What Do Top-Tiered Tech Candidates Find Irresistible?

If you’re having trouble convincing the best developers and alumni from top tech companies to join your company, you might want to rethink the way you market your product to tech talent.

It might seem a little daunting.

After all, how can you compete when there are so many high-growth, exciting technology companies in today’s candidate’s job market?

While the prestige of top tech giants is understandably irresistible, stellar programmers want more than just a name on their resume.

Large companies like Yahoo or Google can often create a “cog-in-a-machine” atmosphere that can be professionally stunting.

Instead, here are some of the key points you’ll want to drive home to become irresistible to the best talent in technology:

1. A Culture Focused on People

Take it from the folks at Axxess, a leading healthcare software technology company. Their team has been growing rapidly, from 70 to 125 engineers over the past two years. All 11 of their recent candidates accepted their job offers.

There’s a lot that goes into creating a strong, positive culture, according to the company's CTO, Andrew Olowu.

At Axxess, they focus on putting their people first.

“Whether it’s free T-shirts, drinks, catered lunches, company outings, we recognize and reward employees throughout the year,” says Melody Lenox, head of HR at Axxess.

Olowu adds that, in order to truly compete with other companies for talent, it’s important to go above and beyond to provide amazing perks, like food and flex working hours to cater to their needs.

2. Understanding Their Need for Compounding Intelligence

All smart engineers want to be continuously challenged.

“When you recognize that intelligence is compounding, the cost of that missing long-term compounding is enormous,” says Stephen Cohen, cofounder of Palantir.

If “they’re not giving you the best opportunity of your life, then a scary thing can happen: You might realize one day that you’ve lost your competitive edge,” Cohen adds.

If “they’re not giving you the best opportunity of your life, then a scary thing can happen: You might realize one day that you’ve lost your competitive edge,” Cohen adds.

“So, run your prospective engineering hires through that narrative. Then show them the alternative: working at your startup.”

3. Tools to Build Amazing Things

“No one wants to work with outdated technology,” Olowu says.

Giving top-tiered talent tools to run with exciting, new products is a great way to lure them away from giant corporations with unavoidable bureaucracy.

“When Staples bought Runa, it turned it into an ‘innovation lab.’ High-autonomy R&D projects are probably the cheapest way to get top talent,” says Michael O. Chruch, functional programmer and machine learning engineer on Quora.

4. Ownership

This one can give you a huge leg-up on your competition.

“If you feel like you own something, you tend to want to take care of it more,” Olowu says. “We keep things open and involve people in the decision-making process.”

During interviews, for instance, they even pull other engineers into the interview to help make the hiring decision.

5. Flexibility in Working Conditions

“It's annoying to an engineer to be told they have to deal with a bureaucratic policy or finding out they can't occasionally bang out some code from home or a coffee shop,” says Jon Bischke, founder of Entelo.  “The best companies we've seen create an environment that allows their engineers to be 100 percent-focused on the task at hand and remove all of the other obstacles for them.”

Boom—an easy-to-implement way to attract the best talent.

6. Open Communication

“Developers may not necessarily be the most vocal of the bunch, but tech companies need to foster an environment where communication channels are open, especially when speaking with developers,” says Alex Barkan, software engineer at Augmate.

At Augmate, the team started using Slack and it has changed the way developers communicate with other parts of the company. “Knowing ‘how’ to communicate and ‘where’ to communicate is also key in the day-to-day of keeping developers happy,” Barkan says.

7. Meaning in the Work They Do

This is particularly true for the younger generation. It’s a candidate’s market. Any smart, techie can get a job—but to do something that truly adds value is a high end-goal for smart engineers.

“A mission. A narrative. A way to put a dent into the universe. And make sure your organization is built to get their contributions into the world -- you've got to ship to matter,” says John Lilly, partner at Greylock Partners.