We at Anyline are recruiting. We need people in the space of Artifical Intelligence, nowadays one of the most contested areas of digitization. We are tripling the number of AI engineers within a year.
But how are we doing this? How do we find, attract, develop and retain those talents?
We stick to five critical success factors:
ONE. We invest in people when they need our help, and we are not waiting until we will need them. We are collaborating with universities, and most of our AI engineers did their thesis with Anyline projects. We have a certain amount of open seats booked for students and stick to their time plan and wait until they finish their exams. Do not ask what candidates can do for you, ask what you can do for your them (stolen from JFK :-))
TWO. Intrinsic motivation factors are essential in the beginning. Extrinsic will be more critical later; however, you have to walk the talk of individuals career plans. And with career progression, these motivational factors you need to cover at a certain point in time. Start to walk the talk from day one.
THREE. Mens sana in corpore sano. You have to take care of what they are eating and how young people want to treat their bodies. In our case, we have three times a week a chef in our office, once a week fitness trainer in the office, every other week a masseur and weekly a work out trainer. In the summertime, we have our volleyball session, too. For intellectual hunger, we invite top speakers like international top sports coaches for motivational talks, Corporate CEO to talk about their career and of course, internationally leading AI Experts. As a special treatment, we offer our people medical health service from Mediclass.
FOUR. A professional onboarding process of new people is a must to integrate them as diverse they are. We hire from Chile to New Zealand. We have people from Canada, Germany, Austria, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania; we have even Irish and Northern Irish people. We have elderly and rookies. We have a higher share of female talent in our teams than usual in high technology companies. Inclusion & Diversity is key. Wherever your office location is, try to cultivate English as your corporate language.
FIVE. Hire slow, Fire fast. After a month, you know if people are ready for the challenging work and willing to leave the comfort zone. A former boss mentioned once, comfort zone and growth do not coexist. Fire early, when people are not ready. Recruiting is hard, and finding the wrong needle in the haystack is part of the game (approximately what Steve Jobs meant in the quote about recruiting).
