Viola’s Tips for Attracting Top Tech Talent

When the competition is so fierce, interviews are often two-sided: the company may be interviewing a candidate, but that candidate is usually interviewing with a few companies at the same time and trying to make his or her mind about which company is a better fit for them. Some of the metrics a company should pay attention to, according to Viola, is how its daily operations are conducted with respect to its employees and its level of transparency.

Job interview. Photo: Shutterstock

Another tip is to keep the interviewing process as short as possible and keep candidates in the loop, updating them after each stage. Based on Viola’s survey, 55% of companies hold a four-step hiring process that includes a preliminary interview, a second interview with more senior personnel, an interview with someone in HR, and then a test of sorts. 25% of companies have five to eight steps, while only 5% have no more than two steps. According to the group, the general hiring process in Israel takes six weeks on average for general and administrative positions, seven and a half weeks for marketing, and eight weeks for research and development.

Viola also cautions that due to Israel’s small tech ecosystem, word of how a company conducts itself can easily get to other potential or future candidates and so it is in a company’s best interest to make the best possible impression even if it ends up rejecting a candidate. 90% of Israeli companies surveyed by Viola had a friend referral recruitment program, and 47% named it as their most effective recruitment source.

A final piece of advice is to invest in keeping the employees you already have. According to Viola, Israeli tech companies have a 17% turnover rate, which, especially for young startups, can wrack up expenses of up to tens of thousands of dollars.