If your company wants to hire strong tech talents and software developers in Vietnam, you need to know some key mistakes to avoid in order not to spend unnecessarily, exceed your hiring budget or hire the wrong tech talents.
As more industries are shifting towards digital technologies in Asia, companies are hungry to hire strong tech talents and that makes the tech talent market in Vietnam tight and competitive.
To hire the best and the strongest tech talents in Vietnam, companies must try to understand and avoid these 10 mistakes when recruiting tech talents in Vietnam.
About us
Having more than 5 years of experience in tech talent recruitment in Vietnam, 9cv9 has seen it all, heard it all, and done it all. In this article, the 9cv9 research team has condensed and distilled all our learnings in producing some of the mistakes that we have seen and come across interacting with our clients and tech talents.
If you are a local or international talent acquisition executive, a founder looking for your first hire, or a recruitment consultant working at a headhunting agency looking to minimize your hiring costs and expenses,
Then this article is perfect for you to understand the 10 mistakes to avoid when hiring tech talents in Vietnam.
10 Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring Tech Talents in Vietnam
- Using Job Portals to Hire Tech Talents in Vietnam
- Not using an IT Recruiter
- Not Researching the Local Salary Amounts Beforehand
- Not knowing about Local Employment Laws in Vietnam
- Not Optimising on the Employment Contracts
- Long Recruitment Process to Find the Perfect Tech Talent
- Not Respecting the Tech Talents in Vietnam
- Lack of Diversity in Hiring Tech Talents in Vietnam
- Not Offering Remote Working When Possible
- Not Focusing on Company Culture and Only on Money
1. Using Job Portals to Hire Tech Talents in Vietnam
When hiring managers need to hire for some roles, their first thoughts are usually directed at posting job advertisements at a local job portal.
However, in Vietnam, at least for tech talents and software developers, it doesn’t work like this.
Most developers, especially in Vietnam, are passive job seekers and they do not actively search for job opportunities. Even if they were, there is a long list of headhunters and recruiters on their heels, waiting to guide them seamlessly into a job role.
General Rule:
Hiring Tech Talents in Vietnam – Use IT Headhunters.
Hiring Non-Tech Talents in Vietnam – Use Job Portals
– 9cv9
Hence, posting your job openings on job portals such as ITViec, TopDev, and JobHop is, more often, a waste of your hiring budget.
Also, some of them require you to have a local legal entity including a local address and a phone number.
9cv9 recommends using the headhunter method to hire tech talents in Vietnam
– 9cv9
At 9cv9, we highly recommend using headhunters to hire tech talents in Vietnam.
Why?
Based on our earlier guide on how to hire IT developers in Vietnam, we shared two reasons:
- Top Software Developers are few and far between. They would have many recruiters queuing up to get their signatures and these top Software Developers generally do not have the time, and the need to apply for the Software Development job on the job portals.
- Some top Software Developers are passive applicants (as shared earlier). This means that they are not looking for a new job at the moment.
Working with an offshoring provider like 9cv9 Tech Offshoring gives you access to our database (as the 9cv9 Group owns the 9cv9 Job Portal, Jobsrefer, and UrbanCV) and a strong network of software developers in Vietnam without having to set up a local company.
If you are hiring IT interns or fresh IT graduates, a novel approach is to join a university job fair that many computer science students attend.
Through this approach, you might be able to recruit as many tech talents as you can, albeit they are at the intern, or junior tech talent level.
For higher levels, such as senior software engineers, then you are better off using IT headhunters for that.
To find out the complete list of relevant IT headhunters in Vietnam to hire tech talents, then have a read at our complete list of IT recruiters and headhunters in Vietnam.
2. Not using an IT Recruiter
Huge mistake.
The same scenario as going for surgery without having a surgeon.
Leave the recruiting to a specialized recruiter.
We recommend getting a specialized IT recruiter in Vietnam who knows the ins and outs of IT recruitment to drive the hiring of tech talents in Vietnam for you.
9cv9 is well-placed as one of the selected few endorsed by the Government of Singapore, Enterprise Singapore for their GTTA Program.
9cv9 is one of the most experienced headhunters and IT recruiters based in Vietnam and Singapore.
If getting an IT recruiter isn’t palatable to your budget then another innovative way is to ask for referrals from your current employees or your network. Social referrals are in the rage now given the strong ecosystem and connectivity amongst them in the tech talent ecosystem in Vietnam.
Is any of their friends or families that are looking for a job in the tech field?
Employee referrals are one of the highest resources for hiring new talent. If you are keen to use a novel tech platform to get access to 12,000+ freelance recruiters and referrers for social referring, then look no further than Jobsrefer.
