The need for technological experts is growing as businesses try to stay inventive and competitive. However, with the fierce competition and changing technical landscape, finding and employing top-tier tech talent can be difficult. Organizations need to implement efficient tech talent recruitment strategies to overcome these challenges.
An analysis by Bain & Company indicates that non-tech organizations employ 40% percent of software developers and engineers. Tech companies are no longer the only businesses who are looking for tech talent; other industries are also contending for a share of highly skilled tech professionals.
Skilled workers in the technology sector, encompassing fields like cybersecurity, data analysis, software development, and more, are referred to as tech talent. These people have a blend of real-world experience, technological expertise, and a knack for innovation. They are in great demand because of their aptitude for developing, overseeing, and safeguarding technology solutions that propel corporate growth and technical innovation.
Challenges of Hiring Tech Talent
The demand for tech talent has been especially tight due to the industry's rapid technological improvement. These are a few of the challenges that ruin the nights of a technical recruiter or hiring team.
1. Best Tech Talent is Expensive
In the US, a developer typically earns between $100 and $140k annually, while a senior cloud engineer may make up to $200k. It will cost a lot of money to fill any technical position you're hiring for. When you take the hiring expenses into account, you'll see very quickly that a poor hiring decision might severely impair your finances.
Finding excellent applicants that fit within your hiring budget is one of the biggest challenges in the candidate sourcing process since the high demand for technical roles doesn't seem to be abating any time soon.
2. Constantly Changing Technical Skills
Monthly innovations happen in programming languages and frameworks, therefore for a tech recruiter, being up-to-date is essential. Citing outdated skills in the job description would not only make them appear foolish but could also decrease the number of applications.
As a tech recruiter, you must be aware of the shifts occurring in the technology sector and possess the ability to recognize and evaluate key talents associated with those shifts.
Keeping up with the evolving tech market requires extremely efficient assessment to hire highly qualified tech personnel with adaptable mindsets. WeCP can assist you with creating technical assessments that are significant to your company.
You can assess a candidate's abilities by existing question bank which contains more than 200k technical questions across 2000+ skills and you can used WeCP AI to generate assessment which imitate real-world work scenarios that your company handles daily.
3. Competitive Hiring Market
It's not only you who wants to hire data analysts, QAs, or developers. To remain competitive, even non-traditional IT organizations are scrambling to hire top tech personnel. Offering more than just a competitive salary will help you stand out from the competition when it comes to hiring skilled employees.
Continuing to provide an appealing applicant experience is one of the best things you can do to differentiate yourself from the competition and make yourself an attractive employer. Making the application process transparent and straightforward is the best thing you can do to win in a competitive hiring market.
4. Hiring Bias
Hiring bias can be observed in all employment contexts, including the tech industry. It occurs when recruiters discriminate against other applications in favor of one individual.
Because of this, the technical hiring process is not only getting unfair but also results in poor hires as well. Rather than discovering the ideal applicant with the necessary abilities, you wind up with a horde of imitators who, while logical at first glance, are by no means the greatest fit for the position.
To avoid this, you should rely on assessments that focus on skills rather than years of experience. WeCP can help you conduct structured technical assessments and interviews to test candidate's skills that matter to your business.
5. Long Hiring Processes
In the US, the hiring process typically lasts 44 days. If your hiring time is comparable to that average, candidates will have 44 days from the time they apply until they sign a contract to schedule interviews and maybe receive offers for other technology-related roles.
A lengthy interview procedure can cause you to lose out to rivals for the best candidates. If you're taking too long to make a decision, your top prospects might choose to work for a more proactive organization that is ready to make a decision right away.
An efficient screening tool might be an alternative to a long hiring process to eliminate unqualified candidates quickly. WeCP's screening tool to improve your hiring process and candidate experience.
25 Tips On How To Hire Tech Talent
With the ever-changing and competitive tech market, you have to revamp your recruiting and hiring process. We can help you with some tips that you can use to hire top tech talent for your business.
1. Create a Precise Job Description
With a high supply of developers and software engineers, attracting the top talent for the job would be very difficult. Crafting a precise job description is the first and most important part of the recruiting process. It will help you to get the right person for the right job.
You can make your job description more appealing to potential candidates by paying attention to:
- Appropriate job title.
- Explaining the best thing about the role.
- Mention skills and technologies required.
- Clarity on the benefits.
- Mention the compensation range.
👉 Read more: How To Write a Great Job Description?
2. Revamp your Talent Sourcing
To draw in top talent, pay special attention to your branding. Developing a strong brand helps you attract and hire top talents.
Referral programs provide you with a pool of skilled individuals seeking a change of employment. Using the recommendations, you can shortlist applicants according to their skill sets.
The gold mine for top tech workers is freelancing websites. Some of the top freelance websites have the best talent, including developers, software engineers, technical writers, and creative designers. Here, you can hire and seek out top tech talent.
Global IT talent gathers in developer forums like GitHub to present their work. Job searchers can effectively search for roles on these forums and vice versa.
