At neoci, we are seeing a real dilemma for businesses across the ICT sector.
There has been a huge increase in salary expectations over the past 12-18 months, with businesses struggling to play catch up, and it has often led to companies going head-to-head in a ‘price war’ to secure the talent they need. The increase in pay couldn’t have come too soon for many, particularly with the dramatic rise in inflation this year. But the rise in the cost of staff has put pressure on many businesses.
How will this affect the way companies hire?
With the increase in salary costs, it’s prudent to adapt the hiring strategy of your business. There are two key choices to consider when hiring;
- Do you hire experienced people who will be able to hit the ground running, having instant impact? This is more costly than it’s ever been before, how do you attract them to join your business, do they demand a higher salary?
- Or, can you afford the time to take on less experienced or entry level people and train them? This is much less costly for a business, but it certainly comes with a high element of risk. On one hand, you could be moulding your own future business leaders. On the other hand, they might leave during the training process, or worse, after you’ve invested a great deal of time and money into them.
At neoci, we’ve decided to hire a mix of the two options. We have hired people without recruitment or telecoms experience, as well as now adding an experience person to the team. This has worked out well for us so far, but every business is different, and business critical roles often cannot wait for the training process to happen. This is where things can get quite costly, but does it have to? Planning ahead can alleviate the pressures caused by gaps in your business, but some things are almost impossible to plan for.
There are obvious advantages and disadvantages to hiring people with or without industry experience. It’s very much a cost vs impact scenario. It really is a case of identifying the most appropriate direction for your business. Agility is key in the current market, and at a time where inflation is affecting nearly every aspect of a telco business, now is not the time to lose focus on what is most important….people.
Neoci are specialists in recruiting into tech and telco, for further details visit