As Elbert Hubbard once said, ‘One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.’ Indeed, in the tech world, one extraordinary man is all that a company needs to thrive in today’s technology-driven world. However, hiring real tech talent, a shining diamond among regular employees, is a real challenge.
Bottlenecks of hiring tech talent
Hiring a tech talent is inseparably linked with some obstacles that the companies must overcome to successfully recruit a skilled professional.
A small pool of adequate candidates
The no. 1 problem in hiring tech talents seems to be their limited availability. This is also intensified by the fact that many excellent tech experts lack sufficient soft skills to successfully go through recruiting strategies prepared by hiring managers.
Accessing relevant candidates
Finding employees for the advertised position is difficult, mostly because of insufficient hiring resources. One good practice to shortlist your potential candidates is using coding skills assessments to measure their skill level.
Fierce competition
Small companies struggle with hiring skilled tech professionals because large corporations acquire the top talents due to the better conditions and prestige they offer. However, there are still ways to hire great talent, even though you might not be a multi-million dollar company yet.
Undependable candidates
Many candidates hold offers just to negotiate better terms with other companies. Therefore, the hired candidates often do not join the company and the whole recruitment process must be repeated. That is why, very often companies have more leads for one role.
Insufficient expertise
Very often it is difficult to appropriately assess the tech skills of a candidate. There is only as much the HR teams know about technology and it may not be enough to choose the right tech talent. Such a lack of expertise might lower the standard of hires and in the long run, generate the necessity to recruit again.
Unique skills
Within the tech industries, some niches lack tech professionals more than others. These include for example specialists analysing Big Data and Cyber Security Experts. There also seem to be problems with real-time testing, due to which, finding a professional with the skills corresponding to the declared expertise is rare.
Once we know the most relevant problems connected with the tech talent recruiting process, we can now move on to proven ways to find the right engineering talent.
Know who you are looking for and reflect it in the job description
With the outsourcing of recruitment processes, many companies can enjoy stressless hiring experience. However, the tech industry is specific and requires extremely knowledgeable HR, preferably with a tech background. It is not always possible to afford to employ such a hiring professional. That is why HR should make every effort to understand the positions they are hiring for. This includes consulting the developers and browsing through other job offers to find out all possible skills needed for the job.
To some extent, hiring skilled developers, software engineers, and other tech specialists is easier when you do it yourself. You can write a job description that will attract suitable candidates. A good job description will help you snatch top candidates from tech giants. To make it appealing, it is a good idea to personalize it by:
- coming up with a catchy job title;
- stressing the opportunities the role gives;
- focusing on new technologies;
- building an impact of the role and being precise;
- listing all important benefits, making sure some are unique to stand out among the competition;
- including the information about the remuneration.
Use various ways to search for tech talent
Another question that arises is how to find tech talents. There are certain ways to source the candidates, which we will briefly discuss below.
- Use branding to your advantage. It attracts top talents and will increase the chances of hiring an exceptional employee;
- Use referral programs as a way to shortlist applicants according to their skills;
- Devote time to preparing a career page, where the potential candidates can complete the form and apply for a position within your company;
- Candidates with the right technical skills also like to attend various tech events and conferences. Make sure you also show up in those places to find the best fit for your role;
- Show up on developer forums, where you can meet the best specialists in given fields who also look for work opportunities there;
- Use paid ads on social media channels and LinkedIn to attract appropriate candidates. LinkedIn additionally gives you instant insight into candidates’ employment history, reviews, and so on;
- Keep an eye on sourcing blogs that are browsed by tech talents looking for jobs. You might just come across a perfect fit for your role;
- Advertise on freelancing sites which are full of profiles of talented tech professionals. Browse their databases in search of various tech roles to attract and recruit the best talent.
Include candidate experiences in the structured interview process and build a talent pipeline
The key element to hiring great talent is the interview. It is a strategic element as both sides of the equation meet and assess whether they want to work together or not. Therefore, the employee must make a good impression but the company too.
Let us start with the company. The worst thing you can do is prepare an interview with generic questions. To attract your perfect match you must be genuinely interested in the candidate and their work. Remember about eliciting the information through the natural conversation.
At the same time, it is crucial to assess the actual skills of a potential candidate. To do that effectively, make sure that you have other developers and testers assist you during the meeting. Use a structured interview method to ensure fairness in candidate assessment.