3. Understand the Candidate’s Expectations
Nowadays, candidates expect more than a competitive salary. They prefer to have technologies that align with their skill. Focusing on the candidate's experience can be an effective way to attract top talent.
Tech recruiting tools like WeCP can provide candidates with a seamless interview experience leading to an enhanced recruiting process.
- Reduce your hiring time by using screening tools.
- Use hackathons and open-source platforms to hunt top talents rather than traditional job sites.
- Talent in technology is just as anxious to get to work. Assist them in navigating the process and make sure the onboarding goes well.
4. Build a Talent Pipeline
One proactive approach to talent acquisition is creating a talent pipeline. It helps in identifying and engaging potential candidates from a diverse talent pool. Organizations should focus on applicant engagement to guarantee the success of their talent pipeline strategy.
In addition to attracting stronger applicants, a talent pipeline helps firms expand their talent pool, give candidates individualized attention, and enhance their employer brand.
According to Glassdoor, 79% of job applicants prefer social media for job search. Therefore, it is crucial to build a brand on social media to engage with potential candidates.
5. Familiarize Yourself with Technical Terms
It makes sense that not every recruiter works in technology. Therefore, it is essential to understand the often-used technical terms related to this subject.
You need to understand the basics to hire the tech talent. Also, without understanding the work position, it is impossible to write an accurate job description.
Understanding technical jargon is key. You are supposed to know what you are talking about, after all!
👉 Read more: Technical Recruiting Cheat Sheet For Recruiters
6. Streamline Technical Hiring Process
Streamlining technical hiring is very crucial for an efficient hiring process. This also provides a great experience to candidates and helps in regularly keep touch with them.
As a hiring manager, you can use various tools like pre-employment screening, interview scheduling, video interviews, and more.
WeCP can help you with candidate screening and assessment tools for online coding and providing a seamless interview experience to candidates.
7. Real-life Technical Assessments.
Technical assessments that can test how a candidate will perform in an actual job could be best to filter the best talents. These technical assessments can include take-home assessments, pair programming, and live coding interviews.
To hire the best tech talents, you need assessment tools that can test a candidate’s skills in the actual job. WeCP AI can help you create assessments in minutes and hire your best tech talents faster than before.
8. Offer Excellent Candidate Experience
Make the process easy to follow and transparent, from the point of candidate screening to onboarding. Considering you are dealing with IT talent and not just any other talent pools, keep the interview brief.
This will save you the most precious resource. Time!
The HR staff should focus on outlining the career prospects of the job profile and how it could help in expanding their knowledge and abilities in addition to outlining the advantages of joining the company, including perks and privileges.
Also, give more attention to the business culture and how it fosters harmony and a healthy work-life balance.
👉 Read more: Why candidates love WeCP platform!
9. Verify Background before Scheduling an Interview.
It's critical to verify candidates' backgrounds within the tech community before extending invites for tech interviews.
If you're hiring a developer, go to a developer community like Github to learn more about the candidate's expertise, projects, prior experiences, collaboration, vision, and deliverables.
This will make it easier for the hiring team to assess the candidate's skills and personality.
10. Ensure a Culture of Diversity and Inclusion
Different teams approach problems from varying experiences and points of view, which results in effective solutions for every situation. Your company's brand value increases when you consider diversity and inclusion while hiring.
A diverse team can better understand and serve a wide range of customers. Employee diversity helps the business build stronger relationships with its clients by bringing perspectives on other cultures, preferences, and needs.
According to Glassdoor, 76% of job seekers consider a diverse workplace to be the most important consideration when assessing a firm and job offer.
Hence, you can obtain a competitive advantage by including diversity and inclusion hiring.
👉 Read more: Guide To Diversity Candidate Hiring For Recruiters
11. Offer Internship Programs
Internship programs are the best way to attract top talents. Especially, fresh college graduates who are looking to gain work experience and enhance their knowledge.
This is also a good opportunity for companies and candidates to know each other better, assess work culture, and forge a strong bond between them. For companies, this often leads to top talents with a high rate of employee retention.
12. Organize a Virtual Job Fair
Virtual job fairs are a fantastic way to present your company and highlight your strengths as an employer. Additionally, as remote work becomes more popular, candidates are ready for an online hiring procedure.
By holding a virtual job fair for IT positions, you can inform tech professionals about the open positions in your organization and provide a forum for webinars with industry experts.
13. Connect with Coding Boot Camps
Regardless of the technology involved, all coding boot camps aim to provide developers with the technical abilities necessary to secure a top position in the labor market. Undoubtedly, obtaining a job is one of the main reasons people enroll in coding boot camps.
Coding boot camps are an excellent way to attract creative talent. Despite being difficult and resource-intensive, connecting with coding boot camps can match you with experienced programmers based on your preferences.
14. Regular Candidate Engagement
A seamless hiring procedure and seamless transition depend on effective communication. To guarantee that candidates may voice their concerns, the HR department and IT recruiting managers should maintain an approachable and transparent communication channel.
Uphold complete transparency at all times to close the gap in communication.
