Your backstage pass
to talent insights
Have you ever wished you had a backstage pass to talent preferences?
Where they prefer to work, what benefits they value most, or how much they care about salary, culture, and mission?
Well, now you've got one!
We've introduced a new Persona Dashboard that transforms billions of data points into clear, actionable insights, showing you what different groups of people really want from an employer. To kick things off, we've launched four personas: early careers, senior women, advanced tech talent, and neurodivergent individuals.
Here's a glimpse into one persona: Advanced Tech Talent. You'll see what matters most to them, from flexibility and benefits to mission and culture, and how their preferences compare to the average job seeker's.
What can you do with this data?
With these insights at your fingertips, you can:
Shape your employer brand around what truly matters to different talent groups
Write job descriptions that resonate with the people you want to hire
Refine your benefits and flexibility offering to stand out in a competitive market
Understand cultural priorities like mission and values so you can align your messaging
Attract and retain the right talent by removing the guesswork and acting on evidence
Advanced Tech Talent
Summary
Specialists in technical fields such as engineering, data, or product. Meeting their expectations is key to winning in a highly competitive talent market.
This group knows their value, and they expect you to know it too. They are deeply driven, ambitious, and used to being in high demand. But they’re also discerning: perks don’t cut it, and vague promises won’t pass. What they want is deeper: autonomy, challenge, and meaningful impact.
Their preferences show a clear rejection of traditional corporate structures and a push for a more performance-driven, flexible, and values-led environment. Get the basics right, give them space to work, and don’t waste their time.
Top preferences
Fully flexible hours
+67%
Remote-first (optional office)
+56%
Health insurance
+39%
Mission and vision
+20%
Culture
+10%
Lower preferences
Open to compressed hours
-18%
Diversity
-20%
Open to part-time employees
-30%
Hybrid (some weekly office time)
-32%
A little flex time
-43%
Preferences breakdown
This section shows which preferences are most in demand for this persona. The percentages highlight how this persona's preferences compare to the average person.
Benefits
Top preferences
Health insurance
+39%
Shared parental leave
+18%
Sabbaticals
+5%
Lower preferences
Open to compressed hours
-18%
Summer hours
-20%
Open to part-time employees
-30%
Key takeaways
Health insurance is non-negotiable. It’s the most preferred benefit in this group — they see it as a basic sign of seriousness and respect from an employer.
They deprioritise ‘soft’ or novelty benefits like ‘pawternity leave’ - they’re here to do great work, not for the beanbags.
Show signs of long term commitment: both sabbaticals and health insurance are benefits that come into their own over a longer tenure, suggesting that retaining top tech talent is possible with the right incentives.
Flexibility
Top preferences
Fully flexible hours
+67%
Remote-first (optional office)
+56%
Core hours 11-3
+51%
Lower preferences
Fully-remote (no office)
-10%
Hybrid (some weekly office time)
-32%
A little flex time
-43%
Key takeaways
Office-first approaches are actively rejected with only 3% saying they’d like to work in an office - this group views physical presence mandates as outdated and untrusting, and they know they can deliver their work from anywhere.
Remote-first as a preference over fully remote suggests they aren’t entirely against in-person collaboration, but they want it to be meaningful and structured in order to see the value.
Role Criteria
Top preferences
Mission and vision
+20%
Culture
+10%
Reward and recognition
+9%
Lower preferences
Personal development
-7%
Benefits
-12%
Diversity
-20%
Key takeaways
They prioritise reward and recognition - perhaps because they are used to high levels of compensation, or perhaps because they know they are in high demand in this market.
Traditional EVP pillars like company culture carry less weight - they assume you’ll get that right by default, and are used to a more modern, untraditional way of working.
Learning, challenge, and impact are central. They want to work with smart people, solve problems, and contribute to real-world outcomes.
Vision and Mission
48% chose Improving quality of life/health as one of their top mission preferences
29.1% chose Tech for good as one of their top mission preferences
26.6% chose Sustainability as one of their top mission preferences
24.4% chose Social impact-led as one of their top mission preferences
Key takeaways
Purpose clearly matters as much as prestige for this group, with almost half of tech talent motivated by companies focused on improving quality of life, and nearly 3/10 wanting to work for ‘tech for good’ organisations.
And it doesn't stop there: over a quarter are attracted to companies with clear environmental commitments, and a quarter are attracted to ‘social impact’ as one of their top missions.
It’s interesting that traditional tech-forward missions like ‘data driven’ or ‘disruptor’ don’t feature in this top list, suggesting that there’s a general misunderstanding of what motivates this talent.
In summary, what does this mean?
Key takeaways
Autonomy is the new prestige: This group values being trusted to deliver without micromanagement and having to be in a certain place and a certain time. Flexibility, choice, and freedom are baseline expectations, not a bonus.
Impact over image: Mission matters more than brand. They want to work somewhere that’s doing something meaningful. Especially in sustainability, health, and social impact. However, there is an oversupply of companies who represent their mission as ‘improving quality of life’ - think about how you could be more specific to draw this talent in.
Sticking around: With only 0.4% of companies offering sabbaticals, there’s an opportunity here to provide the freedom tech talent crave with the structure of a long term tenure and stronger talent retention.
Explore more personas with Flexa
Want to dig deeper into other talent groups? Remove the guesswork and get in touch to see how talent insights can help you strengthen your employer brand.
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