees begging to work for you, the odds of them remaining available at the end of your recruitment process diminish as time goes on. Ergo, drawing out the recruitment process won’t help you find top talent – it’ll leave you with a pool of mediocrity from which to choose.
Productivity will drop if positions remain vacant for too long. Your thorough quest for that mythical dream candidate will result in a loss of productivity and revenue. The degree to which this impacts your business depends on how mission-critical the job is, but frankly, for small businesses and startups, every job should be mission-critical. When designing your recruitment process, calculate the opportunity cost of handing the reigns to your existing workforce, and ask yourself whether an extended hiring process is really worth it.
Candidates use the recruitment experience as a litmus test of the corporate culture. Remember, they view the interview process as the first – and perhaps only – interaction with your company, and will draw conclusions about what it’s like to work there based on that. It may seem unfair, but a slow recruitment process is often interpreted as an indicator of business practice as a whole. Take too long to give them a job, and they start wondering how long it’ll take to advance within the organization, receive project opportunities or pay reviews etc. The trick is to stir a sense of excitement between the hiring manager/recruiter and the candidate. Adopt a speedy application and interview process before honing in on your preferred candidate, make that offer and the candidate will view you as a dynamic company with the drive and ambition to match their own.

For highly qualified candidates with years of experience and expertise being in demand is the norm. Even before they see your job listing, they’ve been approached by headhunters attempting to lure them away from their current employer. It’s hard enough to attract top talent without the handicap of a needlessly over engineered and sluggish recruitment process. Let your hiring strategy reflect your brand – agile, purposeful, decisive – and you’ll attract and win talent that aspires to the very same.

Matt is a Director of The Talent Hive and leads the Engineering recruitment practice within the business. Originally from the UK he’s been living in New Zealand for 12 years. Matt is a retired ‘amateur’ athlete who has given up chasing great marathon times for chasing his young children around the park, a far more worthy (if not exhausting) pursuit.

IS COMPANY CULTURE CRUCIAL TO SUCCESSFUL HIRING

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 05:16:39 GMT

Building an authentic company culture is one of the more complex challenges facing organisations of all sizes. It’s also one of the most elusive. A 2014 Gallup poll shows that more than half of all employees in the U.S. describe themselves as ‘disengaged’ at work. Millennials are the least engaged demographic, suggesting that positive company culture may be in decline, despite economic growth.

Fostering a culture of shared values in which each employee does what they do best is no mean feat. If businesses are to meet this challenge, the work must begin at the hiring stage. A meticulous recruitment process will minimize the risks associated with mismatched employees: disengagement, individualism and low retention rates.

A healthy company culture makes for a healthy business. Let’s look at some of the ways in which a strong company culture – one shared by all employees – can improve your business:

Productivity. When morale is high, productivity increases. The cost of low morale in the workplace is huge, but because it can be hard to spot, and its negative effects difficult to quantify, it’s often ignored. Companies that impose top-down, command and control styles of management are less productive. Equally, unfocused management that does not communicate their expectations will result in less productive outcomes. Boost productivity by encouraging open dialogue between all employees and managers, and setting clear goals that are achievable but challenging. The more valued your workforce feels, the more likely they are to go the extra mile in achieving your objectives.
Reputation. On it’s own, high productivity is not a reliable measure of a healthy corporate culture. If it goes hand in hand with a respected brand image that customers and employees alike want to be associated with, you’re doing it right. A healthy culture encourages workers to deliver the products and services of the highest standard – even when it’s not, in the short term, going to directly benefit them more than doing the bare minimum. A strong reputation is vital to the recruitment process, as it will attract the most talented, skilled candidates to the organization.
Retention. Workers with a positive attitude are far likelier to remain loyal to your company. High staff turnover is very costly, so it’s important to get the right people in the right roles from day one. Turnover is contagious, but so is retention: the longer employees stick around, the more likely new recruits are to do the same.

Recruiting for Culture

Ascertaining the suitability of a candidate for your company culture is a real, actionable goal. But it requires companies to think differently about how they project their corporate image. Does your PR material truly reflect your culture? What will potential candidates take away from looking at your website? Does your brand image match the job requirements you’re asking of them?

To answer these questions honestly, you need to look externally to see what others – current and former customers and staff, disgruntled or satisfied – are saying. Use sites like vault.com to see what job applicants say about your company culture and bear in mind that, even if you think a particular criticism is unjustified, perception matters.

During the recruitment process, invest more time and training in ensuring you properly assess candidates’ values. Too often companies obsess about skills and qualifications and, while these things are important, they are easily assessed by looking at a candidate’s CV. It’s only by talking to prospects at the interview stage that you can establish whether their values are consistent with the values of the organization. If you hire someone with the right qualifications but whose values are misaligned with the company, be prepared to lose them.

And that is the most important message: more often than not, turnover is rooted in cultural mismatches. Know your culture, and make sure everyone you work with knows it too. By nurturing a sense of camaraderie and community, you’ll build a strong, loyal team capable of attracting strong, loyal talent for the future.

HOW CAN BODY LANGUAGE BE USED EFFECTIVELY IN AN INTERVIEW SITUATION?

marc@thetalenthive.co.nz (Marc Denham) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 04:42:59 GMT

Multiple studies have demonstrated how body language influences our perceptions of each other, with some analysts putting it far above verbal communication in terms of importance. In a job interview situation it becomes even more important, as interacting with strangers tends to increase our awareness of our own and others’ body language.

Thinking about how you present yourself in an interview situation is part of the preparation. You’ve probably already intuited the need to ‘be natural’ and ‘speak clearly’ and the countless other platitudes doled out to us ahead of important meetings. For advice that’s a bit more practical, read on…

Before the Interview

You’ll need to be in full control of your physical self in order to project a positive image. If a gym session, a run, swim or yoga are part of your regime, have a short session on the day of the interview. Exercise can help release tension, leaving you clear minded and alert, focused only on the task at hand. Eat a healthy breakfast but avoid coffee. Ok, avoid having more than one coffee – it makes you more jittery than focused.

Just prior to the interview, take control of your posture. Stretching your back and taking long strides will help you enter the interview with confidence.

During the Interview

Here are a few practical tips on how to hold yourself during the interview itself:

Smile. Easily forgotten in stressful situations, a strong smile can differentiate you from other candidates and – combined with eye contact – will immediately engage your audience in what you’re saying. Plus, smiling has been shown to reduce stress levels, both in the smiler and the observer.

Be alert. Don’t tuck your limbs into your chair or slouch. Sit up, with your chest open and your shoulders straight.

Be comfortable. You should be alert and upright, but not stiff. If you need water, ask for some. If you feel more comfortable holding a pen then do so – but make sure you’re not constantly playing with it or – horror! – clicking it. If you’re fidgety you’ll seem like you don’t want to be there, which is not a good look for someone purporting to want to spend their waking hours at the office.

Tilt your head. Slightly tilting your head to the side when you meet someone shows deference and trust (note the behaviour of dogs who lie down and expose their necks when confronted with a more dominant animal – it’s a signal that they don’t want trouble.) Tilting your head causes the listener to trust what you are saying.

Mimic your interviewer. A tricky one. If you don’t think you can get away with this without looking like you’re taking the mickey, it’s best avoided. But research has shown that imitating other people’s nonverbal gestures can help you empathise with their experience. By (subtly) copying those expressions, you’re interviewer will perceive the interaction as more positive.

Slow it down. Avoid frantic speech and movement. The slower and more deliberate your physical movements, the more you’ll project an air of being in control. Again, proportion is crucial: if you start sounding like Forrest Gump, you’ve gone too far.

Remember that an interview is just a conversation. You’ve had plenty of experience. While keeping the suggestions above in mind, don’t approach the interview as a performance. Try taking a video of yourself being interviewed by a friend. Review it, looking for nervous tics that you may not be aware of. You don’t have to eliminate them entirely, just ensure that you’re not doing anything too distracting with your body. Lose the bad habits, be relaxed and practice holding yourself with poise, confidence and a healthy dash of deference. Body language is universal; once you’ve learned how to use it in one interview, you can apply those lessons to other stressful situations.

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LIVING & WORKING IN NEW ZEALAND

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 04:33:55 GMT

As more and more companies search for highly talented people beyond their own country’s shores, the employment market has truly gone global. But moving to another country for your dream job and a better life style can be a daunting prospect. Fortunately, the team at The Talent Hive are experts in supporting Engineering and IT Professionals (and their families!) through the process of relocating to a new part of the world. Some of our team have experienced moving to New Zealand ‘first hand’ themselves, but all of us are well versed in helping others successfully transition into a new life in New Zealand.

If your serious about emigrating to New Zealand, then the team at The Talent Hive are well positioned to help you understand the requirements for a New Zealand work visa. Our registered immigration specialist can assist you with advice and even an initial assessment of your eligibility for a New Zealand work visa. To find out more about this and our full range of immigration services just visit our website at New Zealand Work Visa

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

The Team@The Talent Hive

REDUCE ENERGY – OPTIMISE YOUR CAREER

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:50:04 GMT

DETA Consulting is a young, dynamic and responsive organisation working with some of New Zealand’s largest businesses to identify, develop and deliver optimisation services. Deta Consulting was born out of the engineering filed of ‘energy efficiency’ but now Deta delivers services across a much broader spectrum from process and mechanical design through to HSE and contract management. The company continues to grow as it builds on its past successes and acquires new customers.

David Taylor is both a Director and Consultant working within the business, so he is a busy guy. But we managed to grab some of his time to find out a bit more about his background, the industry and what makes the work and culture of Deta so appealing for its employee’s. Here is what David had to tell us……

DETA Consulting seems to be going from strength to strength, what is the secret to the company’s success to date?

Specialising in the technically challenging industrial market – milk, meat, food, wood – and hiring keen, driven staff capable of providing the flexibility we promise to clients.

What are the company’s main objectives over the next year?

Aside from continuing on our growth path and maintaining happy staff and clients, we’ll be expanding with a new office in Tauranga.

What kind of new recruits are you looking for to help you achieve these objectives?

We’re looking for solutions-focused talent who can think outside the box. An ideal recruit will take a holistic approach to solution-analysis and be able to identify areas in need of optimisation.

What attracts people to your industry and to working with DETA?

Our industry is all about improvement – improving processes, production, quality, the environment, profits. We pride ourselves on our flexibility to the specific needs of a client, preferring successful outcomes to the arbitrary 8 to 5 grind. DETA’s flat management structure allows everyone to have a say in what happens and facilitates a wider variety of interesting projects, sites and clients than a top-down hierarchy would permit.

Tell us a little about the challenges new recruits can look forward to getting their teeth into over their first 6 months?

We work with a large range of equipment, processes, organisations, people and projects, many of which are new to us all, so new recruits can expect a significant learning curve. Although we work together in teams, we encourage each member of staff to take individual responsibility for their own output.

Where do you see the future for your industry?

The energy efficiency industry is moving towards a ‘turnkey’ project based model which sees the identification, scoping, design, business case development and implementation of projects all handled by a single organisation. We expect this trend to continue as it makes life very easy for client’s who are typically constrained by employee availability. However, I don’t expect a single organisation to handle solutions and then physically do the installation, as impartiality is key for ensuring the client gets the best value.

Deta Consulting are hiring talented people now.

For more information contact Matt Love-Smith on engineer@thetalenthive.co.nz

or click here ‘Project Engineer’

LESSONS FROM A BAD JOB INTERVIEW: HOW TO LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES AND PERFORM BETTER NEXT TIME

marc@thetalenthive.co.nz (Marc Denham) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:41:09 GMT

If you’ve ever walked away from a job interview feeling like you’ve just barely survived a car accident, you’ll be familiar with that sinking feeling of inadequacy and shame. The sense that you’ve blown a golden opportunity, one that might not present itself again; the nagging doubt that you aren’t as good as you thought you were. Throw in the practical implications of remaining jobless, and it’s a recipe for depression.

It’s not a good moment, but you have to remind yourself that that’s all it is – a moment. One that happens to us all. Like all setbacks, there are lessons to be learned. Dust yourself off, pour a large one and take a close, unflinching look at what went wrong. Learning those lessons could make all the difference at the next interview.

Find Out What Went Wrong. Even when you know you bombed, it’s not always obvious why. Rejection letters – if they come at all – are usually comprised of stock phrases like ‘not the right fit’ and empty well-wishing for the future. Once you know for certain you didn’t get the job, get in touch with the company and see if you can speak to your interviewer to find out what it was they didn’t like. This course of action should only be pursued once you have fully accepted the rejection – if you are still in a heightened state of emotion, or feel in any way aggrieved about the decision, speaking to the person responsible for that decision will be counterproductive for your future prospects. But if the wounds are closed and the mind is open, you’ve nothing to lose.
Review Your CV. Check back over your CV for mistakes. Ask a trusted friend – perhaps somebody in the same industry – to look over it too. If you didn’t tailor your CV to the specific role, you’ll know better for next time. Even one glaring typo is enough to put scrupulous interviewers off, so double and triple check it before the next interview.
Be Honest with Yourself. Did you have the right attitude going in? Were you well rested and fully prepared? Might you have come across as arrogant? Or too self-effacing? Not easy questions to answer, to be sure, but absolutely essential for your future success. Striking the right balance between confidence and humility is one of the hardest things to pull off, and remains a key blindspot for many candidates.
But Don’t Be too Hard on Yourself. Remember, it’s not always your fault when things don’t pan out. You could have given the same performance to another recruiter and got the job. Your interview style is just one of many factors at play. If you’ve asked yourself the tough questions and feel you played it right, it’s important not to over correct and second guess yourself too much – sowing seeds of doubt is the last thing you want to do before the next interview.
Practice. Call the trusted friend and thank them profusely for checking your CV. Now ask them to conduct a mock interview and give you feedback at the end. Heed the feedback and do another practice run. When you get a job, buy them a present.
Indulge Your Frustration. Immediately after a bad interview, it’s important to get the experience off your chest by talking to a friend or family member. If you don’t indulge your emotions at the first opportunity, they will emerge later – probably at the next interview.

Vent. Learn. Move on. Even if you did everything wrong in the interview, mistakes aren’t crimes, and the most valuable lessons in life are learned the hard way. If those lessons help you perform better next time – perhaps for a more attractive job – flunking that one interview might turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you.

9 KEY JOB SKILLS FOR THE FUTURE

marc@thetalenthive.co.nz (Marc Denham) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:38:35 GMT

Identifying skills and qualifications that will be the most valuable in years to come

Four episodes into HBO’s latest offering, Westworld and I’m hooked. There are so many employment themes running through the show that in addition to calling it a sci-fi, western mash up you could easily throw ‘workplace drama’ into the descriptive mix as well. There’s a lot of automation and robotics in the show too, from cyborg cowboys and hookers to ‘milky machines’ that create everything that exists within the theme park. It’s an interesting take on what the future workplace might look like.

Technology and innovation have always been a driver of change and a potential enemy of the worker, but the threat of being replaced by machines is increasingly felt. Computing evolves far more rapidly than, say, improvements in mechanisation did during the 19th Century; processing capabilities have accelerated exponentially since computers first started creeping into the workplace. If you started working in an office in the 1940s, you could reasonably expect to still be using pens, paper and filing cabinets by the time you retired in the 1980s. But anyone beginning office life during the 80s has had to adapt to a total tech revolution in the intervening years.

The question facing the modern workforce is: what do we need to learn now to help us thrive five, ten, twenty years hence? We’ve identified some key skill sets predicted to be the most valuable as we move through the 21st Century:

Self Management. The digitization of information coupled with near-universal internet access has changed the way many workers interact with their paymasters. Writers, coders, designers, developers and countless others can now conduct and communicate their day’s work from a laptop. ‘The Mobile Workforce’ is no longer bound to proscribed hours at an office location, or even to a single employer. This sea change may have a positive impact on productivity, but it requires disciplined self-management. With freelancers predicted to make up between 40-50% of the workforce by 2020, we’re taking on an increasing amount of personal responsibility for managing our work-life balance.
Virtual Collaboration. One of the adjustments necessary for all this remote communication is a decrease in eye-to-eye meetings. The ability to work – not just productively but creatively – as part of a virtual team will be essential to your future employability.
Data Analysis. As information mounts on hard drives and servers across the world, businesses have a staggering amount of data at their disposal. The potential for monetizing this data is huge, but not everyone knows how to use it to their advantage. If you can develop the ability to translate vast data sets into abstract concepts, you’ll make yourself a prized asset to any organization.
Multi-disciplinary Skills. By being literate across a range of different disciplines, you can help companies adopt a more ‘joined-up’ approach. So many good ideas fall by the wayside for no other reason than a lack of understanding between departments. If you’re a web developer who also understands direct marketing, you’re more likely to spot opportunities that others miss.
Adaptive Thinking. Frictionless problem-solving and authentic creativity relies on an open mind. The less real-world contact we have with traditional office hierarchies, the harder we have to work at connecting the dots. Bring some adaptive thinking to the table and future proof your employability!
Cognitive Load Management. The ability to filter and discriminate information according to importance. Colloquially known as ‘sorting your priorities out.’
Cross-Cultural Competence. In a global economy, employees need to be aware of how things are done across a range of cultural settings. In practical terms, learning a foreign language will continue to be considered a strong asset. But, at a minimum, developing an understanding of how foreign markets operate will stand you in good stead.
Coding. The elephant in the room for technophobes, there’s no getting away from the dominance of coding. You don’t have to be fluent in writing code to be an asset (unless that’s your main job description). Understanding enough to make critical decisions and modify existing code will give you a head-start over competitors.
Understanding Superstructured Organizations. Social technologies have been a major driver of change in the workplace, enabling businesses to operate at extreme scales that would have been beyond their means fifteen years ago. So-called ‘small businesses’ are able to Think Big – and so should you.

The future of work requires a diverse group of self-managing, technologically literate people, capable of creative, design-led thinking. Develop a range of these skills and you will remain relevant and in-demand in the modern jobs economy.

BUILDING HIGH PERFORMANCE TEAMS WITHIN SME’S

marc@thetalenthive.co.nz (Marc Denham) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:30:32 GMT

What distinguishes a team from a bunch of people who work alongside each other?

Managing a group of individuals requires a delicate balancing act. Personal career goals must be taken into consideration over the long term, or else you face losing top talent to a competitor. On a daily basis, however, that group of individuals should be working together to achieve the common goals of the team. It’s the combination of individual and collective choices working in concert that makes a team superior.

There are a number of characteristics which define a high performance team:

Commitment to quality. High-performance teams share a commitment to achieving results of the highest standard, and always aim for the best possible outcome.

An effective combination of people. In business, the composition of a team is just as crucial to the end result as picking the right players in sport. One weak link and the whole project can collapse.

A shared vision. Establishing a clear goal for the team as a whole, achievable through individual and collective effort.

Critical analysis of performance. The ability to recognize when the team has not performed as well as it could, analyze the situation without finger-pointing and defensiveness, and take corrective action accordingly.

In a globalized jobs market where job-switching is far more frequent than it used to be, forming a team with these qualities – and keeping them together – is no mean feat. We’ve identified four actionable steps you can take to build a culture of high performance in your business:

1) Create a sense of belonging and emotional security. A results-oriented culture can only arise when people are made to feel safe enough – psychologically and emotionally – to share ideas without fear of recrimination or ridicule. Often, the very best ideas are the most outlandish ones, and nobody is going to pipe up with their leftfield marketing proposal unless they feel completely safe. Equally important is fostering a sense of belonging to something bigger than the individual, where each member of the team can see how their input is tied to the whole picture.

