Sachin, a former software developer for Google and Microsoft is now the head of sales/marketing/operations at HackerEarth. Sachin, a developer by trade (show more) Sachin was formerly a software developer at Google and Microsoft and is now the head of sales/marketing/operations for HackerEarth. Sachin is a developer by trade. He is passionate about the community of developers and making sure that every developer has the right opportunity. Sachin was included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 List for Entrepreneurs in Asia in 2016.Software development today is very different from years ago. Open source allows for speed, agility, as well as flexibility. APIs allow you to connect disparate processes and create an ecosystem of solutions that can easily be plugged into each other.Software development is becoming increasingly collaborative. However, I believe the process of upskilling and hiring talent in this field is quite the opposite.It is fragmented, with many different technologies and siloed team members. Each recruiter, each hiring manager, the HR team, and the strategic leaders work in isolation, much like the legacy software they are replacing.It is common for recruiters to misalign their expectations with hiring managers. However, the problem of building great tech teams extends much higher up the organizational ladder than you might think.When developing L&D initiatives, Chief Learning Officers don't usually consult with their hiring managers. It may seem obvious, but it is not if you really think about the implications.You can prioritize certain skills in your company and create entire courses to help you do so. It is important to know the skills you are looking for when you hire potential employees.It is because of this that I believe that we need to have strategic communication between our teams in order to align everyone on who to hire and why. Also, how can they upskill them to be the best talent to meet the current and future technology trends.These are just a few of the ways you can do it:1. Create a skills-based organizational cultureSome cultures can be fun. Some cultures are boring. One joke in Silicon Valley's VC world is that Venture Capital firms have a common clothing item: Patagonia vests.Culture is more than clothing. It starts with the hiring process.I have argued that the concept of culture fit hiring is changing. Employers used to look and feel the same as archetypes, which was a risk to inclusivity. Culture fit today is about aligning values at all stages of the interview process.These values should be inclusive. However, once you have established that the candidate has similar world views, a desire for excellence and customer-centricity, you can prioritize skills.My team and I work together to make skills central to our organizational culture. No matter what race or gender, we hire for their skills. We mask personal information such as name and gender during screening, and sometimes during interviews, so that unconscious bias doesn't affect a hiring decision.Interviews are a source for subjectivity. It is easy for people to make decisions based on their personal preferences rather than actual skill.By designing a method to measure skills accurately even in face-to-face interviews, we ensure objectivity. This eliminates any room for bias or subjectivity.We go beyond just hiring. Our learning and development programs are designed around strategically-prioritized skills. This way we are confident that we have the right developer talent to meet our needs. However, we can tailor L&D programs for them to improve their skills and make them more future-ready.It was easy to establish a skill-based organizational culture and get stakeholders to work together to set skill-based goals and help new and existing developers grow in a strategic way.We have also incorporated this into our solutions for businesses worldwide. We help you find the right people for your organization, so you can align hiring and L&D programs seamlessly.2. Continuous assessment is necessary to ensure continuous learningThis is the process that product developers often use: Design, Test, Iterate.I've noticed that learning and development programs often neglect the second two steps. These programs are often designed by companies, but it is difficult for them to quantify and understand the success of their programs.Deloittes 2021 Human Capital Trends Report reveals that programs for reskilling or upskilling workers must collect and use workforce data to provide a real-time view across the entire talent system.You will need to gather employee feedback about individual programs. However, you must also test their skills in quantitative ways. For example, can you create an assessment to gauge their ability code in Go, which is a highly-sought-after programming language?Then, their assessment data needs to be compared with performance data. Is their role fulfilling the expectations of their assessments? Why or why not? What can be done to make the L&D program more relevant for real-world skills applications?You are building skill infrastructure blind if you don't assess the skills that you prioritize.3. D&I insights can be applied to your upskilling programAlthough the corporate world hasn't always been known for supporting diversity and inclusion, it did show some improvement after last year's BLM protests. While many organizations have prioritized D&I recruitment initiatives, their failures in upskilling or promoting diverse talent within the organization is a common problem.Women are more likely than men to take a career break. D&I programs can help them adjust quickly to a new work environment that emphasizes different skills.Your HR department can make a significant contribution to the success of your company by working with your hiring managers and highlighting these programs as a draw for your employees.The hiring managers can also help to inform these programs by communicating growth areas with their candidates.This collaboration allows you not only to hire diverse talent but also to tailor programs to meet their needs so that diverse talent can be placed in leadership positions.Great tech teams are built with great connective tissueSometimes, it is funny how we sometimes fail to learn from the lessons we have learned day after day. Instead of focusing on the details of execution, we fail to see strategic changes as they occur.We embrace the use of APIs in tech. However, we haven't sourced, screened and interviewed nearly as many tech talent.It is time to create connective tissue between tech employee lifecycle management structures so that organizations can work together when creating great tech teams.
