Our recent Mexico Tech Salaries Report 2023—CodersLink annual in-depth study of Mexico’s Tech Ecosystem revealed some surprising insights into how the country’s tech professionals sees and experiences the hiring process. With many U.S. companies hiring employees in Mexico, this information is relevant for those looking for tech talent in the LATAM market.
This year’s IT salary guide reveals the ideal length of the selection and hiring process for tech professionals in Mexico’s IT Industry, how they see onboarding, and what they find important after an interview.
Let’s look at some of the details.
The Challenges of Recruiting Software Developers and Other Tech Professionals
The term recruiting has gained a bad rep. It has somehow come to suggest an impersonal, detached, and one-dimensional view of hiring. At CodersLink, we take a more personalized approach. We know that the labor market in tech is best served when opportunities are well fitted. And, as companies today know, hiring good people can be complicated; talent pools are highly diversified, work models shift, tech roles are increasingly specialized and in-demand, and expectations of the labor market have changed.
The more information one has about the market and talent pool they are sourcing from, the more they can understand their values and motivations.
When it comes to hiring tech professionals, the question has its own unique set of challenges, given the idiosyncrasies of the industry and how specialized or niche it can be. In addition, the competition is fierce and talented software developers and engineers often have several other job offers on the table.
The discussion behind hiring the best tech talent continues to be front-and-center for many growing companies or organizations that need to improve their digital infrastructure, software, or innovate a new product or service using tech professionals.
Mexico’s Tech Professionals on the Interview and Hiring Process
Hiring the right person can be a lengthy process, but how does a hiring manager balance the need to keep the process expedient and efficient and looking at what is necessary for the hire? Having a hiring and interview process that takes too long is not a great strategy.
According to DevSkiller, the average length of the interview process reaches about 24.4 days for jobs in internet and tech and about 23.9 days for positions in computer software and hardware. The LinkedIn Workforce report suggested that the time to hire in advanced engineering roles was about 49 days. These positions often take several rounds of interviews and therefore take longer.
Companies need to be wary of dragging candidates through endless interviews, assessments, and long wait times for a response. At the same time, they have to be mindful of who they bring on and how they assess their skills for the job.
So what does the talent think? Our recent survey suggested that IT professionals in Mexico see the ideal hiring timeframe at about 2 weeks. For hiring managers, this is important information, as it suggests that the tech talent may not be so keen in waiting around for four weeks for an interview process that progresses slowly.
While most tech roles might not be realistically filled in two weeks, the most important part is that hiring managers or hiring companies should have an efficient and transparent hiring protocol. The key is to avoid creating a sense of a stalling, disorganized, or inconsiderate process.
That being said, tech professionals are very much open to being tested on their technical skills. Our report shows that 92.9% of Mexico’s tech talent agrees with being evaluated on their technical skills—whether it’s in the form of coding assessments, tests, or live interviews. The question in the interview process becomes at what point and how long should the technical assessment be? It’s an important questions for hiring managers and their recruiting teams to discuss.
IT Professionals Who Agree on Being Evaluated on Their Technical Skills
| Yes | 92.9% |
| No | 7.1% |
Mexico’s Tech Professionals on Feedback After the Interview Process
After going through an interview process, most IT professionals want to understand how they did in the interview process. Leaving a candidate with unanswered emails or impersonal responses is not a great strategy, as it reflects poorly on a company’s culture. Software developers, engineers, and other IT professionals are interested in one-on-one communication that provides them valuable insight as to why they got or were rejected for a job.
Today, after all, the hiring process is all about considering the candidate experience and ensuring that working professionals don’t feel duped after a series of interviews or assessments.
As far as Mexico’s tech talent, they find feedback after the interview process very much important. About 90.2% of respondents to our survey said they found receiving feedback after the hiring and selection process as very important. In addition, 75% of those tech professionals want the feedback to be very detailed.
The implication here is that software developers and engineers are interested in learning about their performance. When a candidate takes the time to complete a coding assessment or other type of test, they want to know about how they fared with the rest of the competition. When companies are interested in finding the right talent and keeping it, all of these considerations can come into play.
Our survey revealed that 47.7 % of the time candidates do not receive feedback or proper responses after the interview or selection process. Only 23.5% of candidates said they ‘almost always’ received feedback from their job process.
Mexico’s Tech Professionals on the Onboarding Process
SHRM describes the onboarding process as a “magic moment” when new workers either decide to stay engaged or disengage. According to hiring experts, squandering the opportunity of a good onboarding can have effects down the line when a new hire struggles to assimilate or catch the groove of the work or company culture.
The same SHRM report showed that:
- 69% of employees are more likely to stick around for three years if they experience good onboarding.
- Companies that implement a standardized onboarding process will have 50% more productivity in new hires.
Tech professionals have learned how important the onboarding process is. After all, tech talent is known for highly prioritizing company culture when making decisions on what jobs to take and onboarding is where that company culture really shines through.
Importance of the onboarding process for Mexico’s Tech Professionals
| Very important | 77.6% |
| Indifferent | 22.0% |
| Not important at all | 0.4% |
Source Your Talent From Mexico’s Growing Tech Industry
Finding great talent is one of today’s biggest challenges for companies. Remote work has been a great asset for growing companies and those that want to expand to a bigger and different talent pool. The skills gap is very real and, according to McKinsey, 61 percent of HR professionals believe hiring developers will be their biggest challenge in the years ahead.
The nearshoring market offers promising opportunities for companies that seek promising talent without having to go overseas. The Mexico tech ecosystem shares a lot of similarities with the U.S. market—as our Mexico Tech Salaries Report has highlighted.
Learn more about hiring a Mexican software developer or engineer through a trusted employer of record.