2) Give credit where its due. When a task is accomplished according to plan, the individual or individuals responsible should know that they are appreciated. As a manager, you should openly offer some specific, authentic praise when you see things going well. Don’t fall into the cynical trap of assuming praise will breed complacency – if you’ve got the right people in place, they will respond to affirmation by working even harder.

3) Provide clarity and transparency. When briefing staff on their objectives, avoid ambiguity at all costs. Of course, all ideas should be given air time during the creative planning stage of a project. But once the details have been nailed down, you’ll achieve better results by setting binary goals. A binary requirement is either met, or it isn’t – there’s no room for fudging results. By making your expectations clear, you help build that all-important sense of security: everyone knows what they’re doing, and the risk of personal conflicts is greatly reduced. Instead of saying “let’s improve on our sales this quarter” try going for “let’s achieve a 10% increase in sales this quarter” – a clear objective that leaves no room for individual interpretation.

4) Make everyone accountable. Just as you should show appreciation when it’s deserved, the flipside is a need to encourage accountability from every team member. Nobody wants to be involved in an exercise in mediocrity – it’s demoralizing and leads to disengagement – so demanding mutual accountability is essential for a culture of high performance.

WHAT IMPACT WILL FACEBOOK’S WORKPLACE HAVE ON THE BRICK AND MORTAR OFFICE?

marc@thetalenthive.co.nz (Marc Denham) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:28:10 GMT

For many industries, social technology has changed the way we work. The likes of Slack, LinkedIn and the recent Microsoft acquisition, Yammer have been setting the pace and now Facebook have hopped on board with Zuckerberg’s Workplace innovation.

Facebook is firmly established in workplaces all over the world, just not in the way it wants to be. Now the all-conquering social network is keen to reposition itself as a means of doing business rather avoiding it by looking at GIFs all day.

More than 1,000 organizations around the world now use Workplace. People have created nearly 100,000 groups, and the top five countries using it are India, the US, Norway, the UK and France. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s taking off, but is it likely to have any long term impact on business and its workforce?

What is Workplace by Facebook?

Workplace is essentially a social network for business and it’s been bubbling away for a while now. Initially known as Facebook for Work, it’s been trialled with a few organizations for the last year. Facebook have had an internal version of the Workplace app to help run their own company for many years. They’ve now made it available to any company or organization that wants to use it, for a small fee.

Designed to help business of all sizes in all sectors, but particularly those who do their business on the go, Workplace features some pretty handy tools that streamline communication. Facebook gives a couple of practical examples – a shipping company that now connects with their ship crews via Live video, and a bank now using Workplace instead of fax machines and newsletters to share updates with its distributed branch network.

Other useful features include:

Unlimited file, photo, and video storage
Unlimited team and project groups
Facebook Live video streaming
Monitoring tools for IT teams
Single-sign on (SSO) support
Integration with G Suite, Okta, OneLogin, Ping and Windows Azure AD
Multi-Company Groups – shared spaces enabling employees from different organizations to work together, to extend collaboration beyond your company in a safe and secure way

While many of these services are already likely in place for most companies, the chances are they’re paying a hefty price tag for these services. Whether or not companies are ready and willing to trust Workplace to supply these handy services for less, remains to be seen.

According to Facebook, the likes of Danone, Starbucks, Booking.com, Oxfam, YES Bank in India and the Government Technology Agency of Singapore already do.

With Workplace, companies only pay for people who are actively using the product, and it’s pretty cheap. Less than 1,000 active users and you’ll pay US$3 a month; $2 for the next 1,001-10,000; and $1 for any more than that. There’s a 3-month free trial too.

What’s the Likely impact?

While there are benefits via the sheer efficiency of information flow, the levels of connectivity, and the ability to make connections, there are some pitfalls too.

Research shows that Facebook can contribute to unhappiness and social divisions, and alongside email, is part of the decline in ‘in person’ interactions within the brick and mortar office. So there’s a chance that the office could become even more impersonal. There’s also the potential for sharing private information in error.

Is it worth it for your business?

As Facebook puts it:

The new global and mobile workplace isn’t about closed-door meetings or keeping people separated by title, department or geography. Organizations are stronger and more productive when everyone comes together.

Workplace is all about collaboration, which is great for businesses that want or need to collaborate, but not all businesses work that way.

For Workplace to be worth it, a business needs to figure out how much the potential for additional collaboration is actually going to help. Will it mean better results and outcomes for your business, will it improve delivery to your customers? If so, great. If not, you might not want to let Facebook swallow up as much of your workplace time as it already does your personal life.

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YOUTH KNOWS, IF AGE COULD

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:26:14 GMT

Although figures vary slightly, around the world Millennials now make up roughly one third of the workforce, and will soon be in the majority. Although this new generation of worker is more connected than ever with their peers via digital technology, their connection with employers appears to be faltering. Often viewed as job-hoppers with a disdain for traditional hierarchies; this highly educated generation has some employers scratching their heads on just how to keep them engaged.

Many of today’s employers do not appear to understand the mindset of this new generation. They assume they know what Millennials want, offering perks that aren’t valued, while missing out on what does matter to them.

So, what is it the Millennials want?

Here are three simple things a Company can offer to keep Millennials engaged.

Meaningful work and a connection to the company: Companies need to show this emerging workforce the contribution their role is making. Let them see the big picture, and how a successful company functions. Millennials aren’t satisfied simply punching a clock, they want to understand how they fit in. They want a job that fuels their sense of purpose. By meeting this need, companies are more likely to retain these workers. The most successful companies tie this purpose to their brand, differentiating themselves from their competitors. Successful employers also provide opportunities for their employees to learn and grow; something that Millennials considered important.
Feedback (in both directions): It’s a myth that Millennial’s have no respect for leaders, they just don’t feel the need to respect authority just because it’s there. For them loyalty must be earned. But once it has been earned it is one of the main reasons Millennials stay in a job. While dissatisfaction with a manager is a major reason for them leaving. Millennials aren’t interested in old-school hierarchies, and the days of top-down management are fading fast. If employee feedback is constantly ignored it is likely your Millennial employees will look elsewhere for work. Companies instead need to encourage two-way communication. Giving feedback to young employees, while also listening to their ideas increases their sense of value. People need to know they’re being noticed.
Flexitime and a work life balance: Another myth is that Millennials aren’t willing to put in the hours. The truth is they view time differently. Millennials live in the time frame based on right now. The world has proved to them that nothing is a guarantee. They no longer believe in job security, making them much more likely to job-hop. A lack of flexibility in their work or hours is a big reason Millennials quit. Work-life balance is one of the most significant drivers of employee retention among Millennials. This technological generation, able to work anywhere with an internet connection, don’t see the need to sit at a desk for a set amount of hours. A company that doesn’t offer some flexibility in work arrangements is unlikely to retain young professionals.

One final thing, research has found that younger workers placed a high priority on helping people in need. An employer willing to allow their staff to use company resources and time to help their community will in turn allow their employees to feel good about the company and the role it plays in society. When it comes to a meaningful philosophy to live your life by, sometimes youth knows more than age gives it credit for.

Matt is a Director of The Talent Hive and leads the Engineering recruitment practice within the business. Originally from the UK he’s been living in New Zealand for 13 years. Matt is a retired ‘amateur’ athlete who has given up chasing great marathon times for chasing his young children around the park, a far more worthy (if not exhausting) pursuit.

NK WINDOWS – GLOBAL INNOVATION MEETS LOCAL KNOW-HOW

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:23:06 GMT

NK Windows has developed a loyal customer following and an enviable reputation within its niche market. Their window and door solutions utilise robust and stylish profiles and hardware from the finest German and Austrian manufacturers, but benefit from local New Zealand expertise.

With proven market, leading solutions this company has a strong brand for quality and energy efficiency. The solutions they develop incorporate award winning, highly advanced, precision manufactured windows and doors with market-leading security, noise reduction and environmental attributes.

This is an agile and ambitious organisation that has been growing in size and is currently looking to hire a Product Engineer to join their professional and experienced team environment.

Martin Ball is Company Director at NK Windows and so he is a busy man. But we managed to grab some of his time to find out a bit more about his background, the industry and what makes the work and culture at NK Windows so appealing for the team. Here is what Martin had to tell us……

NK Windows seems to be going from strength to strength, what is the secret to the company’s success to date?

We have a good product, which is gradually becoming more recognised in the NZ market, but more importantly we have great people who really care about the clients and making sure we get the best result for them

What are the company’s main objectives over the next year or two?

We see the opportunity to continue to grow on the back of the growing awareness of the need to build warmer and more comfortable homes. This growth will be focused in the South Island.

What kind of new recruits are you looking for to help you achieve these objectives?

We are always looking for experienced industry professionals who have a real passion for building better homes!

What attracts people to your industry and to working with NK Windows?

I think it is the opportunity for growth in an industry that is been doing things the same way for too long. It is a good time for people with new ideas.

Tell us a little about the challenges new recruits can look forward to getting their teeth into over their first 6 months?

We are experiencing a lot of enquiries from clients and designers who want to build more thermally efficient homes. The European suppliers we use give us access to a range of solutions, and the challenge is to match the two!

Where do you see the future for your industry?

Continued growing awareness of building better quality homes that are more comfortable to live in. This will involve improved design and the use of more advanced products and materials.

How important is a positive organisational culture for your business?

Very. We are a small team trying to serve a growing market with solutions that are less familiar to New Zealanders. This requires perseverance and a “can do” attitude.

How did you get into the industry?

My wife and I purchased this business almost 4 years ago from the previous Austrian owners. We liked the product and the service reputation and had a great business transition with the previous owners.

What was your inspiration for owning your own business?

After 25 years in a corporate world working globally for several iconic New Zealand brands, my wife and I saw the opportunity to apply that experience to our local community with a product that improves the way people live.

What are the biggest changes that you have seen within the industry over the past few years?

The post-earthquake rebuild has had a huge impact in terms of scaling up, increasing access to a wider range of building products and methods, and increasing the levels of client education. We are now dealing with a far better informed home owner.

What challenges remain for the industry?

I think the industry still has a long way to go in terms for basic building standards. There are certainly a lot of initiatives and advice around but the regulatory environment needs to change faster to drive the standard up.

If you could go back in time and have a conversation with yourself as a fresh graduate what advice would you give yourself?

Look for a wide range of experience while you are young. Learn quickly and work for an organisation that supports this. Find out what you really care about and try and spend as much time as you can working on that stuff!

NK Windows are hiring talented people now.

For more information contact Matt Love-Smith on engineer@thetalenthive.co.nz

DO RESUMES ENCOURAGE HIRING MANAGER BIAS?

marc@thetalenthive.co.nz (Marc Denham) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:15:08 GMT

Putting together a cover letter and CV is one of the most dreaded aspects of searching for a job. Adjusting the contents for each position applied for – and knowing in some cases those contents will never even be read – can be a dispiriting process.

Employers don’t exactly love wading through stacks of applications either. The cover letter-and-CV combo is not an efficient way to identify strong candidates, and it becomes less efficient the taller the pile.

Inefficiency isn’t the only problem. Research has shown the dominant method for finding new candidates is often discriminatory. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, job applicants with ‘white’ names needed to send 10 resumes to receive one callback, versus those with African-American names who had to send 15. The research team conducted an experiment in which they responded to job ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers, sending resumes with names indicative of differing cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Another study, from 2014, submitted identical legal briefs to a panel of reviewers and found the standard of writing was consistently rated lower when the reviewer was told the author was black. Furthermore, a higher number of spelling, factual and grammar errors were found, despite the content being identical, suggesting deep-rooted systemic racism was at play.

It’s not just ethnicity that is routinely discriminated against. Research from Stanford suggests hiring managers are less likely to plump for mothers, if that status is presented on a CV. Multiple studies indicated that male-dominated executives consistently reveal gender biases in their hiring practices, with men more likely to advance their career than women, despite identical CVs and cover letters. According to Katherine Milkman, a Wharton professor who ran a study on discrimination in universities, “It’s not like just one group is being harmed… everyone is being harmed here relative to Caucasian males.”

That select group can be whittled down further still when you factor in background biases that relate to class. Hiring managers who review applicants from top universities and private schools are more likely to miss errors or dismiss a lack of experience or suitability. Conversely, an apt candidate from an economically poorer background may find their application on the receiving end of heightened scrutiny, with the reviewer looking for typos and other mistakes that confirm their bias. The fact that this entire process usually happens at a subconscious level only makes it more deeply entrenched and problematic.

Confirmation bias is not something most recruiters will readily admit to. They may even be alert to it, and design their hiring process in a way that minimizes the risk. But with large piles of applicants to sort through, and a recruitment process that could last weeks, completely eliminating discrimination is nigh on impossible under the CV-and-Cover-Letter system.

The most effective way to overcome discrimination is to emphasize to businesses that they are losing out. Research has shown that past credentials are not a good predictor of future performance. Reducing candidates to an ever decreasing pool of expensive educations, sought-after postcodes, maleness and whiteness is a surefire way to limit future growth.

Anonymizing the application process (at least to some extent) is one way of breaking the cycle. Some academics have suggested requesting CVs with only initials or a numbered code to identify the applicant. For some jobs, such as writing and coding, the first step of the application process might comprise a sample work assignment, submitted anonymously. This would tell hiring managers who is up to the task without fear of discrimination – unconscious or otherwise – creeping into their evaluation.

Road-testing the actual skills required for the position doesn’t seem so radical. And while hiring blind may not be suitable for every industry, minimizing implicit bias should be the aim of every business.

AGEISM – A NEW APPROACH FOR AN AGE OLD PROBLEM

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:13:26 GMT

Compared with previous generations, our ageing population isn’t as likely to hang up their boots when they hit retirement age. Longer life expectancy combined with a more flexible work culture means older candidates are finding it easier to continue working past retirement and beyond.

Whether it’s continuing in the job they love, learning new skills, or opting for something part-time to keep physically and socially active, there are plenty of ways for older people to get out there and get some action in the jobs market. The question is, are employers as keen to hire older candidates as older candidates are to work? Does ageism exist in the jobs market?

In a word, yes. Just look at the number of tech industry job listings for ‘young, nimble start ups.’ According to the University of Auckland Business Review, discrimination is on the rise. But with over-40s making up around 44% of New Zealand’s population – and expected to increase to 54% by 2021 – it’s time we all understood the opportunities that come with an ageing workforce.

The University found that employers in New Zealand tended to view the over 45s as less adaptable, creative and flexible than their younger counterparts.

As life expectancy continues to rise around the world, ageism in the workplace is now a global issue. Internationally, older workers are less likely to be up-skilled or retrained, more likely to be made redundant, and in America, unemployed people over 55 can expect to face almost twice as long in redundancy as younger unemployed people.

Why Employers Are Getting It Wrong

Some of the common misconceptions employers have about older workers include:

They’re inflexible or lack creativity
They tire more easily
They don’t take care of their health
They’re less reliable as a long-term employee, as they’re nearing retirement age
They’re more expensive to employ

According to a study by London Business School researchers, each and every one of these assumptions about older workers is shown to be statistically untrue.

And employers hold misconceptions about younger workers too. The same study found that 58% of millennials expect to leave their jobs in three years or less. It’s estimated that nearly half of workers worldwide expect to leave their jobs just within the next year. The retention problem is acute across the globe, so the argument that older workers are less reliable in the long-term simply doesn’t hold water.

There are a few things the older candidate can do to improve their chances of finding work in later life. With the rise of freelancing and the gig economy, work is more flexible than ever and while this state of affairs may represent a lack of security for young workers trying to make their way in the world, those with experience – and, perhaps, fewer financial woes – can turn it to their advantage.

Get Networking

This is somewhere older workers have a distinct advantage: you’ve been around the block more times than your younger counterparts, you’ve wined and dined more clients, and you have a bigger network built up. Make the most of this. Getting a referral can help you bypass the traditional company screening process. So get on LinkedIn, talk to friends, and let people know you’re available for projects, consultancy work, or freelance opportunities.

The Gig Economy

If your lifestyle and income needs allow, and you have the skills to make it pay, there’s no reason you shouldn’t take your wealth of experience and put it to use under your own steam. Setting up your own business, taking on consultancy work or joining the ever growing community of online freelancers are all options open to you.

Keep Your Skills Up To Date

Whatever field you work in, it’s important to keep up with the trends and changes in the sector. Existing employers may be far more open to upskilling and offering you on-the-job training than you realise, as it can save them in hiring costs in the long run, and make for happier, more fulfilled employees. Show you’re interested and talk to management about branching out and learning new skills, or if you’re already retired, it could be time to head back to school for a short course, evening or part-time class to get you up to speed.

Know the Law

Not hiring on the basis of age is not just bad business, it is clearly illegal under the Human Rights Act. If you think you’ve been unfairly discriminated against due to your age, you are legally entitled to fight this decision.

HIRING FOR POTENTIAL VERSUS EXPERIENCE

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:11:32 GMT

The interviewing process can be perilous, which is why all too many employers rely heavily on the past experience of candidates for their ultimate guidance. And while past success is definitely a plus, it’s certainly no cast iron guarantee of future performance. There are better ways to determine whether a candidate is going to be a good long term fit for your business. Remember: it’s where people are going that’s most important, not necessarily where they’ve been.

As the employer in waiting, it’s your role to see beyond the glossy resume to seek out candidates that have the right skills, characteristics and abilities to thrive within your team and organisation. There might be a dazzling success heading up the candidates CV, but does that guarantee they’re going to be able to replicate that success in your business?

Don’t be shy of delving deeper for candidates that may not have that stand out accomplishment to their name, but do carry with them a boatload of demonstrated and sometimes hidden capability. A steady performer who’s shown tenacity and the ability to adapt and learn could well go on to help you accomplish a lot more.

Someone with a standout ‘resume accomplishment’ can be impressive, but always dig deeper to find out exactly what role they played in this accomplishment, and what other skills they have to offer. If their accomplishment plays nicely into the role you’re hiring for, it’s worth finding out as much detail as you can, but this one success shouldn’t blind you to the perhaps more sustainable positives of other candidates.

Turning Japanese

Heard of kaizen? It’s a key part of Japanese business culture and describes the practice of continuous improvement. Employees strive to make professional improvements every day, taking responsibility to continually enhance their own performance as well as the company’s.

For employers in Japan, a key part of the assessment process lies in evaluating where candidates are going – their goals and future career trajectory, how fast they’re accomplishing it, as well as where they are at present.

Growth is expected, and employees who have a history of expanding their skills sets and improving in their roles are far more appealing to employers – even when these candidates might not necessarily tick all of the ‘experience’ boxes for the role.

Do They Have Skills You Just Can’t Teach?

Remember that practical processes and technical skills can all be learned. What’s much harder to teach to new employees are innate characteristics, like curiosity, resilience and empathy. Delve deeper into the character of your candidates and see what innate qualities they possess that can’t be taught on a training course.

Look for the Right Kind of Experience

Someone who’s done the same job for 25 years might offer you a wealth of experience – or they could just have one year’s worth of experience, multiplied by 25. Could too much in the way of similar experience have left this candidate a little one dimensional?

Sometimes it pays to give a chance to a fresh perspective, or someone who has a far more broad resume. Someone with many different types of experience on their CV, even when it doesn’t all tally directly with the role you’re hiring for, can still be a great fit. This kind of progressive experience shows adaptability, determination and sometimes pure passion – all valuable assets.

