Azahara PrietoTalent Acquisition Manager at Alhona, shares in this interview her vision on the key aspects of attracting, recruiting and retaining talent in technology companies such as AlhonaShe especially highlights the importance of offering a good experience to the candidate and the employee.
What are the challenges of growing the team in a company with technological and industrial profiles?
In any company, especially those oriented to industry and technology, there is a basic challenge which is to attract highly technically qualified people. In addition, at Alhona, where we have such profiles, it is key to focus on maintaining a high level of excellence as we grow, ensuring that the people who join us add to the team. And to do this, we must have a good talent attraction strategy and take care of the employee experience.
How would you say selection processes have evolved in recent years?
I think a very positive change that has happened in the last few years is the fact that companies have become aware that it is a process of mutual knowledge that must be done on a peer-to-peer basis, since in most of the positions we seek there is competition for talent.
Obviously, in this process we have the opportunity to get to know the candidate and decide if he/she is the person we want to incorporate into the project, but also that person has the ability to get to know us and choose if he/she sees our company as the right place for his/her next professional stage. Therefore, the selection process should be done in a close, humble and empathetic way, offering the candidates a space in which they can show themselves as they really are and also decide if they see themselves working with you.
On the other hand, there are initiatives that make it much easier for us to attract talent, such as our referral program, in which we value and reward Alhona employees when someone they have recommended joins the team. I think having a referral program is very positive, because employees function very well as ambassadors and referrals for people they have worked with and want to work with again.
What are the best practices for delivering a good candidate experience?
The essential thing in Alhona’s selection processes is to treat well the candidates who aspire to be part of our team. Therefore, we always try to carry them out with agility, good communication and transparency.
We start by writing detailed job offers in which they can get as clear an idea as possible of what it is like to work with us, including the benefits we offer. We try to keep the number of interviews reasonable and not exhausting for the candidate, who after all is giving us his or her time, and to get to know the people he or she will be working with more closely. We try to keep the candidates well informed about the timing and next steps, and to let them know if there are any setbacks. In this way, we have a very good ratio of accepted offers.
And, once the selection process is over, how do you take care of the employee experience?
At Alhona we all work remotely, but we always do the onboarding in one of our offices in Bilbao or Madrid, so that the new person who joins us can have a closer experience and a more direct contact with their colleagues in the first days.
In addition, we organize meetings with the heads of all departments to explain first hand what they do in each of them, current and future projects.
Finally, we try to ensure that each employee has a close, fluid and constant communication with their managers and from the HR team we work to create the right framework so that people can focus on their work without having to worry too much about other issues. In this way, we try to make their day-to-day work as easy as possible with tools and benefits aimed at their well-being. In addition, the fact that we can work remotely and with a lot of flexibility is something we all value. In order not to lose visibility on the activity of the different teams, we organize periodic all-hands, and we also organize Random Coffees, meetings with a more playful character where we talk about any topic with colleagues of the organization with whom we do not have daily dealings.
