Why Does a CTO Work Instead of Recruiter?

The cost of the hourly rate of the Technical Director, Technical Lead, HR, and other recruiting specialists is an amount that can be equal to the cost of a used car. All this for the sake of hiring a new specialist, the search of which sometimes takes months of painstaking work.

How the Chief Technology Officer organizes the hiring process, how much time he devotes to the process and how much the company spends on hiring a new employee, will be mentioned further.

CTO – the head responsible for the budget, terms, architectural solutions, interacts with team leads and architects, takes key responsibility for the success of projects and much-much more. One of the secondary responsibilities is hiring new crew members, namely: auditing resumes, conducting technical interviews, approving candidates; other obligations are provided by the HR department and accounting department.

Why does a CTO often do the work of recruiters?

Recruiters in the search process present non-core candidates based on keywords generated on the basis of the technology stack of the vacancy. At the same time, they do not describe the essence of the project, the composition of the team, and any details that can help the candidate navigate the upcoming challenges that await him in the new place. At such moments, the CTO begins to intervene directly in the matter.

But where did the problem start? Let’s look at the stages of formation of recruitment processes:

1. CTO draws up terms of reference to search for a new candidate, if such a need arises in the team;

2. HR department generates a job description;

3. HR specialists consider scope of work and search methods;

4. Search stage. Comprises of:

• search for candidates in social networks;
• conducting dialogues;
• viewing CVs;
• answers to questions from candidates;
• taking candidates for HR interviews.

5. HR interview. Comprises of:

• preparing a recruiter for an interview;
• conducting an interview;
• evaluation of the candidate after the interview;
• transfer of the candidate to the next stages or refusal.

6. Technical interview. Comprises of:

• selection of a technical specialist for interviews;
• preparation of a technical specialist for an interview;
• conducting an interview;
• transfer of the candidate to the next stages or refusal.

7. Interview with CTO. Comprises of:

• CTO allocates time for interviews;
• preparing CTO for interview;
• conducting an interview;
• approval of the candidate or refusal.

It can be concluded that before the CTO conducts his interview, there will be a long period of time, and everyone knows that the longer the hiring lasts, the more often candidates are intercepted by other companies.

There is also a dilemma with constant requests of clarifying the details of the vacancy in the CTO, which takes a lot of time, that is not tracked though.

It should be emphasized again that a significant number of candidates bypass the vacancy due to the lack of project details. The trouble is that even if the CTO describes the details of the project, no recruiter is able to use this to his advantage when it comes to conducting a written dialogue, and even more, during an HR interview same issue. Recruiters do not have programming skills when it comes to vacancies for developers. For other types of vacancies, the problem is similar.

Who ends up being interviewed by the CTO? Not even half of what the CTO would like to see. No doubt such candidates do not go further or they are asked to wait for a decision for weeks (such candidates are eliminated on their own). As a result, the vacancy closes for months.
Not understanding the reason for the flow of non-core candidates, the CTO rolls up its sleeves and begins to dive into HR processes on its own, which increases the cost of hiring.

What is the way out of the situation?

Hire only a technical specialist for the position of team leader in the HR department. Expensive, but advantageous in the long run, especially for companies with more than 100 employees.
Prohibit the involvement of CTO in hiring specialists that has level lower than tech lead has.

* Or use recruiting services of All day hiRe. We know how to find candidates who meet your expectations. Our recruiters know how to communicate at a high level with developers, they know how to make a positive impression about your company, they have sufficient technical skills to talk about the features of projects, the technology stack; they will help candidates understand what to expect in a new company.