The kind of experience your candidate needs depends entirely on the role and the support this person will have access to. If they need to be an expert pair of hands then the depth of experience can be non negotiable – but if you’re looking for a fresh voice, perspective, ideas or innovation, don’t rely too heavily on a person’s past experience as your guide.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR CV TELL A STORY

marc@thetalenthive.co.nz (Marc Denham) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:08:31 GMT

Modern bullet-pointed, concise CV styles don’t seem suited to storytelling. But some recruiters, particularly those making direct hiring decisions, appreciate a CV that opens a window to your personality as well as highlighting your achievements.

Hiring managers use the information in a CV to construct a story and image of the person applying for the role. As an applicant, you can help the hiring manager by creating a narrative that registers with them and grabs their attention.

Why Storytelling?

A strong CV can have a real impact and elevate your entire application. To understand this, you just need to put yourself in the mindset of a hiring manager looking to fill a job vacancy. They desperately want to make the right decision. The longer the position is left vacant, the more the team is understaffed, the bigger their workload grows, and the more the problems mount.

Hiring the right candidate will provide the answer to all of these stressful problems. Hiring the wrong candidate will only make the problems worse. It’s a big call for the hiring manager, and they want to make sure they get it right.

Stand Out From The CV Crowd

So, how does the hiring manager decide which resumes represent the people who are going to solve their problems, and which represent the people who are going to make the problems worse? It can be almost impossible to tell when all CVs look so alike. Most are created using familiar templates in Word, repeating the same CV cliches.

All of this tells the recruiter nothing. This is where storytelling comes in.

A storytelling CV stands out from the pack. It represents the living, breathing person who wrote it. The hiring manager is left with a great understanding of the type of person you are, and they’re now curious to meet you. Tell stories that illustrate your ability to help them succeed and you’ll pique their interest enough to secure that all-important first interview.

How to Craft A CV That Tells A Story

The stories you tell on your CV must show the hiring manager that you have solved problems in the past – and that the problems you have solved are similar to the ones the recruiter is facing now.

Choose Your Stories

Look carefully at the job advertisement of the position description for the role you’re applying and familiarise yourself with the key skills and experience the company is seeking. Think back through your career, the jobs you’ve held and projects you’ve worked on that will resonate most of all with the hiring manager. What problems did you solve for that employer and/or what improvements did you make?

Your stories should centre on the positive impact you have had in prior positions. Most people have made great impacts on their employers, they just haven’t realised until they truly gave it some thought. Think of a problem you have solved. For example:

The IT services department of your organisation was completely disorganised. This led to customers facing long waits to solve technical issues, as staff struggled to find the relevant information.

Now describe what you did to fix this. For example:

You worked overtime each night for a week so you could reorganise things while the office was closed. Then you carried out training for the customer service team so that they all knew where to find what they needed.

Now describe the result. For example:

Queues were far shorter, your customer service ratings improved significantly, and you won the organisation’s customer service award 2 quarters in a row.

Now summarise this into a succinct story. For example:

Turned around failing customer service department by reorganising the customer service desk and training all associates. Result: store subsequently won 2 company awards for customer service and customer service ratings improved by 50%.

Storytelling tips

To create high-impact stories, summarise your story into no more than two or three lines
Filling your CV with achievement stories provides the hiring manager with a source of interview questions
Creating compelling stories is also great preparation for acing your job interviews.

TRUST OR TALENT – WHICH ONE TRUMPS?

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:06:02 GMT

If you had to make a choice between trust and talent when hiring someone, which would you plump for?

For many employers, both qualities are non-negotiables. In other words, there’s no point having a talented person you can’t trust, or a trustworthy person with no ability. It’s a trick question right?.

Then again, it depends how you define trust. Does ‘trusting’ someone mean you think they operate under the highest code of ethics at all times? That they have basic integrity but are as flawed as the rest of us? How would you even go about measuring those standards? Would it require micromanagement, whereby employees have to check with you before doing anything, just to ensure they still have your trust? Would the consequences of such a jealously guarded system of honour even be desirable?

The questions arising from a concept as nebulous as ‘trust’ go on and on, with very little in the way of concrete answers. Everyone has a different definition of trust, which throws doubt on the suggestion that you, as an employer, can objectively identify a betrayal of trust. Is it not healthier and more productive to assume employees are acting in ‘good faith’, even if you can be reasonably sure that won’t be the case 100% of the time.

The benefit of the doubt is a great gift in a work environment – especially one populated by highly talented people. Talent gets the job done. The talented company outperforms the company with some shaky notion of ‘trust’ – and anyway, genuinely talented people can be trusted. They can be trusted to be genuinely talented, and genuine talent does not need to betray trust in order to give the appearance of success.

Although the two ideas aren’t mutually exclusive – far from it – the ways in which we measure ‘talent’ and ‘trust’ are not equally reliable. Measuring an individual’s performance is much easier than measuring our own level of trust in the same person.

So, until we figure out a way to precisely (or even vaguely reliably) measure trust, the question isn’t such a trick after all. Trust or talent? Give me talent any day of the week!

CAREER DEVELOPMENT – WHO’S GOT YOUR BACK?

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:04:16 GMT

Who is responsible for developing your career? If you think your employers looking out for you, recent research begs to differ.

74% of workers say employers should provide professional-development training
71% say employers should identify job opportunities and career paths
68% say employers should provide career-advancement mentoring

And what do employers have to say?

98% of employers say workers should continually update and improve their skills
85% say workers should identify job opportunities and career paths
80% say workers should be responsible for building their job-hunting and career-planning skills

The results of this joint research study by EdAssist and the University of Phoenix demonstrate why so many employees and organisations struggle with career management. When each believe the other should be responsible, we get mismatched expectations and employee/employer frustration.

Chances are few employers are going to live up to your expectations. If you’re concerned about your career development, as you should be, then you need to take 360° ownership of it.

Here are five steps to help you take charge:

Find a Mentor

Look around your organisation, and your wider community too. Who out there inspires you? Whose work interests you? Striking up a mentoring relationship can be hugely beneficial. You’ll meet new people, gain valuable knowledge via your mentor’s own work experience – the ups and the downs, and you’ll pick yo strategic career advice.

Be a Top Performer

Do what you’re doing at the very best of your ability. You can network as much as you like, employ as many career development coaches as you can afford, but if you’re not delivering results, you’re going to stall. Work hard, use your energy, and keep your end goals top of mind.

Build your Capital

Reputation, experience and qualifications are the three areas of your career that build capital. Are there any training courses or workshops that would enhance your capabilities or qualifications? Have you talked to your organisation about support, including financial support options, for further training and development?

Get Out There and Network

It’s not just who you know – it’s who knows you and the work that you do. Impress with your initiative and ask to take the lead on projects or new opportunities at work. Success in areas outside your main duties will get you noticed and give you opportunities to impress others.

Work with a Career Coach

A mentor is able to give you lots of valuable advice, and connections too. But a dedicated career coach can help you develop a successful career strategy, identify the skills you need to work on, and help you build on these skills. They can also help you address any managerial challenges you face without making expensive career mistakes.

At The Talent Hive we specialise in connecting Engineering & IT professionals with the right career opportunities. We encourage collaboration, socialising your success and sharing industry insight and expertise. Start the journey, connect with The Talent Hive today.

EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES FOR RECRUITING IT TALENT

Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:01:41 GMT

New Zealand businesses in search of IT talent know how challenging it is hiring in a tight candidate market. The skills gap is real and growing, making recruitment challenges particularly pronounced for IT positions.

In an IT market starved for talent, how should HR/Business leaders respond to a climate in which the right people for the job are scarce and expensive?

Enhance the Perception of Your Brand

Today’s IT professionals are pestered by recruiters on frequent basis, but few are going to jump ship until they’re approached by a company that has an impressive online profile. Google receives over 3 million applications a year. Branding is important. So, time to evaluate your employer value proposition (EVP), which is what an employer expects from its employees and what it provides in return. Step outside the business and try and see your company as a potential IT job candidate would. This type of assessment will help guide improvements to reposition your brand as a destination for talent.

Examine Your Communications Approach

For the first time in history, we now have four generations in the workplace. Each has its own needs, expectations and experiences, so a one-size-fits-all communication strategy for recruitment isn’t going to cut it. Segment your EVP communication by generation for improved results.

Look at How You Hire

According to research from recruiting and ATS software company Lever, candidates referred to a company have a one-in-16 chance of getting hired; candidates submitted by a recruiting agency or firm have a one-in-22 chance while a proactively sourced candidate’s chances are one in 72. Candidates who apply via a company’s career site or job posting have the worst chance of being hired; only one out of 152 applicants land a job that way.

So the way you hire matters. It’s not about getting a whole lot of people to apply, it’s about attracting the right people to apply. Otherwise you’re not being efficient. This is where a dedicated IT recruitment agency can really prove its worth to your organisation.

Know Your Market

Getting to know what IT job seekers are looking for will help you create employment packages that are more attractive. A 2016 Job Seeker Nation survey uncovered the most common reasons why job seekers jump ship:

Almost 40% of job seekers are looking for better work-life balance
Better pay (61%) heads the pack of reasons
But location (42%), health benefits (36%) and growth opportunities (35%) aren’t far behind
Company culture (21%) and leadership (15%) aren’t top of the pile, but they shouldn’t be discounted as unimportant factors

When you’re aware of the factors currently making IT professionals switch jobs, you’re better placed to craft a compelling pitch to candidates.

Improve the Candidate Experience

Look at your recruiting process from beginning to end. You want to make it as effortless as possible for the best candidates to apply. Think about your candidate experience as you would your customer journey. Put a premium on efficiency, but remember that the way you treat people who at every stage of the process matters. Look at ways to gather and analyze data around your processes so you can get rid of stumbling blocks, and make it an easy process no matter which route candidates choose to apply.

WHY (JOB) HOPPING LIKE A KANGAROO CAN BE GOOD FOR YOUR CAREER

Mon, 20 Sep 2021 02:59:34 GMT

In the past, a career often meant a job for life. Both employees and employers would expect people to remain with the same company for an extended period of time before moving on, if they jumped ship at all that is.

Today it’s different. New Zealand’s now a nation of job hoppers, and that can be a great thing.

New Zealanders change jobs often. The most-common amount of time we spend in our job is one to three month.

And career hopping is something that younger workers seem much more comfortable with.

Younger workers and smaller firms have a higher turnover rate.
Workers aged 40 years and over have a much lower turnover rate.

Job hopping used to be frowned upon, seen as a sign of low-loyalty, impatience or maybe conflicts at each company you’d worked at. Today, job hopping can actually be a good thing. It’s gaining changing the job market for workers regardless of age.

Here are some of the reasons why changing up your career can actually be of benefit:

Skills Boost

Whether you know it or not, each new job you have will teach you new skills. You could be introduced to new software, processes, machinery, techniques and ideas. And you’ll always be adding new people skills, being thrown in with a fresh mix of new colleagues to learn from and collaborate with. Over the long term, this build up of skills makes a very valuable employee.

Networking

Job hopping does more than add skills to your CV, it adds contacts to your network too. All these new contacts may be able to help you with your next career move, and you may be able to help them. This can be invaluable to a long-term career. You never know where your network may take you.

Getting To Know Yourself

When you’re not sure what you really want to do, job hopping can help you figure it out more quickly. By experimenting with a number of jobs, you’ll get a better sense of what you like, what you don’t like, and get focused on your true career path earlier than you might otherwise.

Career Control

Job hopping can give you more of a sense of control over your salary and your career. Sticking it out with one employer means you may be missing out on better opportunities and better pay elsewhere.

Industry Knowledge

Working at a variety of organisations within the same industry gives you a better perspective of what’s going on in that sector as a whole. Keep an eye out for patterns and common practices, both good and bad, which can help you spot future areas for change or improvement.

So Long, Boredom!

For some, the security and sense of community that comes with staying with the same company for years is just the ticket. For others, staying in the same job long term means motivation can lag, ideas can dull and it becomes easier to disengage. Switching jobs can help keep things fresh, with new ideas, practices, and even a physical change of workplace giving you and your career a new kick start.

You’ll become adaptable to change

Staying with the same company long term can make you resistant to change. Growing comfortable with the same methods, practices and ways of thinking can lead to sluggish performance and poor adaptability. For job hoppers, adapting to change becomes second nature, and this is a real asset for employers, especially start-ups, looking for innovative candidates.

And a change in job doesn’t necessarily require a change in employer!

GIVING AN INTERVIEW TO REMEMBER (OR HOW TO BUILD COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE)

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 02:50:36 GMT

Often designers (graphic/industrial) use portfolios to showcase their work. But I’d recommend every candidate compiling a portfolio of their work/projects. It’s an effective way of demonstrating real life experience and will help you keep an interview on track and focused.

If you find the interview environment challenging (and most do!) then it can be a great aide to nerves and allow you to truly differentiate yourself from the competition. If you can host it online and allow access to it from your LinkedIn or online profile, then even better.

What is an Interview Portfolio?

It’s essentially a short presentation of your skills and experience. It should be visually engaging, like an infographic that’s easy to skim through. It’s easiest to create a portfolio in PowerPoint, using the Atitlan Template, and saving as a PDF for easy printing. It should include:

An introduction
Professional background summary
STAR behavioural examples
Awards and recommendations
Sample solution(s) – identify a specific problem common to the sector you’re in, or that you’ve uncovered during your company research, and explain how you’d address it
A closing page

It is essentially a show and tell of your skills, the goal is to get the interviewer to visualise you solving problems for them. Putting together a portfolio:

Makes you look and sound more credible, polished and professional
Shows your enthusiasm for getting the job
Keeps you on track during interviews
Puts you in control, directing the conversation
Makes you feel more comfortable, as you’ll be discussing information that you’ve taken time to think about
To an interviewer, it’s a tangible wonderful showcase of your talent and accomplishments
For you, it’s a also a handy cheat sheet, ensuring you don’t forget to mention anything crucial at interview

But an interview portfolio is far from the only way to stand out from the pack. Here are a few more tips to help you build competitive advantage in interviews.

Extracurricular Experience

In 2015, Victory University of Wellington undertook a study into what employers look for when recruiting students and graduates.

Of the 346 employers who participated, the number one attribute they were looking for was work ethic, but they also considered extracurricular activities important
Employers were keen to see signs of interests that extend beyond academics, including hands-on experience

Extracurricular activities can enhance job applications, resumes and internships, demonstrating that you’re well-rounded, with experience that others in your sector or academic field might not possess.

Many volunteer roles can help you develop personal skills like time management, leadership and team-building, which is particularly advantageous for graduates who might not have much real world experience.

Your Online Presence Is Important

Whether you like it or not, when you’re interviewing for jobs, anyone looking at your CV is also looking you up on Google. If you’re invisible or your Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn profiles look forgotten about, then you will be too. On the other hand, when someone Googles you and, voila, they see an impressive online profile – plenty of followers, networks on LinkedIn and recent tweets of interest – you’ve already packed a punch.

There’s real value in building your personal brand online, so use Social Media to your advantage.

HOW TO MANAGE A NARCISSIST

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 02:44:44 GMT

With selfies and social media comes claims that Millennials are being bitten by the narcissism bug. In the US, diagnoses of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) have risen sharply over the past 10 years. Narcissistic personality traits have risen as much as obesity rates in the last 30 years with fears that the disorder could now be evolving into a phenomenon.

So, if narcissism is on the rise, what does this mean for the workplace. If everyone in the office views themselves as superior, it’s only a matter of time before teamwork suffers and managers struggle to get the best from their employees.

Narcissists themselves can suffer in the workplace as a result of their skewed view of themselves. As Dr. Thomas Gutheil, a senior professor at Harvard Medical School, has pointed out:

“Narcissism can be deadly for a person’s career. With their sense of entitlement, narcissists frequently become embroiled in career damaging workplace conflicts and have problems fulfilling their potential.”

So how can you recognise and successfully manage narcissists in your workplace? The first step is learning how to recognise narcissistic traits, ideally at the hiring stage.

Spotting a Narcissist

There are several traits that narcissists are likely to display in the workplace:

A tendency to exaggerate accomplishments
A tendency to criticise former colleagues in order to show their own superiority
Interested only in what a position will do for them rather than what they can do for the organisation
Pushing for special treatment and benefits that don’t normally go with the position that you are offering
Refusing to cooperate or flying into a rage when teammates fail to recognise the brilliance of their ideas and work

Managing a Narcissist

Struggling? Here are five steps to successfully handling a narcissist in the office

1)Narcissists love to be associated with people of higher status, and as a person in a higher-status position, you can use this to your advantage. Ensure that you command the respect your job role merits, and keep your distance. Let them know that your actions are directly supported by your bosses and senior executives, and name them. Impressed by your status, they’re more likely to respect your ideas, suggestions and instructions.

2) Protect yourself, your own efforts, and recognise the work of others. Narcissists are often keen to claim the responsibility and praise when things are going well. Make sure that you get to know who truly deserves credit for successful projects and results. By rewarding cooperation and teamwork more than individual work in your assessment processes, you can help foster a fairer, more relaxed atmosphere.

3) Narcissists consider few people their equals, so they tend to be poor team players. It’s often impossible to avoid teamwork in the workplace. So, if you do require them to work as part of a team, try to get them together with people you know they respect, admire or consider high status.

4) Another narcissist’s trait is to ask you to bend the rules a bit for them, ask for special favours, etc. Don’t. The more you cave, the more you risk favouring them over other team members. Play by the rules and stand firm.

5) Remember that no one succeeds alone. Whatever the company scale and whatever your industry, working as a team is what lies behind real success. It’s easy to forget the importance of group effort in today’s self-promotional and competitive world.

GROUNDLINE ENGINEERINGIS SKY HIGH WITH CAREER OPPORTUNITY

Mon, 20 Sep 2021 02:38:31 GMT

Groundline Engineering is a specialist consultancy with expertise in transmission and distribution asset optimisation including Line Engineering, Asset Condition Management, Testing and R&D. Over the past thirteen years they have developed a strong market position built on quality, innovation and the consistent delivery of complex projects to their expanding international client base.

Richi Cleland is a Director of Groundline Engineering and his background is in transmission line engineering; onsite project engineering and management of network construction projects. Although these days he is seldom found on the tools, Richi gets considerable enjoyment managing and overseeing his teams who deliver for clients across New Zealand and Australia.

Although Richi is a busy man we managed to grab a few minutes of his time to find out more about the story behind why this consultancy has become such as success story and a great place to grow your engineering career.

Ground Line Engineering seems to be going from strength to strength, what is the secret to the company’s success to date?

It comes down to a number of approaches and operational strategies;

The team culture & communication:
Work smart, work together; uphold the right to dissent and challenge.
Listen to the client, identify firm scopes and early engagement when challenges arise.
Cross business integration and a lack of Silos within our broader team. With knowledge shared across four offices in different time zones, intra office communication and sharing of expertise is encouraged. The use of video conferencing with a flat management structure provides a competitive advantage when delivering best resource to clients.

What are the company’s main objectives over the next year?

To continue to build on customer delivery and satisfaction. Part of this objective includes building the team across all three countries. We have added significantly to the team in 2017 and need a few more talented people with similar values.
To Commercialise our Innovation; Following internal development of leading technologies and product offerings, Groundline is well placed to deliver to the industry, improvements in asset management and public safety. Key to this has been the development and commercialisation of THOR, our non-destructive timber pole tester together with the introduction of Covered Conductor technology to South Eastern Australia in the battle against bushfires.

What kind of new recruits are you looking for to help you achieve these objectives?

