One of the reasons ATAP (Association for Talent Acquisition Professionals) was founded is that we need a better way to accumulate and share data in the talent acquisition space. Right now we have all this disparate data all over the place and if you were to ask one TA pro this question they might send you to one place and one answer, and another would send you to a completely different direction for a different answer, etc. That’s if you can even find someone in your network with an answer!

One thing we want to be at ATAP is a destination for TA pros and leaders for answers to your questions. To be a place where the talent acquisition industry can come to share the latest and greatest data around the globe! We aren’t quite there, yet, but we are working in that direction and future is bright at ATAP!

One piece of data came across my desk recently that I wanted to share. Hacker News recently did a reader study of their audience to select 8 traits of their ideal engineering work environment and here’s how they ranked:

1- Work/Life Balance

2- High-Quality Code Base

1 & 2 were one and two by a ton! After work/life and code base the rest were all virtually the same.

It is amazing that three out of the top 4 all speak to the work arrangement. Balance, flexibility, remote. Basically, what IT pros are telling you they want is to be able to work on high-quality stuff, when and where they want. Just give me good work and get the hell out of my way!

Is this similar to your EVP?!

One thing that is far down the list, that almost every corporate TA leader I know will want to argue is “Personal Growth” and development. It doesn’t really matter as compared to a lot of stuff, but we continue to shove this down the throats of our employees because we believe that personal growth and development are super important!

The big question is, why? Why do we believe our employees care so much about personal growth and development when it’s really a minor issue in the overall scheme of things?

You know what happens when you get your hands tied on things like work/life balance, flexible work, remote work, etc.? You focus on things you can control, like personal growth and development…The ‘you’ in this example is ‘us’ – TA. Our reality is we haven’t been able to get our executives to see this is what IT talent really wants, and because we can’t move the needle on work arrangements, we act like personal growth is super important.

It might be for some, but it’s only important to all after the higher level needs and wants are met. Want to attract great IT talent? Offer work arrangements that attract them and you will be shocked at how great talent will find you!

——————————————————————————

What the heck is ATAP?!? I get asked this question almost daily. ATAP stands for the Association of Talent Acquisition Professionals. Founded in 2016, ATAP’s mission is to develop a body of unified educational, ethical and measurement standards, advocate on issues that impact those in our profession, and build a global community of inspired and informed professionals. I’m a member! You should be one too – Join Here – use my code to get $5 off your first-year “ATAPDISCTS”!