Notwithstanding the use of social referring, you will also need to make sure that you treat your current tech talents well and fair.
By doing so, your current tech talents will have good opinions and judgment toward your company.
Then there are bigger chances for your employees to spread good information about your company and make your company desirable for job seekers.
They can also leave a good review on Glassdoor or on Google so that prospective tech talents in Vietnam can read and increase their chances to be referred or to apply to your company.
3. Not Researching the Local Salary Amounts Beforehand
If you do not do your homework on the salary range earned by tech talents in Vietnam, then you are going into the hiring warzone blind.
Overpaying for a tech talent and software developer might lead to dissent among your current tech team, and increase the risk of underbudgeting.
Underpaying for tech talent might lead to the latter looking for better opportunities instead of focusing on building the best tech product for your company.
You do not want the tech talent to have side hustles and be distracted from his/her main job scope.
If you are a foreign company, then the tech talents in Vietnam might anchor their initial asking salary at a higher range.
Therefore, it is crucial to do some research on the current IT developer’s salary range.
Based on the 9cv9 database, the average salary earned by a software developer in Vietnam is around USD 2000.
4. Not knowing about Local Employment Laws in Vietnam
Many foreign companies stepped on this mine in the hiring minefield when hiring tech talents in Vietnam.
Being a foreign company does not preclude your firm from adhering to local laws and regulations.
In fact, we highly advise your organization to be cognisant of idiosyncratic employment laws and regulations in Vietnam.
For example, in Vietnam, it is a good practice to pay your tech talents and software developers a TET (Vietnamese New Year) bonus.
This is known as the 13-month salary.
This Tet Bonus is usually paid to employees before the Tet Holiday or also known as the Lunar New Year holiday.
It’s not statutorily needed, but it is well-practiced by almost all companies in Vietnam.
Your tech talent will expect this on top of any other bonuses, i.e., performance, equity, etc. you will award to them so consider this in your salary budget when you are discussing the job offer.
When the candidate mentions their expected monthly salary, you can multiply the amount by 13 to get the annualized salary amount.
5. Not Optimising on the Employment Contracts
According to Emerhub, foreign employers in Vietnam usually made these mistakes when hiring tech talents in Vietnam:
3 Contractual Mistakes made when employing Tech Talents Vietnam
- Signing a permanent contract right away. Hiring companies do not need to sign a long-term contract at the start with the tech talent. It is recommended to sign a probationary contract. The maximum probation period in Vietnam is 2 months. This gives some buffer time to evaluate the employee and leaves room for more negotiation down the road. Also, hiring companies can pay at least 85% of the agreed full-time employment salary during the probation period.
- Not having the contract in Vietnamese. In Vietnam, documents submitted to the Government and its ministries, have to be in Vietnamese. Therefore, your company will need someone proficient in Vietnamese law to draft the employment contract in Vietnamese.
- Adding clauses to the employment contract. Put non-compete, confidentiality, and non-solicitation clauses in a separate, internal document. Such clauses make employment contracts difficult to uphold in court.
6. Long Recruitment Process to Find the Perfect Tech Talent
There is no such thing as perfect tech talent in Vietnam. Although they are one of the most productive workers in the world with a high productivity increase CAGR of 15% over the past few years, they are still fallible.
Even the most professional tech talent is a human and humans will make mistakes.
Therefore, trying to recruit only the perfect employees will be impossible, and in fact, will be detrimental to you not getting the best talents.
In this case, the best does not mean perfect.
If the hiring manager takes too much time to screen the tech talent to find the best tech talent in Vietnam, then they will lose out on a good pool of the best tech talents that are suitable for their needs.
Do note, the current recruitment progress of receiving and screening the CV, reviewing applications to assessing their skillsets, can take up to months in some cases.
Instead, during the hiring process, the company should consider optimizing and reducing the number of rounds of interviews and assessments for the tech talents in Vietnam.
Do not make the hiring process difficult.
Keeping it short and simple is one of the ways to attract many potential tech talents in Vietnam.
Make sure your hiring announcement is easy to find and make sure the job description is detailed and realistic.
So, it will reduce the number of answers you need to answer to the tech talents during the interviews.
7. Not Respecting the Tech Talents in Vietnam
Since the demand for tech talent in Vietnam is increasing, companies should know that trying to be superior to tech talent will no longer work.
Tech talent in Vietnam nowadays is also evaluating the company as how the company is evaluating the talents.
Make sure to treat all talent with respect and they will also treat you and your company with respect.
Top talents are riskier than fresh graduate tech talent because they have more professional experience and companies are trying harder to recruit them.
Also, words travel fast around the tech community.
One wrong misstep in terms of treating the tech talent badly during the hiring process or not replying to their application status promptly will leave a sour hiring taste in their mouth and the tech talents will not shy away from gossiping about the bad hiring process.