A motivated doer with excellent communication skills. We place high priority on having the right people join us. The ability to lead, participate and work collaboratively within the team is as important as technical capability.

What attracts Engineers to your industry and to working with Groundline?

A lack of Silo’s, we do not have or want a ‘cubicle culture’.
Access to excellent technical support and on the job training.
Also, we’re a bunch of good buggers!

Tell us a little about the challenges new recruits can look forward to getting their teeth into over their first 6 months?

Maintaining an ageing asset base. Challenges of ensuring infrastructure meets community and client expectations.
Our current projects are focused on asset optimisation, upgrades, replacement of existing infrastructure and integration of new generation into existing grids.
This involves engineering assessment of existing structures and foundations, replacement and upgrading of conductors, design of new connections and construction support to contractors.

Where do you see the future for your industry?

We are a niche player in supporting the supply of a key infrastructure. Society expects reliable power supply, expects it to be as cost effective as possible, as well as supplied and maintained with least impact to the environment.

Until very recently, new lines were still being constructed; current work has focused on maintaining and optimising existing infrastructure; and the challenge for the power industry now is forecasting future demand and the impacts of new technologies.

On one side we have real time line rating, distributed storage, and local (solar/windfarm) technologies that will assist in smoothing out peak demand; on the other we have increased demand for clean energy to support a growing population and the reality of electric cars and distributed generation. Our population is forecast to grow 25% over the next 20 years and currently only 25% of our total energy use is met by electricity.

The need for a reliable and stable grid will not diminish and has potential for significant growth. The integration of new technologies into the grid and increased energy demand form part of the interesting challenges ahead.

How important is a positive organisational culture for your business?

It’s a core value and 100% priority.

How did you get into Transmission Line Engineering?

Job opportunities were tight in the late 90’s. A tutor pointed out opportunities for engineers in the power game so I called Ian (my fellow director), whom was working for Alstom at the time, to see if anything was going. He found something for me because he initially liked that fact I got off my arse and sought out the opportunity.

I worked for Alstom in a summer placement after which I was offered a full-time position. Ian moved to Australia one month later, taking on a variety of positions and placements across the industry.

What was your inspiration for establishing your own engineering consultancy?

Ian & I were both seeking change and could see the opportunity to consult in our areas of expertise. We founded the company in 2004, with the aim of providing non-destructive technology and solid engineering services to the power line industry. Some Thirteen years later with offices in three countries we are one of the largest dedicated power line consultancies in Australasia and have recently established in the UK where we now find ourselves as preferred suppliers to many industry participants.

What are the biggest changes that you have seen within the industry over the past 5-10 years?

The introduction of what we call the ‘procurement lead revolution’. The cost to secure work has significantly increased. Procurement teams require more detail than tendering direct to the technical team whom want the delivery, as it once was.

Engineering requirement and capability within the contractors that service the industry has diminished. I put this down to a shift away from design/build services supplied by a contractor to the design being completed by consultants such as ourselves.

What engineering challenges lay ahead for the industry?

The advent of new technology such as electric cars, and improved renewable energy sources (such as solar and wind) requires a solid power grid.

Improving the understanding the grids limitations in terms of both power transfer and end of life expectations coupled with stronger and more frequent climatic events, provides solid challenges for the engineering sector within the power line industry.

The Buzz | August 12th

Fri, 13 Aug 2021 12:46:55 GMT

Penny is back with The Buzz again this week which features a number of great IT opportunities! Interested in the below? Check out our Jobs page for more jobs or contact us at team@thetalenthive.co.nz

https://talenthive.nz/job-results

The Buzz | Groundline Edition

Fri, 06 Aug 2021 13:03:23 GMT

We are thrilled to be working with global engineering consultancy Groundline who specialise in providing transmission and distribution lines engineering services to network operators and service providers. Groundline has secured more critical projects and as a result, is seeking to bolster its engineering team with top performers.

CHECK OUT THE VIDEO BELOW FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THESE EXCITING OPPORTUNITIES AND GET IN TOUCH WITH US FOR MORE INFORMATION.

The Buzz Now Hiring: Solutions Architect & Creative Copywriter

Thu, 08 Jul 2021 13:06:58 GMT

We’re back with The Buzz, check out Penny’s latest highlighted jobs and get in touch with us if you’re looking for work!

The Buzz – Now Hiring – Technical Lead, Full Stack Developer

Thu, 24 Jun 2021 13:17:58 GMT

The Buzz is Back! This week we have 2 featured roles including a Technical Lead for Software and Applications Development and a 3 month Full Stack Developer contract. To find out more check out our jobs page.

The Buzz – Now Hiring – Testing Roles

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 13:21:46 GMT

Welcome to The Buzz. There is a Test theme to today’s Buzz, with the first role being a permanent opportunity for a Test Analyst, the second being a senior level Test Automation Specialist for a 6-month hourly rate contract and finally a senior level Test Analyst for another 6-month hourly rate contract. If these sound like you get in touch with us at team@thetalenthive.co.nz or check out more on our website https://thetalenthive.co.nz/

The Buzz This Week – Now Hiring – Senior Test Analyst, a Full Stack Developer, a Senior Marketer and a Digital Copywriter

Thu, 03 Jun 2021 13:26:45 GMT

Welcome to The Buzz. This week we’re looking for a Senior Test Analyst, a Full Stack Developer, a Senior Marketer and a Digital Copywriter. If these sound like you get in touch with us at team@thetalenthive.co.nz or check out more on our website https://thetalenthive.co.nz/

THE BUZZ – NOW HIRING – TECHNICAL BUSINESS ANALYST, FULL STACK DEVELOPER & NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE ARCHITECT

Fri, 14 May 2021 13:36:43 GMT

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THE BUZZ THIS WEEK – EXPERTISE NEEDED – FUNCTIONAL CONSULTANT, FULL STACK DEVELOPER, SOFTWARE DEVELOPER

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 12:43:59 GMT

CHRISTCHURCH TECH STORIES: FLUENTIQ

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 13:30:55 GMT

Christchurch Tech Stories: FluentIQ

Christchurch’s tech sector is proud to be world class, connected and creative. The Talent Hive has been working on a blog series with a number of Tech employers in the region and we’re delighted to share those with you over the next few weeks.

FluentIQ delivers online testing of English communication ability, helping candidates find more success in the job market, and providing businesses with key data to make lower risk hiring decisions. To find out how this project benefits both sides of the applicant-recruiter table, we sat down with Andy McLeod, Director of Sales & Partnerships at FluentIQ, to find out more.

How and why did FluentIQ come to life?

The original founders were working on linguistics tools in partnership with the New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour at the University of Canterbury. It was a natural collision of an existing concept being introduced to someone who was intensely active in the UX and UI space. That was the introduction, which culminated in the three founders forming FluentIQ two and a half years ago.

Communication capability is the key skill set in every job in the market, in some way or another, previously there was no swift, reliable and cost effective way to test this – the industry opportunity for us was clear.

Which industries/sectors stand to benefit most from overcoming unconscious bias in their recruitment process?

All organisations can benefit from the removal of the subconscious bias. But primarily, after 25 years in the Talent sector, I’d say the recruitment industry is actually one of the worst offenders in terms of unconscious bias.

This bias can discriminate against someone’s location, area code, their last name, and can also reinforce natural assumptions. So companies that assume they need local experience – that’s probably code for ‘oh, we don’t think person x can communicate’.

So anyone that’s got a need for front line, second-tier support, health sector, talent there’s a massive shortage. Any organisation that doesn’t currently have a talent pool they can readily tap into should be looking at exposing themselves to a tool of this nature.

In terms of workforce diversity, have you observed disparities between small startups and large corporations? How do you account for these disparities?

Yes, we have. We encounter it in our own business. I think small businesses are a lot more nimble and, to be frank, you can acquire fantastic, international, global skill sets for less than you would normally. That’s because a candidate will probably take what they can get because they’re not being treated on an equal footing with other candidates in senior roles.

In our small team of 10 people, we’ve got 4 different nationalities. So I think we’re reflective of a lot of SMEs in that they’re more prepared to take a risk because you can manage it better, you can have development profiles in place, and the composition of your team is a lot easier to see.

Corporates – talk a great game and they’re actively using the word ‘diversity’ – it’s really a corporate catch-cry. There’s inherent bias. They’re perhaps being run by people that haven’t been exposed to significant diversity their working or personal life.

It’s a lot easier to shift the small, nimble boat than the aircraft carrier. We definitely see that in the smaller SMEs – and that’s 95% of the country.

A global workforce is more future-proof than one drawn solely from an EFL talent pool. How do you get this message across to risk-averse entrepreneurs whose intuitions tell them otherwise?

Another good question. If you want to scale and access global markets you can’t just be looking within your own borders. We’ve got exposure to the UK, Vietnam, India, US, Australia and to the Ukraine. You rarely find that experience set wrapped up in a person residing within Canterbury that happens to look the same and talk the same as you.

If you’re staying within the confines of your own borders, it limits you at every stage of your growth and your development. So competitive advantage will be grabbed by those that embrace border-less talent. It’s a lot easier to take a risk if you’re aware and you’ve got data to make those risk decisions and then mitigate them.

What feedback have you received from ESL candidates? Are they listing FluentIQ certification on their CVs or is it something that comes up at the interview stage?

Those that have online CVs embed the link to our test results and people with LinkedIn profiles are able to have this reside as a certification in their LinkedIn page. So, you can see the person’s FluentIQ profile on their LinkedIn profile. They’re embracing that as a way to stand out in a massive pool of people that are actually being eliminated as applcants in under two or three seconds based on name.

The feedback we get is it’s been the easiest to execute, i.e., it’s user friendly, it’s relevant, they can see the relevance because it’s real-world English. They can see how it can assist them getting a role, because it’s a measure of where they are right now.

If they aspire to a particular role, it shows them that, ‘you know what, I’ve got a bit of a journey to get on’, as opposed to spending a couple of hundred dollars and many months to achieve an academic qualification and they’re then told no, based on someone’s assumption on their last name.

So, it saves a lot of time and hassle, at a logistics, cost and execution level. We’ve been getting some fantastic feedback.

Any predictions for the future of a digitally-native workforce? Will the concept of nationhood cease to matter?

When we refer to borderless talent, it’s being hampered by political rhetoric, and there’s no way you’re going to be able to shift that quickly. The greatest scapegoats are always migrants and it’s happened for the last 200 years.

I think that any organisation, or any country, that can actually be creative enough in attracting the right talent and ensuring that this talent is properly looked after when it comes into your country, the competitive advantage is going to be phenomenal.

We all know the numbers, the talent shortages in New Zealand, in Australia. In the UK too – 30% of their health sector is going to retire in the next five years. You can’t grow it and you can’t develop it internally. They’ll be many millions of people short, and then they’ve just introduced barriers to entry, so that’s going to have an impact on the retiring population – and there’s nothing worse than pissing off retired people. You really don’t want to do that.

And as group of voters, I think they’re going to be ensuring that we need people to be there. Not only to build products, to service them, but to do those roles that traditionally the migrant groups come and pick up as cultures establish their foot hold in new land .

I think the scariness of AI that people focus on is misguided. We’ve got the machine-learning in part of our product, but we’ve overlaid it with a human interface. There’s a rationale behind that, because we’re dealing with a very human product.

It’s about empowering people and giving them the tools. Not using technology as a club to beat people over the head with or a crutch to lean on, but as a tool to empower you to make the best decisions. That’s where we see the future of AI technologies that are enhancing people’s lives not taking away opportunity. Quite the contrary, we’re giving opportunity to people.

What’s coming up for FluentIQ over the next 12 months and what’s exciting your team most of all?

We’ve got ongoing research happening and that covers a number of layers. One example is industry specific. There is industry specific language content we are exploring such as aviation and IT , etc. So we’re looking at expanding our tools in those directions.

We will have a full mobile version of our product out in March 2018 which we are very excited about. We have integrations with the top Applicant Tracking Systems around the world, so that will expose us to maybe 40,000 customers that use those products, and the top three recruiters in the world will soon have access to our product as well. So the scale is exciting.

We’ve got entry partners into India and Vietnam that we’re working on right now, and that is phenomenal. For a company who released its product seven months ago, we’re having organisations coming to us that you would struggle normally to get an audience in the front door.

So it’s exciting times but we’re also going to be careful to focus on the basics and not to get distracted by shiny objects and go off on the wrong tangent. But I think, for a small team, we’ve achieved some fairly fantastic stuff.

Start ups are tough so I think if we asked the team that question, they’d say they’re looking forward to a holiday break!

This interview is condensed and edited for clarity.

CHRISTCHURCH TECH STORIES: SMUDGE APPS

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 13:48:40 GMT

Smudge Apps have been building mobile solutions for regional and international brands for nigh on a decade. Bona fide mobile veterans, they carved out a spot in the nascent app space and dug their heels in just as the smartphone was going mainstream. This self-described ‘experienced and nimble’ company is one of New Zealand’s star performers in software development – which is why The Talent Hive was delighted when Toby Vincent, Co-Founder at Smudge, agreed to sit down for a chat with us.

Tell us a little bit about Smudge. How did you get here?

Toby: Smudge has been on a little bit of a journey. We’ve changed a lot since we started nine years ago, sitting in [Smudge co-founder] Reuben’s bedroom during the holidays making very, very simple apps, potentially trying to make some money. We were just looking strategically at what was performing well on the App Store, building something similar, and putting it up. We’d built a lot of things and only really invested time in something if it actually started getting some traction.

One of the first things we built was a Halloween soundboard. That was where we started. We made 50 apps in three months. We wouldn’t build anything that would take more than two days. A big project for us was a week!

Then we started doing some corporate work in New Zealand. We focused on what we really wanted on our iPhones. It’s not like now – the iPhone was still viewed in corporate New Zealand as a marketing opportunity at best, or a novelty at worst.

Through persistence and a couple of years’ work, we managed to build quite a few consumer-facing apps that we wanted to see, like the Vodafone My Account app. You could pay for your phone bill and see how many minutes you’ve got left, which was a big deal for us, because we were seeking every cent out of our $20 a month plans!

We built some of Sky TV’s stuff. That one took a while. I think we first discussed streaming Sky TV on iPhones three or four years before we eventually ended up doing Sky Go.

You’re in the pit with the big IT vendors in New Zealand.

T: Absolutely. It’s gotten more and more that way. Now we’re predominantly focused on enterprise apps and taking some of those learnings we’ve got from building apps for large audiences. If you’re building an app for 100,000 people you have to be able to build something that people can just pick up and use with no training. It’s very different from the corporate world, where they roll out a tool and they go ‘ok, what’s our roll-out strategy and how are we going to train everybody on it?’

We wanted to bring some of those ideas of simplicity and consumer-level experience. We started doing a lot of work in the enterprise space, which is what we do now. We work in two key industries right now. FMCG – Fast-Moving Consumer Goods, with Coca-Cola’s regional bottler Coca-Cola Amatil, across New Zealand, Australia and Indonesia. For them we built a bunch of mobility tools to help power their business; sales tools to help the sales representatives go out and take orders; the iPhone tool used by delivery drivers to drop stock off; coaching tools for sales teams. The list goes on.
That’s a lot of infrastructural support to come from a small company.

T: There are fifteen of us in the office, yet we’re building the software that in some cases – Coke, for instance – is accounting for billions of dollars of sales going ordered through the products we build every year and it’s critical to their business.

The journey from a good concept to an effective, marketable piece of software is long and in most cases will remain incomplete. With so many developers out there, how do you ensure your software completes that journey?

T: I think the key word that you said there was incomplete, and I think that’s exactly right. Good software is about iteration. It’s about refining things. Part of that is to do with the ways software development methodology has changed. Once upon a time, most people approached software like building a house, where you’d spec it all out, design everything exactly how you want it, choose every material, decide where you want every wall and every beam, and you go and pour the concrete. Once it’s done, you test it and make sure it works. Software was built like that: spec it out, build it, test it.

It works. But, if you’re building a big project there can be a year in between. Where you go I specced that out a year ago and then it took a year to build. By then, is the house that I thought I wanted a year ago still the house I want now?

Software’s changed a little bit now. Now it’s essentially building a house one room at a time, getting feedback on each room and seeing what people think of it.

I think that iteration a big part of building great software. The other part is obviously a focus on the users and understanding what their actual needs are, and then building software for them that actually meets those needs.

Often when people are building software they have one of those two things. They might have an understanding of what the user needs and what the pain points are, but it’s harder to build stuff that solves some of those problems. Often it takes longer and is more complicated, harder. Yeah, it’s really that care and understanding, that empathy for the users that we care about.

In the Smudge book you talk about generating ‘concrete insights into the audience we are targeting’ and how to convert those insights into ‘refined, sharable ideas and user experiences’ – could you illustrate this process with an example you’ve worked on?

T: The book you’re referring to is actually going to be one of three. We think good software’s all about balance between that user-centric experience, good technology and commercial viability. It’s a balance between those three things. In that one book we talk a lot about the audience and the usability, but we don’t think that’s the only important bit in making good software obviously, you can have the best user experience in the world but if the technology doesn’t support it in scale and every time you open it it crashes, hey, it doesn’t matter. It’s about balance.

In terms of those concrete insights, probably the predominant way we do that is through developing that empathy for the user. Firstly by observation. So, with New Zealand Police, we built a tool for their frontline force, that provides intelligence in the field and enables things like issue speeding tickets and issue traffic-crash reports and so on. To build that we really needed to understand what cops do – the pain points and the variability of their job.

So we spent a lot of time in the back of police cars and working with a lot of people internally at police who were from the frontline in workshops, trying to understand not just what the workflow should look like on paper, and what the person would say is best practices, but what actually eventuates in the field when you’ve got competing jobs and priorities. Sometimes those things don’t perfectly match up.

After observation is immersion. If we can, we love to go and actually do the job ourselves. Obviously, with police, they’re not going to say ‘hey, here’s a badge, off you go’! But if we’re building an app for cinema ticketing, we can be the consumer and we can go and actually buy cinema tickets in the queue on a busy Saturday night, and we can try and buy one online, and try those different experiences and figure out what’s wrong with each of them ourselves.

Immersion, observation, and the last one is engagement. If we can’t do either of those two things, which are our preference, we just talk to people who are able – in a situation like, with the police, where obviously they won’t let us be involved in, like an armed offender squad call out or something, we’re never going to do and engage an observation with those guys because it’s too dangerous. So, we talk to people about their experiences.

What are the most common ‘pain points’ you encounter when dealing with businesses? How do these challenges differ between small start ups and huge multinationals (like Coca Cola)?

T: That’s a good question. Probably the most common pain point we see for the people actually on the ground using the stuff we build is frustration with the tools they currently have. We see this quite often where something has been digitised, potentially, it’s not paper anymore, but it hasn’t been done with that care and understanding, that empathy. And so in some cases, it’s made the process worse than paper. Instead of being able to pick up this form, I now have to log into two different systems, remember my passwords, do all that and then find the right place.

Often when we look at the emotions people are feeling and the tools they use at work. Often., that emotion is frustration. When we started working with Coca-Cola, the tools that sales reps were using there was one of the key reasons people were leaving Coca-Cola.

Another common problem is having the data but not the insights. Again, with Coca-Cola, the sales reps would get sent endless spreadsheets, pages and pages of numbers, and the business would say ‘here’s what’s going on in your market, figure out what to do about it’. And it requires quite a lot of analysis to actually look at that, and if you’re a sales rep and you’ve got to also go and see 30 customers in a day physically and you’ve got about seven minutes per store visit, which is the schedule they operate on to try and get everything done, you’re probably not sitting down analyzing spreadsheets very often. You know, you don’t have time to sit there and actually think about it. So we try to look at how we can give people the insight rather than the raw data.

