Singapore firms are losing top IT talent

No thanks to hiring process taking up 4.5 months.

Singaporean firms risk missing out on top IT job seekers as hiring managers take multiple months to during the recruitment process.

According to a study done by Robert Half, the average length of the hiring process for IT roles in Singapore is 3.5 months for staff-level professionals and 4.5 months for management-level staff. 

To combat this, a vast majority of Singaporean chief information officers (CIO) at 97% are actively taking steps to reduce the length of their hiring process.

When asked what the main reasons are contributing to slow recruitment processes, almost half (40%) of Singapore’s CIOs refer to the challenging search of sourcing candidates with the right skills. More than one in three (37%) respectively believe there are too many interview rounds and too many stakeholders are involved.

A further 31% say the number of CV submissions per role has increased – indicating hiring managers may feel overwhelmed with a number of resumes to review during the recruitment process.

Emphasising the need for employers to streamline the hiring process and expand their search amidst a skills shortage, the vast majority (92%) of CIOs find it more challenging to source qualified IT professionals compared to five years ago. Singaporean CIOs find it particularly hard to source talent within IT security (59%), Business Intelligence (36%), IT management (35%) and Cloud technology (32%), emphasising the need for CIOs act fast once they find a match.

Robert Half Singapore managing director Matthieu Imbert-Bouchard said operating within a highly competitive global region, it is understandable for Singaporean companies to invest a significant amount of time in the recruitment process to secure the best staff for their teams.

"Yet oftentimes it has the opposite effect and results in top talent becoming disinterested in a prolonged hiring process, and accepting a job offer with competing organisations,” Imbert-Bouchard said.

He furthered, “Being in short supply, qualified IT professionals are well aware of their market value and are not likely to wait around during a slow hiring process. Companies need to act fast if they want to secure the right and best talent for their teams.”

To boost their firm chances of securing top talent, more than four in 10 (43%) Singaporean CIOs have set up a pipeline of qualified candidates so they don’t always have to restart the hiring process from scratch. More than one in three (35%) have improved their communication with candidates about the recruitment process in order to keep them engaged in the process and 31% are conducting more initial interviews via phone or video conferencing to be able to create a shortlist of preferred candidates faster. A further 29% are limiting the number of internal stakeholders involved.