Communication is an important aspect if you want to start any relationship.
Including a relationship between your tech talents in Vietnam and you as the job provider.
Companies need to know what kind of job the tech talent is expected to do.
Tech talent will not be interested in a company that does not know what they are talking about.
After you choose a few candidates for your company, it is important to update them with the recruitment process overall.
Make sure you tell them whether they are accepted by the company or not.
And answer their emails as soon as possible.
8. Lack of Diversity in Hiring Tech Talents in Vietnam
In recent years, technology has become so common and it attracts all kinds of people no matter how young or old they are.
The tech industry is also not limited to men only, women could also be tech talents in coding and software development.
Companies should never discriminate against potential employees by their gender, race, age, or background education.
Even though education is important, experience in the work field is also important.
It is essential to make sure that your employees can work together in a harmony.
Therefore, you should conduct a fair and thorough judgment when recruiting tech talents.
That said, based on our research, we find that males dominate the tech scene in Vietnam with 91% of the tech developers in Vietnam being male.
9. Not Offering Remote Working When Possible
The Covid-19 pandemic brought a lot of changes to the working industry.
Many companies as well as employees need to adapt to the new normal way of work – working remotely.
The remote working option allows workers to take their work somewhere else and not the office.
This gives more freedom for workers to work from anywhere they feel comfortable, and more productive.
More importantly, it cuts down on traveling time between their home and the office as a remote working option removes or reduces the need to travel.
Based on our research, we find that 87% of tech talents in Vietnam prefer some form of remote working.
Since many tech talents in Vietnam have already gotten used to remote working, companies hiring tech talents in Vietnam should also provide the right amount of flexibility needed by the tech talents.
Alas, we still see some companies that are fixated on the on-site working option which requires the tech talent to make their way to the office on a daily basis, and clock in from the office.
By offering an opportunity for employees to work remotely, it would be easier for your company to attract more tech talents in Vietnam.
The sooner your company adapts to it, the easier would be it is in the future. We never knew what the future may look like, so companies need to prepare for all possible outcomes.
10. Not Focusing on Company Culture and Only on Money
Of course, the tech talents in Vietnam like to have a stable high salary.
However, focusing only on the money aspect wouldn’t bring your company far ahead.
If you are trying to recruit talent using only money, there’s a high possibility that other companies are doing the same.
Perhaps, they are also able to offer them much more money than you already did.
Trying to reach your potential workers from other aspects.
For example, what things are new in your company that could become a great learning experience for your employees.
What is your company culture and what makes working in your company better than other companies?
Tech talent loves challenges, so give them some problems to solve.
The problems need to be technically challenging for them.
In this way, they will highly value your company and see your company as something that they can learn a lot from.
The best tech talents work together with respected peers.
A good tech team leader will have the skills to inspire younger tech talent.
Employing a team leader with a strong connection and reputation in the industry is a great starting point for your company.
Encourage your employee to participate in a seminar or work project with other companies.
By having your tech talents engage with other tech talents in Vietnam, it would be a great source of experience for them.
Build a company culture that you and your employees are proud of. Therefore, more tech talents will be more attracted to join you.
Additional bonus points to offer for hiring tech talents in Vietnam:
In recent years, almost all companies are using social media websites. Tech talents in Vietnam heavily use social media websites such as Facebook, and Linkedin.
Use this opportunity to make your company look appealing in the social media domains, and make the tech talents in Vietnam want to work for you.
Create a website that is easy to navigate but full of information at the same time.
Use YouTube videos to post an advertisement for your company. Making a Twitter profile could also be helpful. By using Twitter, you can engage with many people and some of them might be your future workers.
Conclusion
Now that you have read the above 10 key mistakes made by hiring managers and founders hiring tech talents in Vietnam, you will be better equipped to avoid these mines when navigating the hiring minefield.
Knowing these mistakes and how not to repeat them will put you in a better position in hiring the best tech talents that your competitors might not have.
Also, it will help reduce hiring risks and will keep your salary budgets and hiring costs within expectations.
If you find this article useful, why not share it among your recruitment and talent acquisition counterparts, and also leave a nice comment below?
We at 9cv9 Research Team strive to bring the latest and most meaningful data, guide, and statistics to your doorstep.
Sources:
https://thegradient.pub/ai-startups-and-the-hunt-for-tech-talent-in-vietnam/
https://insights.dice.com/employer-resource-center/mistakes-to-avoid-when-recruiting-tech-talent/
https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/7-mistakes-to-avoid-when-hiring-it-talent/425729
https://theundercoverrecruiter.com/how-to-recruit-tech-talent/