With smaller companies and startups, the pain point is technical delivery – sticking on track and building something. Building the software delivery team that’s able to perform at a high level and be able to build stuff that’s good. That’s quite hard.

It’s been said that New Zealand generally under-invests in tech R & D. What’s your view? Is the situation beginning to change?

T: This is not an area of particular expertise for me, so I just have my opinion. This is maybe not Smudge’s opinion! Perhaps New Zealand does under-invest in technology R&D, but on the other hand we do have some of the best technology infrastructure in the world. New Zealand’s UFB infrastructure is world-class. Most countries do not have fibre to the door, and sets up New Zealand very well for future tech innovation.

Secondly, we’ve got an amazing cell network. Vodafone’s network is one of the best in the world. In terms of infrastructure, we’re bang on. Government and large private companies have put the money in the right places and done things that matter in terms of infrastructure.

In terms of R&D, yeah, maybe we are a little bit – if you look at the technology success stories and, based on the infrastructure we have, we don’t have that many global success stories.

At the same time we’re uniquely positioned to be focusing, especially down in Christchurch, we’re traditionally an agricultural economy, and somewhere like Christchurch with its rich hardware technology background could be a great hub for investment and innovation and agri-tech businesses and the Internet of Things, hardware engineering things based around that agriculture sector.

So, it would be nice to see Christchurch – I guess, you know, maybe Wellington’s got that image of ‘we’re the software capital’. It would be nice if Christchurch could get viewed as ‘we’re the hardware capital’ and we’re building things in that Internet of Things agri-tech space. That’s just a personal view though.

This interview is condensed and edited for clarity.

ASKING ALL THE RIGHT QUESTIONS?

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 13:54:03 GMT

An interview is more than just a way for hiring managers to suss you out and see if you’re up to the job – it’s also a chance for you to ask some questions and find out if this job and company are the right fit for you.

So what kind of questions should you be asking?

It’s time to think about what do you want to know about the role, the company, the department and who you’ll be working with. Here are some key questions to get you started. Some of the points raised will certainly be covered during the course of your interview, so you can pick and choose which remain relevant.

Try and weave these questions into discussion rather than delivering them rapid fire, and save one or two for the inevitable ‘So, do you have any questions for us?’ part of the wrap-up stage of the interview.

The Role

You want to find out more about the day-to-day responsibilities and tasks involved with the job, and how adequately skilled or how keen you are to handle these.

Can you see examples of projects you’d be working on?
What skills and experiences are they looking for in an ideal candidate?
What attributes does a person need to succeed in this position?
Do they expect the main responsibilities for the role to change in the next six months to a year?
What are the major challenges that a person in this position will face?
What does a typical working day look like?
What projects will need to be immediately addressed?
What budget will you be working with?
Is this an existing or newly created role?
What skills is the existing team missing that they’re looking to find with a new hire?

Your Progress

You’ll want to find out up front what the goals of the role are and how your progress and success will be measured.

What is the performance review process here?
How often will you be formally reviewed?
What goals or metrics will your performance measured against?
What are the things they would most like to see you accomplish in the first 30, 60, and 90 days of the job?
What are the performance expectations of this position over the initial year?

Professional Development Opportunities

Think about how this role can help you get take the next step towards your career goals.

How are you going to be trained?
Where has the person who last held this job moved on to?
Where have successful employees who held this position progressed to?
Are there training programmes available to employees?
What are the opportunities for professional development and career advancement?
Will you be able to represent the organisation at industry conferences?

The Organisation

Think about what you want to know about the company as a whole.

Where do they see the company headed in the next few years?
What about the company’s future most excites them?
What can they tell you about new products, projects or plans for growth?
You’ve read about the company’s founding, but could they tell you more about ___?
What are the organisation’s current goals, and how does the team you’d be working with support reaching those goals?

Who You’ll Be Working With

Find out more about the people you’ll be working alongside to figure out if it’s the right team for you.

Who will you report to directly?
Who will you be working alongside?
Who will you be working with most closely?
What are the current team’s strengths and their biggest challenges?
Which other departments work most closely with this one?
Do they expect to hire any more people for this team in the next six months?
What are the common career paths in this team and wider department?

Your Interviewer

Asking your interviewer questions about themselves and their role at the company can help you build rapport, and get a personal view of what it’s like to work here.

What’s their favorite part of working here?
How long have they been working with the organisation?
Why did they come to this company?
What did they do before the joined the team here?
Has their role changed much since they joined the company?

POWER YOUR TEAM WITH DIVERSITY

Mon, 08 Mar 2021 13:17:31 GMT

I recently spent some time watching my daughter go through preseason trials for her local football team. The team that she was grouped with for the final match of the afternoon represented a diverse range of kids with a common love for the beautiful game. The’y hadn’t played together before or even met. Most were relative newcomers to the area and some were new to New Zealand. But in a short space of time they managed to bring together their collective experience, styles and ideas to build a game plan. They proceeded to play their opposition of the field. It made me stop to consider how much richer sports teams and teams in general can be when they tap into the power that can be found in diversity.

Diversity in the workplace isn’t about ethnic or gender-based quota filling, it’s about drawing on the widest possible range of experiences in order to build a creative, productive team. By hiring talent with varying perspectives, your team and company will be richer, both culturally and financially.

Research has shown that diversity improves performance and job satisfaction, particularly among teams whose core focus is the implementation of ideas (rather than the generation of ideas). When you are trying to action, say, a new marketing strategy, it may feel comfortable to be surrounded by like minded thinkers who share your expectations and observations. But this comfort zone is the enemy of true innovation. In a team with a wide range of lived experience, any given idea will come up against constructive criticism – a necessary condition of first-rate solution development. Diversity of ideas fosters creative friction which, though potentially painful in the short term, delivers manifold benefits to the overall success of the business and the well-being of the workforce.

One of the most obvious advantages of a diverse, dynamic team is the ability to consider the needs of a wider range of demographics. Greater representation, whether in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, background, or outlook, expands the market viability of any business.

But how to build this culture of innovation during the hiring process and beyond? We’ve identified four key steps your business should take to build a diverse team – and get the most out of them.

Establish a Clear Vision

By having a clear vision of what your organization is striving for, you give your employees something to rally around. Writing a short, punchy, memorable mission statement – two sentences at most – is a good start. It should express your vision clearly enough that potential new recruits can understand what you’re all about before joining the team.

Establishing a company-wide vision – early and firmly – will serve as a ‘North Star’ during those inevitable moments when group dynamics start generating more heat than light. Remember, friction = good, fraction = bad. When innovation becomes so wildly creative that it threatens to derail a project, a gentle reaffirmation of the ultimate mission will get things back on track.

Embrace Conflict

Don’t brace yourself for conflict – embrace it. A necessary byproduct of diverse organizations is an increased likelihood of disagreements. Groupthink is easy, but conflict produces better results. Learn to manage conflict in a constructive way by understanding the participation styles and character quirks of each team member, and how those differences play out within the group dynamic. Encourage your team members to embrace conflict as the antidote to narrow, conformist thinking. As long as everyone keeps their head and respects each others’ differences, the benefits of diverse perspectives far outweigh the drawbacks.

Encourage Participation

Diversity of opinion is only valuable if each voice is heard. Team members should feel equally comfortable expressing their opinion and giving divergent viewpoints a fair shake. An advocacy mindset defines objectives as problems to be solved, not decisions to be made.

Evaluate and Recalibrate

Another key requirement for promoting and maintaining diversity is a constant quest to give and receive feedback. Honest feedback is essential for growth, and each task or project should be followed by a debriefing session that allows for open, objective reflection on what did and didn’t work. In addition to the direct lessons drawn from feedback sessions, they establish and reaffirm a positive dynamic within the team – a reminder that everyone is working towards the same ultimate goals: innovation through diversity.

So anyway, here’s to celebrating the start of a new local football season and I hope everyone enjoys being part of the rich experience

Matt is a Director of The Talent Hive and leads the Engineering recruitment practice within the business. Originally from the UK he’s been living in New Zealand for 15 years. Matt is a retired ‘amateur’ athlete who has given up chasing great marathon times for chasing his children around the sports field, a far more worthy (if not exhausting) pursuit.

CHRISTCHURCH TECH STORIES: LINK ENGINE MANAGEMENT

Fri, 05 Mar 2021 13:39:19 GMT

Link Engine Management is a designer and developer of engine management devices and software. Link ECUs (Engine Control Units) are 100% New Zealand designed and developed, with head office based here in Christchurch.. From their humble beginnings in Rally, today the companies products are used in all kinds of car racing and exported to more than 65 countries around the world. We sat down with CEO Andy Millard to discuss the growth of this heroic homegrown company that’s Kiwi through and through. And all the better for it.

Tell us about the genesis of Link Engine Management. It seems to have grown from a real love of motorsports rather than a cynical eye for a business opportunity – is that attitude the secret to your success?

I’ve never heard it described that way, but that is actually the truth. Our founder Philip Royds and his business partner at the time set up a small business – not far from here actually, in Middleton – in an old rundown building. A major change in motorsports, or in cars generally, happened around that time: we went from carburettors to fuel injection.

Fuel injection needed a sophisticated (for the time) electronic engine management system to run the engine, which was a significant change. It also gave young engineers the opportunity to ‘hack’ the systems to maximize the performance of the car, especially for racing, which is what an ECU (Engine Control Unit) does. So, the business grew from there.

These guys were, like all young men, tinkering with their cars. They were out at Ruapuna racing with mates and that’s where the business started – because they had something unique. They had the technology and the skill to be able to create these engine control units, which in those days were quite basic electronics, but enough to be able to tune the car and get some extra power out of it.

They started Link and began selling those ECUs to friends and other racers at Ruapuna, and word got around that this was quite new and clever. That was the G1, our first generation of Link products to be sold.

Then surprisingly – or conveniently – a guy called Possum Bourne heard about the boys, got in touch and said ‘Hey, I hear you’re doing some electronic magic in these cars, would you like to build an ECU for my stable of Subaru WRX rally cars?’ And of course, Philip and his partner jumped at the opportunity, and the PossumLink was born. The rest is history. And Possum was, as everybody knows, a delightful guy. He took that technology around the world. He always took Link with him. And Link grew from there.

So, our heritage is rally, but our passion now is other sports, like drifting and track racing. Now, we’ve got motorsport, power sport, military drones, aircraft, boats, ocean racers, jet skis, snowmobiles. Anything that runs an engine will run a control unit like ours.

You’ve built a reputation for supporting new talent. Has your show of faith been rewarded by brand loyalty?

In terms of our sponsorships you mean?

Yeah.

Yes. I mean, obviously Possum Bourne Motorsport built a business around his success. Today they are a strong customer. Even though he’s gone and it’s now held in other hands.

We sponsor over 100 super-pro racers around the world. These are people at the absolute pinnacle of their sport. Is there loyalty? Yes, there is, and we see a lot of brand following. If you look at our strength in Drift, for example, you’ve got famous names like The Shanahan Brothers out of Ireland, the German Red Bull Drift Brothers, several champion drivers in the Middle East, and the recent winner of Formula Drift in the USA, James Deane. These drivers and teams generate a strong fan base. I always call it the fan boys and girls who follow – and our brand is rewarded. As a result, we have 55,000 fans on Facebook alone.

We’re also very strong on supporting events, because it’s important that there’s are viable competitions for drifters or any motorsport people to go to compete. There’s no point in trying to sell product when there’s no events to race at. Motorsport get young people off the street, it gives them an interest, and if they can go and compete at the weekend it puts that onus back on them to compete at the weekend rather than take it to the streets where it’s dangerous. So we sponsor many mainstream and grassroots motorsport events around the world.

We try to be corporately responsible in that regard!

After 25 years of growing into a global business exporting around the world, your R&D remains entirely NZ-based. Was this a conscious decision? Or is it simply a case of not fixing something that isn’t broken?

No, totally conscious. It is a core value of our business to continue to be proud New Zealanders. And we’re fiercely proud New Zealanders. We just absolutely wear it out there on our sleeves – literally, you’ll see us in our pit shirts at international events, with the Kiwi flag on our arms. We’re very proud.

Even though we know we can get our product manufactured in China at about half the price, how does that help us? How does that help our community if we get it manufactured in China?

We operate absolutely locally. In fact, 99.8% of all our products are designed and manufactured in New Zealand. Even our enclosures for our ECUs, they get made by an aluminium foundry in Auckland, all our PCBs are manufactured locally, and we’ve got a couple of really good partners in that. We do all our assembly locally – even our packaging comes from a local supplier.

So, we’ve made sure of that every step of the way we maintain our Kiwi made theme. We might check prices, and we’ve been courted, particularly in the last 12 months, by overseas investment and manufacturers saying, ‘If you buy from us we’ll give you these incentives’. But we are not interested because we know who we are.

If the aim ultimately was to make a lot of money for our shareholders – which they might argue that it is – then there comes an imperative to go overseas and take our manufacturing to cheaper suppliers. But for us it’s also the quality element as well. It’s important. And with NZ based suppliers we can ensure the quality is maintained.

We have other partners too. We’ve got great relationships with NZTE, ChristchurchNZ, Callaghan Innovations, and they’re good people. University of Canterbury – fantastic. We always have an engineering intern here. If you go downstairs and see the engineering team we’ve got two interns at the moment, and they love coming to work at Link. We give to the community in our small way. We’re supporting, we’re giving back, we’re always part of that.

If the imperative was to make money, then we would manufacture overseas. If the imperative is to build a good quality business with a good heart, then actually we’ll continue to do what we do.

We’re now at a point where we’ve increased our turnover 60% year on year, organic growth, so you’ve also got to look at the fact that we now enjoying economies of scale. Therefore, for all our manufacturers – we’re a very big part of their business. So, you’ve got to think about that. What happens if we do send our stuff overseas? What’s going to happen to those businesses? So, there’s a flow-on effect you need to think about if you decide to take your R&D and/or manufacturing overseas. We ask ourselves, “How are our decisions going to impact positively or negatively on our local suppliers?”

Is there something special about the Kiwi attitude that makes New Zealand so well placed to innovate in motorsports? Or is it just you guys?!

Yeah, I call it ‘isolation-itis’. It’s unique, actually, to Kiwis. Where we think we’re behind the rest of the world. We’ll go to a trade fair in Indianapolis, for example, and we’ll have a look at what the world has on offer in our space. And we’ll go, wow, we could do that, and we’ll race away and we’ll have an idea in our head and we’ll sit down with the engineers and get building. But we think the world’s far ahead of us, because we’re in sunny little New Zealand and we’re way behind. And we’ll produce a product and we’ll do our very best at it, and the next year we’ll take it to PRI or SEMA – international motorsport trade shows – and we’ll go ‘Here everybody, here’s our product. I hope it’s as good as yours’, and everybody looks at our product going ‘This is amazing. It’s so much better than our product.’

The ‘isolation-itis’ is: we think we’re behind the world, behind trends and technological advances, but we’re not. We are spectacularly good and fast at taking products from concept to market. We’re more adaptive, we’re more flexible, we’re more agile to develop new technology because we’re not influenced every day by looking at what the competition are doing. We just crack on and do what we do.

What feedback do you get from your global dealer network? Any insights on what they get from you that they can’t get anywhere

else?

Generally, Kiwis are very modest and unassuming. In fact, we sometimes border on self-deprecation. People say ‘Wow, you’ve got a really good product’ and you go “No, not really, because such-and-such a company is doing slightly better.” I think it’s taken us a while to actually accept the fact that we’re a global leader. We’re one of four global leaders in motorsport technology, in the space we are in. We export to 65 countries across the globe with over 1450 customers … we’re doing alright.

It’s taken us a while to accept that, it’s taken us a while to accept the praise. We go out to our customers annually, do a survey of all our customers, and we’re just overwhelmed by the positive response, especially when compared to our global competitors.

Quality is very important. We pride ourselves on the quality of products we produce. When you ship our products to St. Vincent in the Bahamas or the Seychelles or into Germany, our customers don’t want to have to send product back to New Zealand for a warranty claims. So, we make sure that it’s full tested and 100% reliable before it leaves our factory. Our return rate is less than 0.25% of our current generation of product. So, by the time it leaves here, we can guarantee it’s going to work perfectly.

For that, we get a lot of praise and even, reluctantly, our competition go ‘Yeah, actually, you guys make a good quality product and it shows’.

Where do you see Motorsports heading over the next ten years? What role do you hope to play in its growth?

If I put the futurist’s hat on, and having spent some time at the Canterbury Tech Summit recently, you’d say that the futurists are talking about autonomous cars that will drive you to work while you read the newspaper, and they’ll be electric. For us, this is death by a thousand cuts. But the truth of it is, if you’re using an analogy of the horse and car, when the car came along, the horse became the focus of our leisure activities and we started eventing, hunting, showjumping, trail riding, etc. So we took what was a utilitarian institution and we turned it into the centre of our leisure activities.

The more cars become autonomous and self-drive, the more motorsport is becoming important on the weekend. This is what we are seeing, we are seeing the growth of motorsport, particularly the growth in classic car collectors and people wanting to do up old cars for racing. Likewise, we have seen a growth in all aspect of motorsport in the last five years including some new disciplines such as RallyCross.

Motorsport in the US and classic car racing in the UK has increased 80% in the last 12 months. All these people buying old Renaults, Minis and Alfas and doing them up and going racing at the weekend – this is a huge growth market. The other growth market is performance cars for Track Days. This is where you take your Porsche, Nissan R35 Skyline, HSV to the track once a month and drive fast. It is becoming very popular.

Therefore, I’d say as the more technology reduces human input, I think people will go and test themselves through motorsport. Motorsport will continue to grow. That also includes boat racing, jetskis, snow mobiles, etc.

I think there will be an element of motorsport that will be associated with new technologies, like Formula E, with the electric cars in a Formula One format. You’ll see hybrid cars racing too, but I think you’ll see an awful lot of old-school internal combustion engines playing every weekend.

At the end of the day, what people don’t realise is the predicted growth of electric cars and alternative technology cars relies on a passive petroleum industry, and you know that OPEC is not going to be passive. When they see their money going out the door you’ll see them change their footing and fast. Likewise, the government does not tax electric vehicles and the electricity they use as they do with petrol and diesel vehicles. It will not take long before governments start taxing electric cars and they will quickly lose their commercial advantage. After all, the roads still need to be paid for.

I don’t think the internal combustion engine is dead. I certainly don’t think gasoline-running cars are dead. I think you’ll see much more efficient cars running using much more efficient fuels dominating the global fleet.

… the future is bright!

This interview is condensed and edited for clarity.

RETAINING THE TALENT

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 13:02:27 GMT

How do you retain your good people and what can you do to get it right?

I could start out saying it’s about culture, which obviously it is – but then all the good oil about managing your people comes back to culture, oh and of course communication. Let’s look at this from a slightly more practical angle, of what you do in the short term, while you’re busy working on the culture, which can take a few years and multiple strategies.

How to keep those you want to keep, how to let those go who perhaps would benefit from another organisation and how to work through retirement where the business knowledge is leaving with the individual.

There are 4 distinct categories:

The Talent
The Everyday great people
The Non-performers
The Retirees

They each have distinct requirements and different approaches needed from the business leaders to manage, motivate and engage them.

