Tektra CEO & Co-founder Tom De Bruyne explains how the international recruitment by Tektra actually operates and the benefits for our customers who are looking for decent experienced IT specialists.
Hello, my name is Tom De Bruyne and I am the managing director of Tektra. People sometimes ask me: what exactly does this international recruitment entail? The basis is actually that within many development teams, people work onsite, locally. The remote aspect is also known among programmers who work remotely. Sometimes local and remote teams also work together. What Tektra does is slightly different. We select remote candidates with the intention of then guiding those remote profiles to work onsite, locally, in Belgium. What are the advantages? There is a cyclical shortage of IT talent. There is also a war for talent. With this remote-to-onsite procedure, you can partly circumvent that and actually work within the employment budget. And there is another factor that is not unimportant but is somewhat less relevant today. However, aging is coming. So there will be a huge outflow, about 20 percent per year. These are actually people who are retiring but will not be replaced. And that is going to have a huge impact, also on the IT development market.
That is where we, at Tektrawant to contribute with economic migration. How do we approach remote recruitment? The first major difference is that a bad hire here is actually not acceptable, also for the employee. They are making a huge step by coming to work in Belgium. And if it turns out in Belgium that they cannot program well, that is actually not acceptable. The method to counter this is actually by conducting very extensive assessments. We assess on personality, motivation, expectations, but also on technical skills. The cornerstone of the assessment is pair programming. We have built this in a very objective and structured way. A typical pair programming session can last up to four hours and results in a very objective score. So on one hand, we of course want to get a picture of the candidate. We also want to do this sufficiently objectively so that we can say these are truly the technical skills that the candidate possesses. On the other hand, we typically also recruit people with versatile profiles in terms of soft skills so that they can adapt very smoothly to different circumstances. Once we have found these people, we recruit them. To give you an idea, we typically work with the best of the best: one or two out of a thousand who will be hired.
The onboarding procedure starts with the signing of the contract and means much more than just handing over the keys. We actually have to apply for a work permit, a visa must be arranged, the relocation must be taken care of, etc. And during this period we actually start with performance management from week one. A good example is that they immediately start learning Dutch at this point. This is a very good gauge of intrinsic motivation. We also work on technical performance management, on how to deal with problems in a project. So actually how a group works together. What we want to achieve is that as soon as the candidate arrives in Belgium, everything is already arranged. A very interesting formula is to have someone start programming remotely at a reduced rate so that, once they arrive here in Belgium, they can immediately continue working on the project. That is the perfect methodology to actually smooth the onboarding process. So those are the two things: a very extensive assessment and very well-guided onboarding procedure. If you have any questions about this, such as: What are the typical profiles? How can we make use of this? We also want to recruit abroad, also the financial aspect, because there is really a financial advantage. If you have any questions about this, you can always contact me and then we can really discuss it objectively, really tailored to the type of profile you are looking for. Thank you and feel free to contact me if you have any questions.