Only 5% of PR professionals have the skills or the experience in the technical and digital aspect of PR, excluding social media, according to a recently released industry-wide survey by Chartered Institute of Public Relations. The lack of talent, along with the changing social and digital landscape — which happens to be one of the top 3 challenges in the industry, makes hiring, training, and retaining the right talent important.

Recruiting and retaining employees in the field is a real challenge—especially for the most in-demand positions. This shortage of software engineers is forecasted to expand by up to one million by 2020. But developer shortage could also be an illusion created by picky hiring managers who overemphasise on the resume and ignore the learning capability and a curious attitude much needed in the fast-changing industry.

Setting-up and leading a world-class technical team is critical to success and looking for the right skills is fundamental. After several years of experience in the field, I have gathered insights on the 2 most common mistakes made when hiring developers:

1. Overvaluing present skills and undervaluing future growth

One of the main things to consider when hiring web developers is not to hire them for what they already know. Overvaluing present skills and undervaluing future growth is a big mistake that a lot of hiring managers make. The pool of developers who do exactly the thing you need them to do is much smaller than the pool of developers who are smart enough to be good at the job they need to do. 

Given how quickly things change in this industry, you need to hire someone who shows curiosity for new and challenging work.

2. Relying on the CV

Don’t hire for a fancy resume. Academic credentials are important, but they don’t necessarily correlate with relevant experience. Having gone to a good college, or having gone to college at all, are not good predictors of ability as an engineer.

The most recent results of the Stack overflow survey show that most developers are self-taught. Just because the previous company was successful doesn’t mean the candidate had anything to do with that. In case you are familiar with another company’s hiring process, you can predict if a candidate is good because the candidate was subject to this process, but be cautious with trusting these predictions.

So, how does one select the right candidate in this context of an IT talent shortage?

It is fine if the candidate can’t do the job right now. The right candidate is a developer that knows what s/he doesn’t know but is open to learning new skills. The right questions are:

• Can the candidate learn to do the job?  
• Will he or she get better at it and improve his/her skills?

The answer to both questions must be yes. The attitudes that we are looking for are developers focused on continuous improvement and self-motivated fast learners. These are also attributes of a leader and a better indication of future success.

Curiosity is one of our key company values at Curzon. If you are interested in capacity building for your digital media and marketing team, please reach out to Agustin Mouratoglou at [email protected]

Curzon PR is a London-based PR firm working with clients globally. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our Business Development Team [email protected]