THE TALENT

Do you know who they are? Did you do something to find out or did they tell you themselves?

Talent in the world of work has many definitions, but I think this one sums it up:

“Those individuals who can make a difference to organisational performance” ( Google )

The people who will help the organisation succeed. They are often the people who are coming up with the great ideas, the ones that the customers rate highly, the ones that demonstrate leadership skills, who people want on their teams or projects. They are also the people who are very attractive to your competitors – they have options.

A relatively simple Talent Identification activity is very effective in determining and discovering who these people are in your business. A facilitated workshop that promotes open discussion between managers can achieve this. This helps with deciding where the effort should go in development and recognition. Then put the effort into developing them, offering them opportunities and recognising them when they have succeeded. The Talent Hive can help with ideas for development of people at various stages, to keep them engaged and not looking outside the business for opportunities.

THE EVERYDAY GREAT PEOPLE

These are the ones who are often overlooked. They are the people who deal with the business as usual, they get stuff done, they don’t cause the organisation or their managers any grief. They come in and do their job. Generally pretty happy with their lot, they don’t have a great drive or desire to make their way up the career or corporate ladder. These people are often the lifeblood of an organisation. Sometimes they don’t want to be noticed or singled out for doing something well (deep down they probably do) but ignore them at your peril. The good regular performers are also very attractive to the market. Make sure you talk to them, keep a dialogue going, understand them and recognise them, just maybe discretely if that’s what they want.

THE NON-PERFORMERS

Oh yes, these people. They bring everyone else down. If you have some in your team and you are not addressing the issues, then you risk losing your good people . Your competitors are not interested in the non-performers. Along with not doing the job you need them to be doing, they are also probably distracting or disrupting others, when they are at work, because they may also be your high users of sick leave. The interesting thing when you actually address this situation, is they already know that they are not performing, they have been hoping no-one will notice.

There are two options: help them improve or to help them find the best role for their skills and abilities, which may be outside your organisation. It is very bad practice to move poor performers around an organisation, it doesn’t solve the problem, well it does for one manager, but it creates a problem for another and makes you unpopular. Take up the challenge, be courageous and sort the non-performers out, for everyone’s sake!

THE RETIREES

This group is awesome. They have heaps of skills, loads of institutional knowledge and are often very loyal, having been with an organisation for many years of their working life. There is no retirement age in NZ, but for the purposes of this article, we’ll say 65, which is when you have access to the Government Superannuation Fund. While they are approaching retirement, say from 60 – 63 onwards, it’s a good idea to offer access to some support and start them thinking about the next stage in their life. Some people fear what it will mean for them, how will they fill their days, will they miss their workmates? When people retire, they often grieve the loss of the everyday routine.

Sometimes a graduated retirement is the best thing. Dropping back to a 3-day work week for a year or two can help them to start finding ways to fill in the newly available hours. It may free up some budget to bring in a junior as well. Check out this article The Grandparent in the Corner Office . Also utilise these great resources to transfer knowledge, upskill others, time spent as a mentor can make the last couple of years very fulfilling.

If you have a people management challenge going on within your business, you may not have all the tools in your own toolkit. If you would like some help with talent identification, recognition and reward, managing poor performers or helping people with graduated retirement programmes, then get in touch – it’s what we do here at The Talent Hive.

Wendy McArthur is the Principal Consultant – People and Culture at The Talent Hive, she offers a pragmatic and practical approach, builds lasting relationships and works with clients to provide tailored business solutions across organisation, people and culture. She spends her quality non work time with friends and family and is currently extending the grey matter and learning French.

At The Talent Hive we specialise in connecting Engineering, IT and HR professionals with the right career opportunities. We also offer a variety of business solutions around people capability from talent identification, performance and objective setting to remuneration and reward systems and advice. Start the journey, connect with The Talent Hive today.

HOW SAFE IS YOUR JOB?

Sun, 20 Sep 2015 05:18:16 GMT

The patchy, piecemeal recovery from the global recession of 2009 has fostered an attitude of cautious optimism among economists. But even as the economy slowly regains its former strength, another threat to middle class job security has reared its head: technology.

Automation has changed the way large-scale, repetitive tasks are performed; online commerce has caused retailers to re-think their strategies, and in some cases abandon brick and mortar outlets altogether; even relatively new jobs like data entry are being replaced by software. Travel agents and postal workers are feeling the squeeze from the Internet and email respectively.

These trends, combined with Moore’s Law (which states that computer power roughly doubles every 18 months) are understandably anxiety-inducing for many employees who already work in roles involving technology. Even if their job is safe for now, with automation actively helping them perform better, there lingers a suspicion that the technology currently on show represents the thin end of a very big wedge.

If you’re worried about your job, console yourself with the fact that forecasts of tech-driven mass unemployment have been bandied about since the Industrial Revolution – and they’re yet to prove accurate. Specific jobs may fade into obscurity over time (switchboard operators, weavers, human alarm clocks… no, really) but fears of sudden societal collapse caused by cross-industry automation are unfounded. Demand for goods and services continues to rise, and workers facing obsolescence in one industry quickly adapt to another. In 20 years we’ll see jobs we can’t currently imagine emerge to meet demands that don’t currently exist.

A 2014 Pew survey neatly illustrates the lack of consensus on where technology is taking us. The poll asked 2,551 experts this question: Will networked, automated, artificial intelligence applications and robotic devices have displaced more jobs than they have created by 2025?

The result was a near-50/50 split, with 48% of respondents answering ‘yes’ and 52% answering ‘no.’ Both responses have merit. The more optimistic view holds that advancements in technology will always require human effort; the alternative opinion suggests that robotics will become so complex and sophisticated that they will outperform – and outgrow – human efforts.

That opinion is split so evenly confirms that any predictions regarding our future relationship with technology in the workplace should be taken with a pinch of salt. It’s worth remembering that the aforementioned Moore’s Law is not comparable to, say, the laws of physics, which describe how the universe works irrespective of what we do. It is merely an observation about the performance of computer scientists over the past 50-odd years, and can’t be relied upon for accurate forecasting.

Some jobs may appear safer than others right now, but the truth is that nobody knows where we’re headed. Rather than attempting the Quixotian task of safeguarding your job from the inevitable encroachment of technology, you should be honing your adaptability and widening your skillset. In the face of uncertainty, flexible autodidacts will fare better than tunnel-visioned specialists.

So how safe is your job? We don’t know. But working under the assumption that you might need to switch careers in a decade’s time, and preparing accordingly, will mitigate the risks.

How Important is My Online Profile to My Career Progress

marc@thetalenthive.co.nz (Marc Denham) — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 05:45:47 GMT

Twenty years ago, looking for a job meant combing newspaper ads or joining a recruitment firm, submitting your CV, and being 100% certain that the information contained therein was all an employer had to go on. Likewise, the information on prospective employers available to candidates was limited and tightly controlled.

The Internet hasn’t just moved the goalposts, it’s changed the game. Candidates can thoroughly research potential employers, and vice versa. Social media represents a potential Pandora’s Box, where every off-colour, offhand comment is preserved for posterity. You can either ramp up your security settings, use pseudonyms for social networking (although that’s getting harder), or simply abstain from socializing online altogether. In some respects, this last option is the best, giving you total control over your reputation – and perhaps even intriguing potential employers.

However, notability by absence is not practical or desirable for most of us, which means you have to start treating your online presence as the character reference it is to employers. One recent survey (by Reppler) showed that 91% of employers use social media to screen applicants. It’s frankly surprising that that figure isn’t even higher, given how easy it is to Google a name.

Let’s take a look at the most common social networking platforms, and how you can optimize your presence on each to make you the most attractive candidate you can be:

LinkedIn

The primary interface between employer employee, it’s essential that your LinkedIn profile is up to date and comprehensive. Be sure to include a photograph for, while you (hopefully) won’t be judged on your appearance, the lack of a visual cue to your name will make you more forgettable. Some basic LinkedIn SEO practices can really boost your profile. Going above and beyond the basic information will do the same, so be sure to fill in additional information to help you stand out from the crowd. The professional networks you’re involved with; the events you attend; even the books you read, are all good ways of demonstrating your enthusiasm for going above and beyond the ‘basic requirements.’

Facebook

As touched on above, it’s generally advisable to use the maximum privacy settings on Facebook. Employers expect you to have a social life outside your career – but that doesn’t mean they will resist the temptation to browse your profile if its available to them. To check your privacy settings are working as they should, log on to Facebook, click on your name in the corner to view the timeline, and click the icon below your cover photo. Now, click the ‘View As’ link. This will allow you to see how your profile looks to anyone who Googles your name + ‘Facebook.’ If you see older posts (prior to your privacy settings being maximised) you can opt to change permissions for all past posts by clicking on the drop down icon next to your name, selecting ‘Privacy Settings,’ locating the section that says ‘Who can see my stuff?’ and limiting it to Friends.

Oh, and if you’re looking for recruiters via business Facebook pages, it’s a good idea to ‘like’ and – carefully – comment on any you are interested in working for.

Twitter

Twitter is also a good forum for interacting with potential employers, and demonstrating a genuine interest in their business. Follow the businesses and industries you’re interested in – the insight you gain on their culture will be invaluable should you get a job interview. It goes without saying, your own Twitter feed should avoid extreme political views or anything that might make you less attractive to employers.

Blogs

Blogs are the best space in which you can control your online image. Social media posts tend to be made unthinkingly, which is where problems can arise. But bloggers looking to grow their audience will write considered, structured content, generally on an area of expertise.

Starting a blog that relates to your field is a great way of establishing yourself as an independent thinker with strong analytical skills and a desire to put yourself out there, even when there are no financial rewards for doing so. A regularly updated professional blog will give employers a strong impression of your passion for the industry.

Matt is a Director of The Talent Hive and leads the Engineering recruitment practice within the business. Originally from the UK he’s been living in New Zealand for 11 years. Matt is a retired ‘amateur’ athlete who has given up chasing great marathon times for chasing his young children around the park, a far more worthy (if not exhausting) pursuit.

The Future for the Jetpack

marc@thetalenthive.co.nz (Marc Denham) — Fri, 17 Jul 2015 05:48:18 GMT

Martin Aircraft is currently looking for new engineers to help work on the highly anticipated Martin Jetpack. We spent some time talking to Director of Engineering Ulrich Bergler to find out who their ideal candidate is. In Part 1 of the blog, which you can find here , Ulrich spoke about the culture at Martin Aircraft, and what it’s like to work at the company. In Part 2, Ulrich tells us a bit about his background, how he became part of the Jetpack dream, and what the future holds for the company.

Ulrich Berlger is Engineering Director at Martin Aircraft, makers of the Martin Jetpack. Named as one of Time magazine’s Top 50 inventions for 2010, the Martin Jetpack is set to be the world’s first commercial Jetpack.

If managing the development of such pioneering technology was not enough to fill his days, Ulrich has also been busy assembling a world class team of Engineers. In partnership with The Talent Hive we have been sourcing and hiring engineering expertise from the four corners of the globe. But The Team at The Talent Hive recently sat down with Ulrich to discuss his career background, the development of the jetpack and some of the engineering challenges the team have faced and what the future looks like for the company. Discover what we found out in part two of our interview……

How did you get into aviation?

I may not be a ‘typical engineer’ in the aerospace industry. Besides taking many international business trips, I’ve had very little to do with aircraft. Yet there is much in my background that I bring to Martin Aircraft. After graduating with a degree in Precision Engineering, I worked for 3 years in a research facility for leading edge electric drive systems. I wanted to see the results of my work in the hands of customers and joined a large corporate developing power tools for the very demanding construction industry. During that time in a new product development environment, I learned what it takes to create reliable high performance products. This role also got me directly exposed to global 3rd party development and manufacture, and ultimately management of such global development efforts. After migrating to New Zealand, a US medical devices corporate offered me a role in their Christchurch electronics division. I experienced the innovation of Kiwis, and the need to follow strict design controls in the highly regulated medical devices market. Throughout my career I’ve enjoyed helping people and teams to grow, as well as the challenges and buzz of organisational development and change. This led me to going back to university and completing an MSc in Applied Psychology. It is this combination of skills and experience that attracted the Martin Aircraft team to me as a candidate for the role of Director of Engineering.

How long have you been with Martin Aircraft?

I joined Martin Aircraft Company in November 2013, and so far no two days have been the same.

What are the biggest changes to the current design compared against the original concept?

The journey towards the Jetpack is marked by many incremental changes, rather than a few big steps. Most important are the development of a fly by wire system with electronic stability control. It freed the pilot from controlling the aircraft to attend to the mission tasks. This system also enabled an entire range of safety features to be implemented. The other noticeable step is in the configuration changes one can see when comparing our prototype P12 to its predecessor P11. The aircraft is more powerful, more lift capacity and is more agile in its handling.

At high altitudes does a gust of wind affect it? How do you stabilize?

Our stability control system is sensing orientation and motion in the air. It will, independent from the pilot, take action and correct thrust and attitude to counteract the effects of wind gusts.

What engineering challenges remain?

First let me say that there are no insurmountable challenges left, the aspects requiring engineering attention are primarily to refine the design for improved reliability, safety and make it ready for production. The aspect most in focus is a continued drive to create a jetpack that is as safe as it can be given its concept.

What are the different design needs for a first responder application compared to recreational?

There is quite some interest from first responder and emergency response clients. Each one of them has some specific requirements, but primarily the recreational aircraft needs to satisfy the requirements of FAR part 103, be easy to maintain without involvement of specialist aircraft maintenance and above all be safe. The first responder or emergency response client needs mission objectives to be supported, thus requirements on performance and specific equipment on the aircraft are more in the forefront. The more extensive training programmes available to those customers will mitigate the more extreme operating modes of the aircraft in such environments. Also service and maintenance is supported by dedicated facilities with skilled aircraft maintenance technicians.

When do you think a private citizen will be able to take home their own personal jetpack?

Our focus is on the first responder jetpack and heavy lift UAV application of the aircraft. Much of these development activities will benefit a personal jetpack. Hobby pilots will have to wait until after these developments to get closer to taking one of our machines home.

Follow The Talent Hive to continue receiving industry insights, opinions and stories from experts in the world of IT & Engineering careers.

What Next for Martin Jetpack?

marc@thetalenthive.co.nz (Marc Denham) — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 05:52:09 GMT

Ulrich Berlger is Engineering Director at Martin Aircraft Company, makers of the Martin Jetpack. Named as one of Time magazine’s Top 50 inventions for 2010 the Martin Jetpack is set to be the world’s first commercial Jetpack.

As if managing the development of such pioneering technology was not enough to fill his days Ulrich has also been busy assembling a team of world class Engineers. By partnering with The Talent Hive he has been sourcing and hiring engineering expertise from the four corners of the globe. We recently sat down with Ulrich for a well deserved coffee and to discuss what he looks for when hiring for Martin Aircraft and why the company is such a compelling career choice for talented engineering minds.

Discover what we found out in part one of our interview……

Aside from the Jetpack, are there any other products in development at Martin Aircraft?

Short answer yes – our priority is on the ‘first responder’ Jetpack and the training simulator that is part of this package. There are many technology projects running concurrently to support these primary products. Beyond those we are proactively looking and working on additional products.

What are the company’s main objectives over the next year?

To bring the first Jetpack to commercial reality and Martin Aircraft into a company sustained by revenue

What kind of new recruits are you looking for to help you achieve those objectives?

We have several subject matter areas, spanning mechanical engineering, software development, production and quality expertise. I am particularly interested in people who are passionate and have that hunger to learn and contribute. Also key are flexibility and collaboration. We have found these traits in young graduates equally as in people with many years of industry experience.

Aside from the obvious attraction of working on the first commercial Jetpack, why else would an engineer choose to work for Martin Aircraft over another company?

There are very few companies where one can be part of shaping not only a product and a company but an entire product segment, and I believe while we work hard and often long hours, we have already formed an exciting and inspired team.

Tell us a little about the challenges new recruits can look forward to getting their teeth into before the Jetpack is ready for market? What happens after that?

I can’t talk freely about the challenges but in general terms we have to find solutions that are new to the world and are by default, challenging the existing boundaries of technology. Some of it has to do with performance of parts, others with the regulation, or even suppliers. New recruits will need to find out of the box solutions often outside the aviation industry in order to progress.

Where do you see Martin Aircraft and its products in ten years’ time?

We believe that in ten years the jetpack will be an accepted aircraft in the market; we will likely face competition from other manufacturers or solutions. We propose to have several products for different market segments. Internally we will have dedicated support for product support equally as continued research projects.

How important is a positive organisational culture for any business?

It can’t be underestimated in my view. I have worked in and seen many businesses in my career where the culture is attractive and inspiring, but also ones where the culture is not what people look for. It is fair to say that there are many more of the latter category that went out of business since. For me positive culture must not be confused with all fun and joy, it is about being proactive, supportive and solution based, then the tough aspects that any job and company will present can be worked through.

Follow The Talent Hive to continue receiving industry insights, opinions and stories from experts in the world of IT & Engineering careers.

The Subtle Art of Salary Negotiation

marc@thetalenthive.co.nz (Marc Denham) — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 05:55:08 GMT

‘Adept at negotiating salary’ is one requirement you’ll never see on a job listing, but the art of negotiation is a sought-after quality among candidates. According to Robin Pinkley, co-author of Get Paid What You’re Worth , people who attempt to negotiate their salary in a constructive way’ are perceived more favourably than those who don’t, ‘because they were demonstrating the skills the company wanted to hire them for.’

The key word here is ‘constructive.’ An ill-considered salary negotiation could be disastrous for your employment prospects, which is why so many candidates prefer to take the first offer, delaying any talk of a pay increase until they’re safely ensconced in the job. A study from salary.com indicates that almost one in five people never negotiate their salary. But if you avoid negotiation due to fear, you’re setting a precedent that could dog your entire career. Here’s a step-by-step guide to the subtle art of salary negotiation:

Before the Interview

Know your value. To get the salary you deserve, it’s imperative that you know the going rate for the role. Sites like Payscale can help you evaluate wage ranges for similar positions in your industry. Talking to recruiters is another good way to get a realistic appraisal of what you’re worth to an employer.
Research. Once you have an interview set up with a specific employer, gather as much data on them as possible. If you can, find out their typical salary ranges and compare them to the industry as a whole. Learn about the benefits and give them careful consideration – the salary and benefits may add up to adequate monetary compensation, but there’s no point factoring in a gym membership or parking space if you’re not going to use them. Be prepared to tell the interviewer that you can’t take advantage of certain benefits, and use that to leverage a higher basic salary.
Go high, and be precise. Once you’ve established the range of your market value, it’s tempting to plump for a figure somewhere in the middle, but that would be a mistake . The employer will often start with a lower offer than they’re prepared to make, so you need to give yourself some wiggle room (rule #1 of negotiation). Another oft-overlooked tactic is to be very precise with your number. If you want $75,000, ask for $74,750. To the employer, an exact figure looks like you’ve really done your research. Even if it’s an excessive amount, precision pays.

