Companies reveal what they want
Image: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

5 top employers reveal what they want from you

25 Jan 2018

It’s always important for jobseekers to know who’s hiring, but it’s arguably even more important to know what will make you stand out.

Want to work at a top tech company or professional services firm? Of course, the first thing you probably do as a jobseeker is find out who’s hiring. A jobseeker needs to look at where the jobs are, right?

While finding out who’s hiring might be step one, finding out what they want from you would be step two. It’s not enough to lay out your wants and desires; even in a time when there is a talent shortage, you still need to have what a certain company is looking for.

To help you out with this, Siliconrepublic.com spoke to five top companies to find out the kind of roles they normally hire for and what their ideal candidate looks like.

eShopWorld

According to eShopWorld’s head of HR, Sharon Scally, the e-commerce giant is hoping to enhance its technology talent pipeline.

“We are looking to grow our software development, product engineering, DevOps and security teams,” she said. “We’re looking for individuals who thrive in a fast-paced entrepreneurial environment and are experts in their chosen specialism.”

Scally also said that people who are passionate about what they do will succeed at eShopWorld.

EY

As one of the Big Four, it will come as no surprise that EY is recruiting for a broad range of roles. However, while it would be typically thought of as an accountancy firm, the company has plenty of openings outside of its traditional base.

These roles include data analytics, IT risk advisory, and programme and project management for large-scale IT engagements. Approximately 40pc of EY’s business in Ireland is related to the IT sector.

For those interested in working at EY, the company looks to marry a strong technical background in a particular field with really great communication skills and consulting experience.

Oath

Global software company Oath is looking for candidates to fill a wide variety of roles. These include software engineering, ad optimisation and data centre engineers. Oath is also looking for payroll specialists, financial accountants and creative strategists.

But what makes a candidate stand out to Oath? The company looks for candidates who can collaborate. You will also stand out if you have strong communication, analytical and problem-solving skills.

Oath also values candidates whose values match those of the company. This includes putting consumers first, a desire to raise the bar, and doing what’s right, not what’s easy.

Slack

For communication software company Slack, there are a number of roles available in its Dublin and London offices, including sales, customer experience, marketing, business operations and engineering.

Alan Doherty is part of Slack’s EMEA talent acquisition team. He said candidates for Slack’s sales team would need a track record of success in selling enterprise software, while someone looking for a job in customer experience would need to be a strong communicator and enjoy problem-solving.

“Regardless of job function, we look for each potential hire at Slack to have these three characteristics: empathy, curiosity and diligence, as well as having a highly customer-centric approach and the ability to thrive in a very collaborative environment,” he said.

Zendesk

Want to work at Zendesk? The software company typically looks for developers and engineers, including in DevOps, quality assurance and iOS. Outside of the technical roles, Zendesk also typically hires sales account executives and customer support advocates.

But what kind of candidate will stand out? According to Zendesk’s recruitment team, troubleshooting and analytical skills are particularly important to those looking to work in support, while hard technical skills and SaaS experience are big pluses for the tech roles.

The recruitment team also cited culture fit as extremely important. “While Zendesk is massively expanding at the moment, we still make sure that we preserve that start-up fun environment.”

Jenny Darmody
By Jenny Darmody

Jenny Darmody became the editor of Silicon Republic in 2023, having worked as the deputy editor since February 2020. When she’s not writing about the science and tech industry, she’s writing short stories and attempting novels. She continuously buys more books than she can read in a lifetime and pretty stationery is her kryptonite. She also believes seagulls to be the root of all evil and her baking is the stuff of legends.

Loading now, one moment please! Loading