#222 Hiring And Retention In 2023: Positioning Your Organisation with the Right Audience, with Felipe Flores

Data Futurology - Leadership And Strategy in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science

Organisations face multiple challenges when it comes to building teams in 2023. On the one hand, there is a skill shortage in just about every field of data science and analytics. Finding and attracting the best people to the organisation can be difficult.

On the other hand, there is mobility between jobs unlike anything we’ve seen before. The “Great Resignation” is still a major trend sweeping across Australia, and employees will be more than willing to move on if they don’t feel like they’re getting what they need from their jobs.

In this episode with Data Futurology podcast host Felipe Flores (a Chief Data, Analytics & Technology Officer himself), he explores both sides of this particular coin. In the first half, Felipe shares key insights and tips on how to recruit the best talent, including mistakes that he’s made in hiring and how he now looks at the interview and hiring process.

The second half of the podcast is dedicated to providing tips for retention. Contrary to the popular view, it’s not always a matter of remuneration. Indeed, studies consistently show that this is far less important to many employees than things such as the opportunity to build their skills or engage more deeply with their organisation. As Felipe says “People might want to become a product owner, or a strategic person that interfaces with the business and helps them to contextualise the results to the organisation.”

Tune into the podcast for these insights, and many more.

Thank you to our sponsor, Talent Insights Group!

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What We Discussed:

00:00 Welcome to Data Futurology

0:29 What to expect from our upcoming event on operationalizing security for business value, impact and scale, at the Sofitel Wentworth in Sydney on March 14 and 15.

2:20 What makes hiring so challenging.

2:50 Three tips for hiring. Tip #1: Attitude.

3:40 Three tips for hiring. Tip #2: Transparency and openness.

5:53 Three tips for hiring. Tip #2: Be impressed with one technical thing in one technical area.

7:54 Why retention is important, and what is being done to improve it?

9:54 Three tips for retention. Tip #1: Provide formal training.

10:24 Three tips for retention. Tip #2: Give employees exposure to new work/projects.

11:31 Three tips for retention. Tip #3: Provide on-the-job training

Quotes:

• Even having technical tests doesn't really show the full depth and capability of a person. It’s very easy to get it wrong.
• When I was more junior in my hiring career, I would test people in the interview. We always had a technical test, and then an interview where we were going through the code, they were just wrong. This is terrible, but when I was junior, I would sometimes tell people “Hey, that’s wrong.” The idea was that if someone responded “oh, yeah, let’s discuss that” then those were the people we wanted to hire. That’s not a very effective way to do it.
• I don’t look for somebody to impress me with general data engineering or data science skills. Rather, it could be something like the way they use one algorithm in a particular way.
• You want one technical thing that people do well because it shows passion, commitment, and that they really care.

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