During the Interview

Start confident. The way you walk into the interview room can have a powerful impact on the impression you make, so it’s important to psych yourself up and hit the ground running. Hold your head high, smile and maintain eye contact. Self-belief inspires others to believe in you, and compensate you accordingly.
Forget the money. Wait, what? Isn’t that the whole point? Well, yes, but if you go through the interview with the silent mantra of your ‘golden figure’ on a constant loop, you’ll be distracted – and it’ll show. Unless the interviewer brings it up, salary should be the last thing you talk about. Focus on all the other reasons you’d be a good fit, and emphasize what you can bring to the company, irrespective of the compensation. Once they’ve fallen in love with you, the question for the employer becomes ‘how can we make this happen?’ – the perfect starting point for the salary negotiation process.
Ask questions. They want you to work for them, so it makes sense to probe into the companies preferences and priorities. If you show a keen interest in finding out how you can help them grow, they’ll likely be more responsive to your higher salary negotiation starting point.
Don’t mention personal needs. It’s surprising how many candidates mention changes in their personal situation, like having a new baby or a recent rent hike, as if this would influence the offer. To paraphrase JFK, ask not what your company can do for you, but what you can do for your company.

After the Offer

Perfect your poker face. Even if they hit you with an attractive offer, resist the temptation to accept too quickly. Instead, maintain a straight face and allow a few moments pause while you mull it over. Remaining silent after an offer is hard to pull off, which is why it has such an impact on the interviewer. Those few seconds will give your counter-offer a much greater chance of success.
Don’t commit if you don’t have to. Even better than a moment’s pause is a day or two to consider the offer. Ask if you can give an answer within a certain timeframe. Again, this strategy can be disquieting for employers, and improve your chances of negotiating a higher salary.
Stick to a ‘walk away’ figure. Before the interview, settle on the lowest figure you would be happy with and walk away if negotiation doesn’t get you there. Provided your expectations are realistic in the first place, accepting a job with an unfair salary will result in long-term resentment and set your career back.

As with all aspects of a job interview, you can’t predict how the negotiation process will go until you get there. Flexibility is essential. Even your ‘lowest figure’ is subject to change once you arrive at the office and get a feel for the corporate culture. The more research you do, the fewer surprises there will be, but be ready to adjust your expectations based on what you learn in the interview.

Oh, and if you really want to maximize your chances of a higher salary, set the interview for a Thursday. Psychology says so.

Preparing for a Career Discussion with Your Manager

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 05:57:47 GMT

The annual performance review is an apprehensive time for any employee, but it also represents an opportunity to take stock of your career thus far and set new goals for the future.

To help you prepare for the next one, we’ve assembled a few key questions, and how to go about answering them. Keep your anxiety to a minimum by preparing thoroughly, and consider the following:

How Should I Prepare?

Make a list of your responsibilities. Write your own performance review relating to each area of responsibility. Honest contemplation of your achievements over the past year will prevent you from responding emotionally to criticism. Anticipate the negative feedback you could receive and you’ll demonstrate a highly-valued quality: self-awareness. Write down the career goals you’d like to achieve over the next 12 months, and frame them in relation to the future growth of the company, not just your own personal growth.

Should I Ask for a Pay Rise?

A review can be a good time to ask for more compensation but, again, this should be raised in the context of you bringing added value to the company. Do you have a specific project in mind that could revitalise your department? Do you want to assume more managerial responsibility? Don’t ask for a higher salary just because you need the money. Use the positive outcomes of your career discussion as leverage, and be fully prepared for your employer to refuse a pay rise.

What if I’m Surprised by Negative Feedback?

If you’ve given your performance an honest appraisal you should avoid any nasty surprises. But some bosses are overly critical or may not aware of the extent of your positive achievements. The most important thing when faced with unexpected criticism is to avoid defensiveness. Even if your manager is being unnecessarily aggressive with their negative feedback, avoiding confrontation and keeping a cool head is of paramount importance. If you receive general criticism you feel is unwarranted, ask them to clarify their position with specific examples. You may be genuinely unaware of something you do that rubs people up the wrong way, so be open to that possibility, ask for advice on how to improve and suggest a further review in three months time. Oh, and if your review goes unexpectedly badly, don’t ask for a pay rise at the end of it!

What am I Prepared to Do Over the Next Year?

It’s all very well angling for more money by making bold pledges, but it will reflect poorly on you if you can’t realise those aims. Create a specific action plan with tactical objectives you can realistically fulfill. Be optimistic, but don’t let your enthusiasm exceed your wherewithal.

How Valuable Are Soft Skills To Your Employment Prospects

marc@thetalenthive.co.nz (Marc Denham) — Fri, 22 May 2015 06:02:51 GMT

Good communication. Initiative. The ability to work in a team. So-called ‘soft skills’ such as these have long received short shrift from bottom-line worshiping monetarists who believe the only assets of any value comes with a price tag that can be quantified to the cent.

Luckily, those attitudes are on the way out. Increasingly, employers are not only looking for soft skills, they’re rebranding them – more fairly – as ‘essential’ skills. A recent New Zealand survey asked employers what they valued most in an entry-level applicant. The response was clear: being a confident team player with strong communication and analysis skills were all more important than starting a job with technical know-how but no essential skills.

The Development Economics research group say such skills are worth 88bn pounds per year to the UK economy, with customer-facing businesses benefiting the most. Without them, businesses face more problems meeting and exceeding their customers service expectations; difficulties and delays in the introduction and marketing of new products and services; and an increase in operating costs.

Corporate powerhouses like Barclays and McDonald’s – no strangers to short-termist bean-counting economics – have spoken out in support the findings. And why not? After all, technical knowledge can be learned on the job. Skillful identification and effective handling of crisis-situations tend to be more innate qualities, often found in workers who thrive on their wits rather than their qualifications.

These candidates can be hard to identify on paper, which is why the interview process is so crucial. Jez Langhorn, Chief People Officer for the UK branch of McDonald’s, claims half a million UK workers will have their career aspirations hobbled by a lack of interpersonal and time management skills:

“I can’t think of any job where those skills wouldn’t be important… but they are not recognised as much as they should be,” said Langhorn, adding that many employers value such practical skills over academic credits.

It’s not hard to see why businesses in the developed world are no longer relying solely on academic performance as an indicator of worth. With so many school-leavers entering tertiary education as a matter of course, a university degree is no better indication of aptitude than a secondary school diploma was 30 years ago. Rather, a university degree is regarded by employers as evidence of a base level of competence. Finding that one exceptional candidate means identifying essential skills.

Most job-specific skills can be taught to any reasonably intelligent person. Trying to foster a brand new work ethic in a recent (and perhaps reluctant) graduate is a lot harder. The smart money says: recruit for attitude, train for skill.

Mitigating Risk in a Talent Short Market

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 11 May 2015 06:05:41 GMT

Identifying and securing the top talent in your industry is one of the biggest challenges you face in businesses today. Having the right people in place to lead your organisation through both economic downturns and sudden periods of growth is crucial to long-term success.

Studies indicate a real shortage of leadership talent in both New Zealand and the global market. The problem is exacerbated as baby boomers, with their slew of once-affordable (and, in some cases, free) qualifications begin to retire.

A bigger issue is the tendency for organisations to take a narrow, short-termist approach to talent management, focusing on securing and retaining high-performers at the expense of devising a holistic, future-proof talent retention system that addresses contingencies like escalating costs and declining employee performance.

In the rush to secure top talent, usually at great expense, it’s all too easy for a business to lose sight of their long-term strategic requirements, especially in the first 36 months, when the central obsession is ‘growth.’ To help you develop a more sustainable talent management strategy, let’s take a look at five key risk categories, and the questions they raise for your business:

1) Ability

Do you have the breadth of skills you need to compete now and in the future? Are you pursuing a handful of high performers at the expense of fostering a happy, loyal, productive workforce?

2) Expense

Is there a risk your workforce will become unaffordable? The more sought-after the employee, the harder they are to retain. Throwing endless pay rises and perks at your high performers only serves to reinforce their self-image as an indispensable employee with plenty of options outside your company. Far better to spread the responsibility, opportunity and rewards as equally as you can across your team.

3) Capacity

Can you deliver your business plan if you lose one or two individuals? As your organization grows, relying too heavily on the expertise of a small percentage of your workforce is a recipe for disaster, so make sure you have the capacity to handle unexpected departures. They happen.

4) Loyalty

Is there a risk of your top talent becoming disengaged with your brand? Again, focus too much on retaining the worker and you risk losing sight of the importance of the work itself.

5) Compliance

Just because someone is highly-qualified doesn’t make them ethical or even law-abiding. Before hiring that stellar candidate, ask yourself: what’s the risk regarding behaviour and compliance with local laws and regulations? Do they have the right attitude to playing by the rules or are they over-ambitious in a way that could put your business at risk?

Finding the right talent for your company is about much more than identifying candidates who tick all the critical boxes. The interview process should help you separate the wheat from the chaff, but it should also help you get a feel for the high-performing candidates who might just use your organisation as a stepping stone, with ambitions to jump ship at the next attractive looking port.

Why Did Someone Less Qualified Than Me Get the Job?

Fri, 01 May 2015 06:07:36 GMT

Losing out on a job is always painful, but it’s especially hard when you know you were ideally suited to the position. Whoever got it couldn’t have been more qualified. So what’s going on?

There are a few reasons why ability, experience and qualifications won’t necessarily get you hired:

1) Nepotism

The old ‘it’s who you know’ line remains as true as it ever was. Even if you’ve gone through a laborious, multi-staged interview process and ticked all the right boxes, there’s no guarantee that the position wasn’t always destined for the CEO’s nephew. Frustrating, yes – but at least it provides some consolation when you’re in the throes of rejected despair. When nepotism rears it’s ugly head, there’s nothing you could have done differently. Move on to the next opportunity with your head held high.

2) Modest CV

Often, the most able candidates are prone to under-selling themselves on their CV. It’s understandable – you don’t want to come across as a braggart – but demonstrating and quantifying why you’re suited for the position you’re applying for is absolutely crucial. Remember, your CV is all that a hiring manager has to go on initially. It has to communicate everything you want them to know. There’s no point ‘waiting for the interview’ to show off your full range of skills if you never get to the interview stage.

If, for instance, your previous role was nominally a sales assistant job but in reality you had managerial responsibilities, talk about those responsibilities on your CV. Explain how you exceeded the expectations of the role to become a de-facto team leader. Don’t just reiterate the job description you received when starting that job.

Having an objective perspective on your own CV is impossible. Show it to people you trust and consider their opinion when re-drafting.

3) Immodest Web Presence

Graduates entering the job market for the first time in 2015 have grown up online. They’ve joined social networks, or started a blog, and maybe said some silly things along the way. If they’ve used their real name for online activity as a teenager, they may come to regret what they see on page one of Google when looking for a job.

You might think employers should disregard the personal indiscretions or loud-mouthed political opinions of a candidate, but it would take a superhuman feat of restraint to resist searching the name of a potential employee. Always assume that recruiters will Google you. If that’s a cause for concern, consider hiring an SEO specialist who can ‘clean up’ your online presence so your ill-advised stag weekend photos are buried under something more innocuous. Ramp up your privacy settings on Facebook, and if you’re an active commenter on a potentially thorny subject, start using a pseudonym – it’s a right you’ll wish you’d exercised when the time comes to hunt for work.

4) Talented Wallflower

You’ve got the skills and the experience, a whistle-clean online reputation, stellar CV and have ruled out nepotism as far as is possible, but you’re still getting rejected. Is it possible your application is just a bit… forgettable?

Recruiters are gathering information on many individuals during a time-critical, high-pressure process. They’ll read several applications either side of yours. Many of them will be equally qualified for the position. Developing a knack for sticking in the memory of an employer could make the difference between a new job and another rejection letter.

To counter this effect, and avoid being seen as another blandly well-suited candidate, it’s worth taking a few risks on your CV. If you’re going for engineering positions, describe/link to a 3D model you’ve created. Visual statements are more memorable than cookie-cutter declarations like ‘I work well in a team’ so be a little bolder on your application if you want to stand out from the crowd.

Why Bad Hiring Costs More Than Not Hiring

Fri, 17 Apr 2015 06:10:13 GMT

The recruiting process is time-consuming and costly. According to MBIE’s (somewhat optimistic) employee cost calculator the average cost per hire for IT workers in New Zealand is just under $7000. To ensure a recruitment drive is ultimately profitable for your business, mistakes have to be kept to a minimum.

As expensive as a successful recruitment process is, there is no real consensus on the cost of a ‘wrong hire,’ but we know it’s high. The Harvard Business Review reckons as much as 80% of employee turnover is down to poor hiring decisions.

It’s not hard to see why the potential costs of recruitment can run so high. Associated expenses for a new hire begin at the interview stage: travel, hotel and food arrangements are often covered by the employer (especially for highly sought-after positions). They may also be expected to help with relocation costs. Then there are training and orientation periods. Even with an initially promising candidate, it could take six months before an organization realizes they’re the wrong fit. That’s when the costs really begin to mount.

Quite apart from having to start all over again with the expenses outlined above, the cost of terminating a contract is potentially huge, and extremely hard to predict. The ex-employee could pursue a wrongful dismissal case through the courts which, even if unsuccessful, is a major distraction for a growing business. The knock-on effects are difficult to quantify in pure financial terms, but range from bad publicity to low employee morale. All of these factors can have a significant negative impact on the health of a business.

How Can I Avoid Hiring the Wrong Person?

By implementing a thorough recruitment process the first time, you can make sure there won’t be a second round. Skills testing is crucial, but equally important is setting out the requirements and expectations of the job in a crystal-clear fashion, so there can be no doubt in a candidates mind what their responsibilities will be.

In order to bring the requisite clarity to the job description you, the employer, must be 100% certain on what it is you’re looking for. It’s tempting to pull a job description off the shelf, or simply recycle one from a departing team member. But if you want to snag the perfect candidate you have to closely analyse the needs of your business to identify weak spots and craft a job description that calls on new skill sets.

Once you’ve minimized the number of unqualified applicants with a clear job description, avoiding the wrong hire becomes more intuitive. The interview stages will tell you a great deal of information that doesn’t come across on a paper resume. Look for signs that the candidate is a good collaborator. Do you have a rapport with them? Will their verbal communication skills be effective in a client-facing role? This is where you find out whether an applicant is the right fit for your company culture.

Above all, remember the maxim: the key asset of a successful business is its people. There are no short cuts to finding great people. The process of hiring the right candidate takes a long time and costs money, so just make sure you only have to go through it once.

Preparing for a Leadership Role

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 05:31:53 GMT

Taking on more responsibility at work is not always synonymous with career or financial advancement. The healthiest approach to securing a leadership opportunity is to assume there’ll be no monetary or status reward; take on the new challenge for it’s own sake, do it to the best of your abilities and the rewards will naturally follow.

By simply identifying a leadership opportunity, you’ve already demonstrated one of the key skills required of leaders: the ability to recognise opportunities when they present themselves. Evaluating and positioning yourself to take advantage of those opportunities are the next steps.

What I learnt from my own experience of working in a large blue chip company, and advancing from the ‘new starter’ to the Group General Manager, was that if you conduct yourself in the right way at work, leadership opportunities will come to you. So here is my take on five ways to present yourself as a future leader:

Know Your Organization inside out. Make it your business to become well-acquainted with the day-to-day running of every department. The bigger your picture, the easier it is to spot opportunities, and the more understanding you acquire about your company and its people, the more prepared you will be to lead.
Stand Out. Wallflowers don’t get promoted to leadership roles, so make sure people know who you are and more importantly what value you bring to the table. Figuring out how to make your presence felt without being obnoxious is one of the hardest skills to develop. If you can do it, you’ll win the respect of your peers and your managers.
Be Easy to Work With. If you can’t take criticism or have a reputation for being difficult, people – and opportunities – will give you a wide berth.
Solve Problems. Look for weak spots in the running of your organisation and devise practical solutions. If you save time and money for your employers, by identifying a better way of doing things, the value you add can be easily quantified. Again, this is something of a balancing act. Spotting the ‘weak links’ or barriers in a business could be perceived as criticising the work of others. So, be sure that you are always playing the ball, not the man.
Work and act like a leader. Perception is reality, so the more you present yourself as an innovator and a safe pair of hands, the more opportunities will come your way. Management loves a volunteer. Be one.

Taking the Leap

As you move up the management hierarchy it can be tough to actually make the transition from team member to team leader. You were likely promoted because of your ability to get things done. Now, your job is to get those same results from others. Not everyone is capable of delegating, but it’s one of the identifying characteristics of a leader.

It’s essential that you trust the people you work with. If you can’t place your faith in the team you’ll be leading then either don’t seek out the leadership role or start to think about the changes you may need to make. As a mentor once told me early in my management career ‘If you don’t get your fingers burnt at least once a year, then you’re not trusting your people enough’. Effective leaders are confident enough to give people the freedom and support to realise their potential. It can be a hard lesson to learn, but as long as you don’t feel undermined by the success (or occasional failure) of others, the fruits of your collaboration will be richer. If you disagree with others, clearly communicate the reasons. But be truly open to ideas and you will learn to tell the good from the bad. As a rule of thumb, listen twice as much as you speak.

Above all, be authentic. Keeping up an appearance of what you think constitutes a strong ‘leadership style’ is untenable in the long run. The cracks in the facade will begin to show. By being genuine and honest, you eliminate that stress. Trust in your own leadership ability and the rest will follow!

Accepting That New Job Offer Might Make You or Break You

Tue, 03 Feb 2015 05:34:31 GMT

Looking for a job is one of the most stressful things we do in life (it is infinitely less stressful if you engage The Talent Hive of course :0). First, there are the weeks and months spent procrastinating over whether you should even leave your current role. Next, you fret over the state of your CV and rustle together references, all the while keeping quiet about your plans at work. Then comes the application process and tortuous rounds of interviews, punctuated by horrendous waiting periods. Oh, the waiting!

Best case scenario: you’re offered the job. You thought you were anxious before, but this is next level stress. Your potential employer wants things to move quickly. Now you start wondering if this dream job will become a nightmare. Is this the right move? Should you hold out for a better offer? Are you even doing the right thing quitting the comfy, familiar surroundings of your existing position?

We’ve identified six key metrics to focus on when considering a job offer. Think carefully about each of these before you take the plunge.

The People

A network of supportive, knowledgeable colleagues is crucial to job satisfaction. ‘A company is only as good as its people’ goes the adage, and just because it’s been said a million times doesn’t make it any less true.

Obviously, there’s a limit to how much you can learn in an interview (although sites such as Glassdoor can give you some useful insights into a company). There will probably be no more than three company representatives present. It’s a stressful situation for all involved, but you can glean information about the organization from the way they conduct the interview. How well-prepared are they? What are your first impressions of their personalities and conversation style? Make a mental note of the questions asked and ruminate on them later (this is far more useful than agonizing over the responses you gave).

Ask some questions about the rest of the employees. How old are they, on average? The closer the median age is to yours, the more likely it is you’ll have things in common, both professionally and socially. Many businesses have detailed staff information on their websites, so be sure to read this material as thoroughly as the rest of your research.

The Culture

The attitudes, objectives and values of a company should jive with your own. Again, don’t be afraid to ask questions in the interview. Is the company culture primarily competitive or collaborative? Are they result-oriented or people-oriented? What is their mission statement?

Working towards goals that you fundamentally disagree with is a recipe for unhappiness, no matter how golden the carrot being dangled in front of you is. It may be that you simply want to work for the salary, and that’s fine – as long as everyone’s on the same page and you don’t actively dislike what the business stands for. Remember, this will be your home from home, the place where you’ll be spending the majority of your waking life. Attempting to rewrite your personality to fit in won’t work in the long run.

The Expectations

You have the job description in black and white, but that’s not the whole story. All jobs come with implicit expectations. It’s important to establish what those are before accepting a new position.

