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A trusted consultant would not give bad advice

CONSORT Success stories A trusted consultant would not give bad advice

It took CONSORT Group five long months to fill a role of quite a rare IT expert for our long-standing client — a large state-owned company specializing in industrial construction. Why so long? What could have been unusual in such a seemingly standard search project?

Possessing the IT market expertise and evaluating all the nuances of the role requirements, from the very beginning we advised our client that the salary level should not be less than 150 K rubles net. The customer said no, the salary budget is up to 100K gross, so look for candidates within this range not deviating a single bit from the requirements and evaluation criteria! Office work and a strict dress code were mandatory, among other specs.

We could have said no and let the customer look for the “required hero” by themselves, but we don’t work in that way! From May to September 2018, over 200 (!) programmers were contacted and interviewed by our consultants. Fifteen candidates were presented to the customer, with a number of others eliminated for various (objective) reasons. But 179 people refused to consider the job at all, and these were very strong specialists who were interested in changing jobs! Why?

It is because the IT market has been changing faster than the approaches used by many employer companies! Candidates are well aware of being in demand and can dictate their terms and conditions. Programmers, testing engineers, developers, architects, etc. are not ready for nine-to-five office work; it is much easier for them to work remotely or on a flexible schedule at times convenient for them. And this is understandable since you can write codes and programs anywhere, and it does not have to come from the office premises.

Programmers, as a rule, are younger people who value their time and feel very negatively about any limitations and restrictions. Many of them believe that spending three hours a day to get to the office and back home is an unacceptable waste of time.

And salaries matter, too! Working remotely to complete tasks and projects, programmers can earn very good money, adjusting their workload and rate of execution. On average, an hourly rate of a good programmer now ranges from one and a half to two and a half thousand rubles net, which makes it 240K for an 8-hour workday, minimum.

By the end of the fifth month of the search, exhausted from useless interviews and unpleasant refusals, the client finally agreed to increase the salary and cut some slack regarding work-in-office-only and dress code. And almost immediately an excellent specialist was hired with a salary offer of 170K net.

Seems like a happy ending, doesn’t it? However, it’s a pity to have lost so much time and missed on so many opportunities: after all, that professional could have already been working for the company for five months!

We were very glad that at the wrap-up meeting our client agreed with our arguments and promised to take them into account during further cooperation