15. Campus Recruitment
Hiring recent grads and undeveloped talent is made easier by campus recruitment. You can hire and train junior developers unless you have an imminent deadline that needs experienced developers. It is a successful recruitment tactic that yields long-term results.
Look for recent graduates in nearby colleges. Some resumes may not be very attractive, but they could still be a great asset to the firm in the long term.
Their fresh perspective can enhance productivity and motivation in the team.
👉 Read more: Guide to Successful Campus Recruitment Strategy
16. Do Market Research
Using high-quality data regarding the most recent market trends is essential for successful technical recruitment. Make use of the information that is currently accessible regarding the state of the labor market, labor trends, and other variables that affect the success of hiring tech talent.
17. Establish a Healthy Work Culture
A positive workplace culture influences the hiring procedure. Establishing trust is the first step toward creating a positive workplace culture. Encourage diversity as a component of the corporate culture as well. Make sure visitors to your company have a sense of worth and appreciation.
Create a workforce that is creative, intelligent, and compassionate. Aid in each other's development. Promote growth and learning. Launch upskilling and reskilling initiatives.
18. Clarity in Pay and Other Benefits
Be quite transparent about the perks you are providing, including the pay breakdown, variables, and extra offerings, especially when dealing with top tech talent. This creates a friendly environment in which you may talk and work out a solution in case of any disparency. In case of any misunderstanding, you can lose your top candidate.
19. Share Your Top Employee Experience
Involve your top workers in the recruitment process. Encourage them to share their work experience with potential candidates so they can have a deeper understanding of the role and find plenty of motivation.
New hires, no matter what their function, constantly want to interact and network with other employees.
Therefore, include engineers and developers in the interview panel.
To help the candidate understand what to expect, include colleagues and high-level employees who can share their experience and firsthand expertise.
20. Highlight Flexible Work Hours
Emphasizing flexible work schedules can be a powerful tactic to draw in top candidates.
Candidates who may not be able to commit to regular 9–5 hours owing to personal circumstances or preferences are drawn to flexible employment possibilities.
By doing this, you can examine highly qualified applicants who might not otherwise be available, broadening the talent pool.
Offering flexible work hours helps your business stand out from competitors who rigidly follow standard work schedules in a competitive labor market. When comparing job offers, it can be a deciding factor for candidates.
21. Use Data-driven Recruitment Strategy
The modern recruiting approach is fundamentally data-driven. Algorithms have transformed HR, as they have in many other fields.
To speed up the hiring process, they can analyze and evaluate enormous volumes of data from a variety of sources, including resumes, application responses, and publicly available information on specific individuals.
Talent acquisition teams can locate, connect with, and interview applicants more quickly when they use data-driven recruiting.
22. Create a Well-crafted Interviewing Process
Interviews provide employers with information about job candidates as well as the other way around. These early sessions provide candidates with their crucial first impressions, therefore it's critical to ensure that interviews reflect the company's values.
This involves asking thoughtful questions, finding out the candidate's perception of the company, and ensuring their comfort level at all times.
👉 Read more: Completed Recruitment Process - Guide To Hiring Top Talent
23. Hire a Freelance Technical Recruiter
Freelance recruiters frequently focus on technical positions because they are aware of the particular abilities and credentials required for these kinds of jobs. They can screen candidates more successfully based on technical expertise and knowledge thanks to this expertise.
Recruiters who work freelance usually have access to networks that inside recruiters do not. Finding top talent may be facilitated by their contacts with passive applicants or individuals who are not actively seeking employment.
For startups or smaller businesses that do not have the funding for a large recruiting infrastructure, hiring freelance recruiters can be more affordable than keeping a full-time recruiting staff.
👉 Read also: How to Become a Technical Recruiter?
24. Share Feedback and a Follow-up.
Feedback and follow-up are crucial elements of a satisfying applicant experience. They can assist you in establishing connections and trust with applicants, keeping them informed and involved during the hiring process, and enhancing the perception of your employer brand.
After every stage of the hiring process, provide candidates with helpful criticism. Inform them of their strengths and areas for development. As quickly as possible following each stage of the hiring process, get in touch with the candidates.
Don't ghost them or ignore them. Tell them the reason behind your hiring decision. Encourage them to apply for future opportunities and to stay in touch.
25. Go Beyond Degrees
Asking for a technical degree is standard procedure in tech hiring. Recruiters and hiring managers usually prefer talents with computer science degrees.
But lately after Covid-19, we have seen a trend of finding top candidates with a non-tech degree. The most essential requirement for a tech role is problem-solving. You can find excellent problem-solving skills even in a non-tech graduate.
This strategy broadens the talent pool and brings diversity in the workplace leading to a productive workplace.
👉 Read more: Skills Based Hiring Trends & Statistics for 2024
Conclusion
Hiring top tech talent requires simplifying the hiring process, effectively utilizing a variety of sourcing channels, and having clear job requirements. Stress the company's culture, provide possibilities for advancement and competitive pay, and encourage inclusiveness and diversity.
These strategies guarantee hiring and retaining the top tech talents for innovation and business success.
Want to know more on how WeCP can help you out? Try WeCP for free or Schedule a Call with WeCP Team.
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