Another huge HR trend is making your company stand out among other interviews your candidate attended or will attend. How to achieve that? By responding to the most crucial needs of your tech talent. The right candidate you want to hire will have certain goals or aims, that you want to bring them closer to.
One of the important factors is growth. Best tech talents want to take part in something great. They are excellent at what they do for a reason, and this reason is not a boring position with predictable projects. Top engineers are hungry for new exciting projects, where they can experiment with new code, follow their passion, and get even better at what they already do brilliantly. The ethical and ecological aspects of company operations are often considered too. Therefore, make sure you provide the opportunities to grow, but also clear targets and objectives regarding your expectations.
Another proactive way of talent acquisition is through building a talent pipeline. It creates an enormous base of tech talents by engaging candidates in the recruitment stages but not only. The talent pipeline is based on proven marketing and sales strategies. It makes potential hires familiar with the brand through ongoing engagement. It also gives tech companies insight into how to meet the candidates’ needs in the future. Building good relationships is the key to attracting top employees.
By providing personalized experiences, the talent pipeline strategy improves the brand image. It is highly advisable to conduct the engagement with candidates via social media. Nowadays, is the most popular channel of recruitment marketing. Want to hire tech talent? Get involved with social media!
Invest in your hires’ happiness
As already mentioned, tech talents want to feel fulfilled at work. Therefore, if you want to retain your developers your biggest focus should be placed on creating an environment in which they can thrive. What does it entail?
Firstly, your developers want to be part of something big, so treat them as creators and active participants in your company’s endeavors.
Secondly, closely track job satisfaction levels. There might be some management practices in place that reduce engineers’ job satisfaction. One of the most crucial and interesting pieces of information is the number of your developers who are recruiting other developers. It shows how strongly your employees feel that your company is a good place to work.
Use the newest technologies and online channels for your recruitment process
Automation is the new face of many industries. Hiring tech talents should also involve some form of automation. Especially when it comes to the first stage, which is receiving resumes. The best way to keep track of applications, updates, and feedback is by automating recruitment processes. To do that effectively, you can use applicant tracking systems.
Also, consider using the type of AI-based software with email marketing automating and Customer Relationship Management features. However, use recruiting software wisely as keyword automation, if done incorrectly, may result in spamming your job offers. It makes them unattractive for potential hires. Moreover, such unprofessional offers decrease the company’s good reputation.
The importance of social media in the recruitment process cannot be stressed enough, however, there is one more important source that will help you in your search for top talent, which is tech communities. By increasing your visibility and number of interactions on such platforms you can build and maintain strong relationships with the candidates.
Engage current teams in the hiring process
There is nothing better than having your staff members, who are already proven workers, bring the new staff in. Word-of-mouth is still a very popular and successful way of finding tech talents. It is worth introducing a reward program to encourage your team members to refer their contacts.
They can also do it through (already glorified in this article) social media. Nowadays, it is one of the most effective ways of advertising. Especially, when such an ad shows up on a friend’s wall, talents are likely to see your company as a trusted employer.
Finally, do not forget to engage your senior employees in the recruitment process. Their stories and firsthand experience in working for you may be exactly what a top talent needs to decide on joining your company.
Make the work worth their while
Contrary to what many may think, high income is not the most important factor in choosing an employer. Of course, you must meet market requirements in terms of benefits and pay to even be considered. However, if we assume for a moment that the pay is identical everywhere, what is a deciding factor for choosing which employer a tech talent works for? The feeling of purpose. The job must seem worth doing. The key is to create the ‘fear of missing out’ on something great if the potential tech talent does not choose your company. Think about what assets your company has that can be useful in creating this impression.
Embrace the company’s message and culture
Even with high competition in the market, one thing always prevails- having strong and unified employees. When the whole recruitment team sends the same message and shares stories about the company’s culture, potential employees simply know your company will be a good choice in their professional journey to greatness.
Takeaway
Nowadays, recruiting tech talents faces many challenges connected mostly with the availability of skilled workforce and their accessibility. Attracting top tech talents requires making efforts in several areas connected with potential hires’ satisfaction and sense of purpose. It also requires reaching out through various channels, such as social media and tech communities.
One of the best ways to find developers, software engineers, technical writers, creative designers, or other tech talents is through freelancing sites such as Useme. Browse through our database of IT professionals and pay them without hiring. You can simply receive an invoice for the completed jobs, regardless of whether the subcontractor has their own company, or not.
