Sourcing high quality senior ServiceNow professionals with the right certifications and skills is becoming an ever-increasing challenge for hiring managers.

Competition

Approaching things from a positive perspective, you are not alone when it comes to recruiting exceptional cloud professionals. The whole market is struggling. That means that the good candidates will always have multiple organisations vying for their services, some of which will go to incredible lengths to secure talent in the current climate.

If you have not already, you’ll need to understand how you differentiate in the mind of the candidate and play to your strengths; recognising that you aren’t always able to offer everything to everyone.

Salary

Because of the skills gap, the market effect of this has meant the price of ServiceNow talent has dramatically increased. Because ServiceNow is a relatively new technology, candidates may often have less experience and higher salary expectations than your business may be expecting.

Candidates recognise that the value of their skills (irrespective of experience levels) can be inflated, as some corners of the market will pay for it. This in tun is driving up salary levels and making it increasingly more likely that churn will occur in all organisations as the demand intensifies.

Skills Gap

The demand for talent globally is at its peak, yet the volume of candidates has not kept pace with the number of jobs. Therefore, companies that require the skills are facing significantly more challenges than before and companies under threat of losing the skills are fighting harder than ever to retain their talent.

Technology

Technology is of course impacting the way hiring managers and recruiters do their jobs, and to be successful, you need to embrace technology to improve the speed and efficiency of the hiring process. Technology also enables potential candidates to see the presence companies have online, from your own website, social media or Trustpilot reviews, as well as job rating websites such as Glassdoor and Kununu. ServiceNow professionals are of course more likely to apply to companies with a positive reputation and active presence than those who have a negative one or lack one completely.

Companies are no longer able to get away with keeping their internal culture a secret. In fact, the more transparent companies are about their business, the more likely they are able to attract potential high-level ServiceNow candidates.

Candidate Experience

Poor candidate experiences are not exclusive to the interaction a hiring manager or recruiter has with a candidate; it’s also the way candidates navigate the entire application process. One of the reasons companies lose great talent is because they create unnecessary mazes for applicants to jump through.

If you want to attract and win over ServiceNow talent, you must start by assessing your current recruitment strategy from start to finish and close any gaps that pose challenges for potential candidates. Developing a smooth and easy flow helps strengthen the way applicants navigate the recruitment process creating an overall positive candidate experience.

Skillset

A hiring manager must take a few things into account when looking for ServiceNow professionals; ServiceNow is a relatively new technology, the majority of your candidates may have fewer than 10 years of experience, some of their salary expectations may be higher than you are anticipating, and still some of them may have talents and skills you’re over-looking because they might not seem relevant at the time.

Companies like Google and Microsoft are retiring University degree requirements in favour of more hands-on experience. Passing on CV’s and applications because candidates don’t tick all of the boxes is the quickest way to miss out on top talent. It’s unfair to assume candidates who have all the educational requirements outsmart candidates with more drive and hands-on experience.

Last year, ServiceNow CEO John Donahoe said that his company will need to recruit talented candidates with different skillsets:

“We have a goal to be a $4 billion business by 2020, on our way to be a $10 billion business. The way I think about it is, what is required to be a $4 billion company? What kind of leadership? What kind of skillsets? What kind of requirements? One is we need to do everything we can to develop the talent we have today. We have wonderful talent, but our leadership needs are going to be extraordinary going forward. We must invest in our top talent today and do everything we can to grow and develop them. Two, we’re going to have to continue to recruit, and recruit effectively. We will need to recruit different types of skills, the breadth of skills that’ll be necessary to be a $10 billion business.”

Training & Development

ServiceNow specialists enjoy learning as the platform constantly evolves - one of the top reasons why candidates join a company is the exposure they will get to the platform and further career opportunities. Of course, offering to support them through their certifications is also a massive positive at all levels. If you can articulate your plans for the platform and the opportunities that will be available for them, you are much more likely to get your desired hire.

Contractors

Tapping into the contract talent available offers your business an additional and more extensive candidate pool. A 2017 report found that the number of freelance professionals is expected to exceed non-freelancers by three million by 2027, whilst nearly half of Generation Z (46%) are freelancers, a number that is set to increase as 61 million are projected to enter the workforce in the next couple of years. Similarly, nearly half of all millennials (47%) operate on a freelance basis.

While considering contract professionals may be a viable option for your company, your contingent workforce still requires robust and effective support, direction, and performance management to maximise the use of their skills within your organisation. Creating a consistent and positive employee experience by focusing on engagement for all your workers should form a central component of your overall hiring strategy.

Use a specialist ServiceNow recruitment consultancy

A StaffHost Europe specialist recruitment consultant will know what’s what in the industry and be able to vet candidates who have the latest knowledge. Plus, a good recruitment consultancy will have specific specialists with candidates across the countries and regions in which they operate, and they will know what it will take to get that candidate onboard.

When you engage with a specialist recruiter, typically the qualification of candidates will have happened many months before. As with any other industry, specialists will take the time to intimately understand their product or service, the competitive landscape, risk factors and things that are positively impacting the landscape. Specialist recruiters invest in candidates for the long-term. They may be happily employed now, however things do change. It may be 3 months, 6 months, 2 years; however, when it does happen, the specialist recruiters will know first as they have maintained relations and dialogue with the candidate for the entire period.

If you post a ServiceNow job online, you will no doubt get plenty of applicants, but a specialist recruiter is armed with highly skilled, pre-qualified candidates, who are ready to improve their career when the right opportunity presents itself.