Going beyond the call of duty may mean the difference between career progression and stagnation, so use the interview to gather information on what each department does, and whether there is any cross-over with your department. Find out what their position on overtime is – if they bring it up of their own volition or are very quick to answer your questions, you can be sure that overtime is expected of staff.

The Timing

Most employers will try to get you on board quickly. It’s par for the course. Yes, you want to seem eager, but there’s no point committing to a new role next week if you can’t quit your current job until next month. If they want you, they’ll understand.

Serving notice isn’t the only consideration. If you’re moving to a new city you have to find accommodation and tie up loose ends at home. There are creditors to inform of your change in circumstances, and a whole home’s worth of appliances and furniture to buy. There’s the expense and inconvenience of putting your finances in order. Starting a new job in a new place is an extraordinary commitment. Give yourself as much time as possible so that when you finally show up for day 1 at work, you’re not already burnt out.

The Future

The job offer might look really attractive now, but is there room for personal growth? Will the role challenge and enhance your skill set?

Larger companies may offer training and development opportunities; smaller ones are often more likely to give you a wider range of responsibilities and allow you to play a part in decision-making processes.

Don’t take a job without at least a rough idea of where it will lead. Of course, you may be looking for job stability more than career advancement. That’s fine – but find out what the attrition or turnover rate is for staff. Whether its progression or security you’re after, it’s imperative that you make an informed choice based on what the company – and the wider industry – has to offer you.

The Money

Is the remuneration package commensurate with your skills and the expectations of the role? Compare similar jobs in the market to find out. Take into consideration other perks. Health insurance, annual leave, Kiwisaver contributions, sick pay and training opportunities can significantly increase the monetary rewards.

The starting salary is just that, so consider how quickly it will take you to progress to the next step on the ladder. There’s not much point accepting an attractive salary if it remains stagnant for the next five years.

Finally, try to keep a sense of perspective on the financial rewards. Once you factor in getting ready each morning, commuting, and the time it takes to decompress after a day’s graft, the majority of your waking life will be spent at work. Does an extra few grand a year really compensate you for a job that’s much more stressful than your current one? The grass may look greener, but remember this: your existing vantage point is ‘the other side’ to someone.

In Business, Only Bad Eggs Prevent Poaching

matt@thetalenthive.co.nz (Matt Love-Smith) — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 05:39:14 GMT

The long-running poaching dispute between four global tech giants and more than 64,000 of their employees may finally have reached it’s conclusion after Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe offered to settle the lawsuit for $415 million (USD).

The lawsuit claims the companies had made formal agreements not to recruit each others employees. One email exchange cited in the class action reportedly shows Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, telling Steve Jobs, former boss of Apple, that any Google recruiter who solicited an Apple employee would be fired. All four deny any wrongdoing.

Litigants say the pact limited job mobility, undercutting the ability of workers to receive full compensation for their skills and resulting in $3 billion in lost wages. Had the companies lost the case, damages could have run to as much as $9 billion under U.S. antitrust laws.

The case – which bears striking similarities to a 2010 lawsuit concerning Pixar and LucasFilm – has reheated the public debate on no-poaching agreements.

In New Zealand, such activities are prohibited by The Commerce Act, which aims to promote competition in business. The law states that “prohibiting a person with ‘substantial market power’ from taking advantage [of that power] for an anti-competitive purpose” is subject to fines in excess of $10 million.

Eye-watering penalties aside, what’s so bad about trying to prevent losing your best employees to competitors? Put simply, these practices have the same stifling effect on competition as price-fixing (also covered by The Commerce Act). Substitute ‘employee’ for ‘customer’ in the communications between Jobs and Schmidt and few would dispute the obvious illegality.

No-poaching pacts clearly benefit companies at the expense of employees, increasing the market power of the former while restricting it for the latter. In the world of commerce, where the power balance is already stacked in favour of big business, upholding the modest leverage available to employees and small businesses is not just about giving people a fair go – it’s vital for New Zealand’s economic growth.

There are two key factors determining wages: productivity and bargaining power. Productive employees generate greater profits, but how much of that they can command for themselves depends on their bargaining power. Methods such as no-poaching agreements and variations on the so-called ‘inevitable disclosure doctrine’ impede this bargaining power, unfairly restricting employee mobility and causing wage stagnation.

The type of collusion practiced by Apple et al is an inexpensive way to retain employees. It’s also unethical and illegal. Employers should be creating opportunities – not eliminating them. Instead of forming alliances with other employers, identify grievances among your work force and address them. It may mean paying a higher salary or offering incentives like retention bonuses dependent on a certain number of years in service.

The boring bottom line is this: be the more attractive option. Invest in employees, treat them well, pay them better and foster an appealing, vibrant company culture. Create opportunities at your company and you won’t need to eliminate them elsewhere.

How to Future Proof Your Career in an Evolving Employment Market

Mon, 19 Jan 2015 05:45:48 GMT

In 2002, Kodak was one of the world’s most valuable brands. They had the film processing business sewn up, employed thousands of people, made billions of dollars in profit and were second only to Sony in terms of digital camera sales. Kodak’s lens was pointed firmly at the future.

Fast forward to January 2012 and Kodak was filing for bankruptcy in New York. Weeks later on the West Coast, Facebook bought Instagram for a billion dollars, making multi-millionaires of just 13 employees. The product they developed was available to every person with a phone. And it was free.

What happened to the photofinishing industry in ten years serves as a cautionary tale against complacency among individual workers. If a corporate powerhouse like Kodak can be run out of town by a dozen geeks from Stanford, the rest of us had better stay on our game if we want to grow our careers.

A 2014 LinkedIn study – which gathered data from more than 2,600 employers around the world – illustrates the importance of adaptability in a volatile jobs market. The employers who reported the highest levels of productivity were those whose workforce was the most willing to adapt. The Netherlands, with its multilingual workforce and international portfolio, was rated the most adaptable country, while the more isolationist economic policies and lack of sector diversity in China left them trailing.

So what can you do to remain valuable in your industry? Let’s look at three key areas to help you future proof your career.

Know Your Industry Inside Out

Of all the words that strike terror in the hearts of workers, ‘automation’ is right up there with ‘cutbacks’ and ‘auditor’. Some reports estimate that close to 50% of current jobs will be automated within two decades. Keep informed of creeping computerization in your industry and you can identify potential flaws or learn new skills.

It’s possible you won’t like what you find out, so be prepared to change careers if you feel your industry’s days are numbered. Translators the world over must be quaking in their boots at the buzz surrounding Skype’s real-time translating software. A well-compensated career path may soon be consigned to history. But the technology was a long time coming. Only the chronically myopic or stubborn could’ve failed to see which way the wind was blowing.

Gain insight and foresight will follow. It’s not enough to learn the machinations of your industry in preparation for your interview. Stay abreast of the latest developments and you can put your career on the right trajectory.

Learn Market Driven Skills

It’s not enough to predict the curve – you need to stay ahead of it too. That means determining which skills are valuable right now and whether they will continue to be valuable in the future. These vary from industry to industry, but if there’s one catch-all skill that will be useful to practically everyone for decades to come, it’s coding. Even if your current role doesn’t require it, learning code gives you a fresh perspective on problem solving and provides insight into the fundamentals of the languages that drive our world. Learning html (at the least) is a good way to make technology friend not foe – and it’s a solid gold star on any CV.

With a huge range of tutorials and educational material information available for free online, software development is the most accessible skill to attain, but it’s not the only game in town. Other future-proofed skills include essentials like health and utilities, so be sure to focus on an area you get some job satisfaction from.

The Humans Aren’t Dead

For all the talk of the Digital Age encroaching on our hard-won skillsets, computers can’t touch our aptitude for creative problem solving. The most powerful computer on earth is nothing without a human operator (as evidenced by centaurs, the chess-playing human-computer combinations that perform better than either man or machine alone). The twin forces of computer processing power and human intuition are just as valuable in the job market as they are in the world of chess.

Computers represent ‘the extended mind’; they are tools to help store and process larger volumes of data than a single brain could ever handle. Mastering as many computer skills as possible will increase your employability. The more IT skills you have, the better you’ll be at automating certain tasks and dedicating the time you free up to the one task computers can’t perform: generating really creative ideas.

Death of the Middle Manager

Fri, 16 Jan 2015 05:12:39 GMT

Remember managers? They were all the rage last century, when professional advancement equated to the pursuit of authoritative job titles and everyone knew their place in the hierarchy. If you had no discernible skills other than irritating or coddling those who did, you could go far. Not so anymore.

A study by job-matching company TheLadders shows middle-management jobs in terminal decline, with technology stepping into the breach. The research analyzed common keywords and phrases used by recruiters in postings, and by job seekers in searches. Out of the top 10% of growing jobs, less than 2% of roles contain the words ‘manager’ or ‘director’ and overall, mid-management positions are decreasing in relative popularity.

Does this signify a fairer, more meritocratic distribution of compensation? Or is it just a semantic sleight of hand designed to bewilder the propagation of the status quo? In the tech industry at least, all signs point to the former. The three fastest-growing jobs (Dev Ops Engineer, iOS Developer and Data Scientist) didn’t even exist ten years ago. Other new additions to the recruitment lexicon include UX Designer, UI Developer and Android Developer – all in the top 10 job titles, each one posted 15 times more frequently than they were five years ago.

The commonality here is ‘developer’, which appears explicitly in three of the top 10 job titles, and is implied by almost all of the rest. Clearly, these roles require completely different skill sets than management, but those with the qualifications to do them can command similar pay packets to ‘managers’ and ‘directors’ due to high demand.

Commensurate with this shift in management structures, the growth of cloud computing is putting an end to much of the administrative legwork involved in coordinating large numbers of staff. Everything from payroll to production schedule can be managed by a shared infrastructure, with businesses only paying for what they need and upgrading as necessary. There’s no software or hardware to take care of. Different departments can talk to each other freely without having to escalate a problem through unwieldy management tiers before it reaches the person who can solve it.

As the market adjusts to reward highly skilled jobs at least as handsomely as nominal ‘leaders’, few are mourning the decline of a management culture that favours watching employees’ every move over real innovation. According to a decade-old survey cited in a Forbes article from 2013, micromanagement was ‘the most significant barrier to productivity’; a 2011 study published in The Journal of Experimental Psychology concurred, with respondents saying ‘helicopter bosses’ and poor performance go hand in hand.

Of course, great managers do exist and remain essential to the success of businesses great and small. The problems arise when involved, effective leadership mutates into dictatorship, suspicion and incessant checking-in. When a detail-oriented, attentive team leader strays into control freakery, it’s bad news for everyone.

The middle manager is fast becoming an anachronism. The once-ubiquitous boss is making way for true leaders who command respect, not fear. And if there’s one thing this new raft of highly qualified developers and analysts have from their colleagues, it’s respect. The money follows the talent. The skills are, finally, paying the bills.

Cutting Through The Cool Trends

Thu, 18 Dec 2014 05:48:25 GMT

Jamie Hamilton is a Web Design Consultant with Conversion Foundry, he creates web based visual designs and solutions for clients and brands. Jamie has contributed a blog for The Talent Hive followers, sharing his experience, approach to design and the importance of delivering what the client has asked for.

Cutting through the cool trends

Imagine standing in the middle of a square in Tokyo with all those flashing billboards and neon signs around you. It can be hard to focus on one single thing amongst the blur and the clutter. The one board that’s going to stand out, that’s really going to stick in your mind, is one that has a simple, clear, compelling message.

That’s what I aim for with website design. I want to be the one website out of thousands that people remember. These days, internet users are becoming a lot smarter and more mature about web content. There’s so much out there online already that people have become bored of a lot of things. Been there, seen that.

Rather than focus on what’s the ‘cool trend’ right now, a designer needs to get the client’s message out there as clearly and eloquently as possible so it will stick in people’s minds.

I’ve been a visual/ interactive designer for 14 years now. I started off working in a large brand agency in Auckland creating CD Rom content and 3D modelling. Then, as things moved away from offline into online, I began working with HTML, HTML5 and Java Script.

Now, I work at the Conversion Foundry in Christchurch helping clients create a design which “delights and attracts” people to perform a certain task. That task- what we call conversion- can be anything from signing up to something, to buying something, to contacting the company. What a great design does is to get people to intuitively convert by creating conversion pathways. That’s what I’m after.

I like to tailor the visual aesthetic very specifically to the client and their industry. When we’ve got a new client I sit down with them and talk to them about their business and what they’re trying to achieve. I research competing websites to see what other people are doing in the space and then I come up with a design that I think is going to best represent that brand. It’s about getting the key messages out there in most straight-forward manner, while still making it interesting and ‘selling the sizzle’.

In my field, the biggest failing you can have is if the design doesn’t match the client. This usually happens when the designer hasn’t listened to the client – their greatest asset – and instead focuses on what is a visual trend right now.

I believe the design industry operates on a two-year cycle of visual trends where you tend to see the same thing popping up in a lot of work. It’s like designers are trying to take those trends and force them on the client because it’s ‘cool’ rather than looking at what is best for the client.

That’s not to say designers shouldn’t keep up to date with what’s going on in the industry. I think as a designer it’s essential to follow blogs and magazines which showcase designers and learn the latest trends are. But at the same time rather than copying those trends directly, you need to use it to develop your own skills and personal style. Instead of using a new brush I’ve found on the internet, I’ll use a real life brush to paint something and scan it onto the computer.

It’s a fine line between staying up to date with trends and creating useful solutions which actually work for your client. I believe the greatest inspiration for designers come not on the computer but by looking at the visual world around you. One designer I know is really into scrapbooking. She will be walking down the road, find a leaf she likes, put in her scrapbook and then that will inspire her texturally. I love that approach. That’s going to create a design that’s unique. That’s a design that’s going to stand out in a Tokyo square.

Conversion Foundry are a specialist online marketing and conversion optimisation company. They architect and optimise websites that make great first impressions, connect with the right people and convert them into customers.

Conversion Foundry have a team of experts in SEO, AdWords, Design and User Experience. They use a collaborative approach to optimise websites from all angles, ensuring steady traffic growth and return on investment.

The Importance of Web Analysis

Fri, 12 Dec 2014 05:51:31 GMT

By Laura Stenhouse from Conversion Foundry

Laura Stenhouse is an Online Strategist with Conversion Foundry, partnering with her clients to grow SEO and AdWord performance using a data-driven approach to increase online traffic and conversions. Laura has contributed a blog for The Talent Hive followers outlining the importance and value of web analysis to business performance.

The importance of web analysis

Working as an Online Strategist at Conversion Foundry in Christchurch, my role is to provide clients with analysis and insight from their web analytics and create plans to optimise their website accordingly.

Gathering Data

Unfortunately many companies don’t have analytics or mechanisms to track what’s happening on their website. This is usually due to lack of knowledge of what specific information can be gathered and how it can be used to improve business. At the very least, it’s important to know the basics of who is looking at your website, who converts, who doesn’t, and where these people come from.

Whether it’s an internal marketer or agency that’s in charge of gathering data, make sure they’re gathering useful information to give people in decision-making positions the right insights to make great choices. This means setting metrics that represent success for your website and company, whether that be growth of new users, sales or sign-ups for example.

Reporting vs. Analysis

When you’re gathering data, it’s important everyone understands it properly. Don’t get reporting and analysis confused – reporting provides data but analysis provides insight. Running reports from your analytics software in the hope of finding valuable insights seldom happens. Successful data-driven companies have a culture of critical thinking and ongoing analysis to proactively action insights and improve performance. This also reduces the risk of making business decisions based on ‘gut feeling’ or your ‘hippo’ (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion).

Measurement

Web analysis means you can measure performance and ensure money and resource is spent in the right places. For example you have a campaign running across five different media channels, all of which drive traffic back to your website. You need to know how each channel performs, where efforts can be improved and which groups of people convert well so more investment can be made there in the future.

Segmentation

A useful way to use data is to segment it – slice it up in ways that make the most sense for your company. For example the shopping behaviour of men between the ages of 30 and 40 in Auckland who clicked on a particular ad on their iPhones and came to your site for the first time. You can then compare this to other segments for more insight, such as those who completed a sale and those who did not. What were the key components of their conversion path, and how can it be improved?

Personalisation

Personalize your marketing efforts through analysis; target key audiences you’ve found through segmentation and get more return from your marketing dollar. This way you can consciously direct your media spend to people you know engage and convert well on your website. Furthermore, you can filter marketing campaigns to target users based on their past browsing behaviour, device and interests.

Testing

Testing theories, web layouts and marketing campaigns can help create a data-driven culture. You can base a split test on pages or parts of your website that are important to conversion, or on areas of the site that don’t perform well. Ensure your testing promotes customer-centricity, allowing visitors to find what they want and do what they need. You can then use the outcomes to implement change or enhance your overall strategy.

The limits of web analysis are endless; your biggest challenge is getting it right to create a culture of continued learning and change.

Stop Kony and Start Storytelling...

Tue, 09 Dec 2014 05:57:17 GMT

By Marc Denholm Co-Founder of The Talent Hive

On March 5th 2012 a 28 minute film made by an American Charity, Invisible Children, was released and within three days it had been watched on You Tube more than 20 million times. The film was about the plight of children in Uganda at the hands of a warlord by the name of Joseph Kony . It was very well produced, the story was gripping and emotionally powerful and included a clear call to action at the end.

The producers knew who their target audience was (teens and young adults) and they pitched it perfectly to that demographic. The video became an almost instant viral success, dominating Twitter worldwide and having one of the fastest ever take-offs on You Tube. For most of us, the last we heard about the campaign was ten days after the video had gone viral, when Invisible Children’s founder, Jason Russell, went on a naked, expletive-laden rampage on the streets of San Diego.

Ok, so it didn’t end so well for Jason and as far as I’m aware Kony is still at large but this was a classic example of the power of story and how a well-designed social media campaign can have a significant and immediate impact on its audience. Good stories still surprise us. They have compelling characters, they make us pause and think and with a well told story it is possible to move hearts and minds. Purpose driven passion can be very compelling as evidenced in the Stop Kony campaign. Just don’t take your clothes off and do the naked funky chicken walk once the hard work is complete!

One of the most challenging aspects of a recruiter or hiring manager’s role today is grabbing the attention of passive candidates. You know, those candidates that are happily employed with companies that they enjoy working for on a pretty good salary with reasonable career prospects ahead of them. Those candidates that are never on job boards looking at job ad’s and rarely respond to the multiple connection requests they receive through LinkedIn on a daily basis.

It can be hard to connect effectively with those candidates but these are you’re A-grade targets and it’s worth investing some time to connect effectively with them. Storytelling is a great way to connect with potential candidates in a powerful and meaningful way. Take some time to really look at your business and quantify what it is that makes your company a special place for your employees. What does the organization stand for? How would you describe the culture? How would you describe the engagement within the business?

As with the Kony film, if you know who your target audience is it’s much easier to create your pitch and make your story resonate with your ideal candidate. Once you’ve identified who your target candidate is and what makes your company a great place to be, you can then create your strategy. Enlisting some of your key people to execute your strategy is crucial. It will increase engagement internally but also add significant authenticity to your message which will resonate with candidates looking at career opportunities within your business.

Businesses that have mastered the art of recruiting via storytelling use it to showcase their culture and values in a way that makes potential candidates interested in learning more about them. Stories help us persuade and in a contestable candidate market the art of persuasion is an increasingly important skill.

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IT and Engineering Recruitment Specialists, Matt Love-Smith and Marc Denholm discuss the changes they're seeing in recruitment. With forty years experience between them, they take a look back at the industry and discuss what candidates are looking for in 2023. ﻿

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