This post was originally posted on Louis-Philippe Huberdeau’s blog, co-founder of new hiring startup hirevoice. It’s hot on the trails of an earlier MTW blog post
We learned a lot at CUSEC this year. However, for the first time, it was not from presentations. The first presentation I watched entirely was on Saturday, when we decided it was time to rest and enjoy.
The rest of the time, the HireVoice team (Étienne and I) were hard at work, running a survey among the attendees to figure out what motivates them to work for a company. We gathered data on an analog medium (paper), uncertain that the digital age would resist the amount of devices attempting to connect during a conference attended by 400 software engineering and computer science students. Bell’s network could not handle it. Analog was the right way to go. Compiling the data turned out to be a huge task, but we got a few interesting points out of it. We finished everything yesterday.
First off, everyone was really nice. We surveyed 109 students in two days. Almost everyone accepted. We don’t really hold grudge against the two who walked away.
Second, relocation is not really an issue. The competition for talent is global and talent is going global too. 65% of respondents are ready to relocate for a job. The good news for Montréal is that a lot of those born and raised in Montréal have a preference to stay here.
Going back to a normal life, I read a post on Montreal Tech Watch indicating that the next challenge was getting students into startups. I went back in our dataset. Here are some numbers:
- 55% of the students surveyed listed a start-up in their employers of choice (among the sponsors)
- For those indicating a desire to work in Montréal, the numbers are very close (within error range), and keep in mind that you can also get those from outside to relocate to Montréal too.
If you want to recruit top talents getting out of universities, make sure you have a killer work environment, plenty of challenge and a product or services they can be proud of.
HireVoice is a Montréal-founded start-up interested in employer and candidate perception.
