The 5Ws Of Being A Technical Recruiter

The 5Ws Of Being A Technical Recruiter

Pankaj Deshmukh - Jun 12, 2020

Introduction:

When it comes to digital transformation and technology adoption, the burden lies on the recruiter’s shoulders. Because every organization is trying to build a strong and knowledgeable tech team.

Surely it is a piece of good news for applicants but for recruiters, nothing less than a problem to solve. The job market has become candidate driven these days where demand for tech talent has increased. The potential candidates have multiple opportunities in their hands. It begs the question of:

How to identify, assess, and hire the best tech talent

Here are the 5Ws you should consider to design your tech recruitment strategy.

 

Who are you looking for?

To succeed in your recruitment game, awareness of what type of talent you want on board is imperative. If you have no clear idea about your ideal candidate persona. It becomes difficult to find and attract good candidates.

So, to define your ideal candidate persona you can consider the following tips:

• Know the job role and duties thoroughly
• Focus on how experienced you want the candidate to be
• Set a qualification limit
• Talk to your current employees to build a picture of the ideal candidate
• Describe the candidate that would fit in your organization
• Define your ideal candidate’s skills and competencies

 

 

What makes it difficult to fill technical roles?

As a recruiter, you need to gear yourself up when you are asked to hire a software developer, software engineer, data scientist, or any other technical job role. These days the demand for tech skills is high and so is the competition.

Every recruiter is running behind the best talent to get them on board. These candidates are probably happily working with another employer or already have a good offer in hand. It makes it even more difficult to attract these tech talents. You need to have a new, updated, or fresh recruitment strategy. You can consider the following tips:

• Make the most of your social media network
• Build your employer brand by marketing your company online
• Create and distribute unique, interesting recruitment content that interests your ideal candidate persona
• Ask for referrals from your current employees
• Source good candidates from university recruitment
• Sometimes overcome skills gaps and train potential candidates

 

When to start a talent hunt?

When it comes to technical hiring do not wait for the right time to start the talent hunt. Whether you have an open job position or not you should always be on toes to make your talent pipeline ready for future needs.

For the technical roles, there are fewer candidates actively looking for the job despite the high demand for technical job roles that need to be filled. So to win the recruiting game and overcome this challenge you need to be in touch with the passive candidates as well.

As per a study by Deloitte, it requires companies 52 days to fill a position. And in tech hiring, the most mundane task is to find and attract the right talent for your organization. Try considering below tips to start your talent hunt well in advance:

• Align with the hiring manager well in advance to get an idea about candidates he/she wants to hire
• Re-engage the previous candidates
• Try to reach out to passive candidates through social media or connections
• Develop a relationship with the candidates in a personalized way
• Reach out to candidates by hosting social and networking events
• Join virtual communities- reach out to talented candidates, engage them in conversation and make a job offer
• Ask your existing employees for referrals

 

Where you should find them?

Gone are the days when tech jobs were considered boring or a cup of tea of nerdy computer experts. But now it is considered as the most sought-after job roles. It is vital for every organization to have the best tech talent working for them. We all are too aware of how necessary for recruiters and hiring managers to deal with tech talent, know their expectations, speak their language, and much more.

However, It will not be fruitful to us if we cannot find the tech talent in the first place. The tech jobs ex. software/mobile development, data science, data analysis, etc. are in high demand. Employers are offering great compensation to ideal candidates. But on the other hand, the rising demand and talent scarcity you may find it difficult to reach out to potential tech talent.  Try considering the following tips:

• Be a part of thriving tech groups or communities to connect with tech talent and passionate people.
• Make your own local network of people who also work in tech. It will be an added advantage for you to support your recruiting efforts. Repay them by helping them as and when needed.
• Make the most of LinkedIn- use LinkedIn alumni feature to find out the tech talent from a specific university or school. It tells you, alumni details with an option to filter them by their skills, location, etc. You can directly approach them there itself.
• Conduct a virtual career fair to source tech talent in a cost-effective way and assess the shortlisted candidates with tech skills assessment platform.
• Make the most of referrals, hackathons, and other developer events

 

What makes a successful technical recruiter?

Even if you have a technical background or you do not, you may face many challenges and want to avoid obstacles to become a successful technical recruiter. Whenever it comes to hiring for a tech position the key tactic that a recruiter should implement is ask relevant questions and assess technical skills using a valid and reliable talent assessment tool.

The best tech recruiter focuses on evaluating candidates first and forwarding the qualified ones for the further process. Because separating the wheat from the chaff is the most crucial aspect of the tech hiring process.

Does this sound difficult? That’s because it is!

Do not worry you can consider the following tips to be a successful technical recruiter.

• Sharpen Your Networking Skills to build a rapport with developers and programmers
• Keep yourself updated with new technologies and their usage to understand the candidate’s previous work and the technologies they have used to do it.
• Reach out to the experts in your field and get valuable insights from them to win the tech recruitment game
• Dig deeper to know the techies, their expectations and what they want
• Invest in recruitment assessment tool to save time, money and better productivity 

 

Conclusion:

To become a good technical recruiter doing research and understanding your ideal candidate persona is utmost important. Spending more time on identifying and resolving the tech recruitment challenges saves yours as well as the candidate’s time. Be ready with tech hiring strategy by gathering all the knowledge about whom, where, and when to approach well in advance.

 

Smart Recruit Online offers an award-winning talent attraction software that can streamline and revolutionise your recruitment. To discuss what we can to for your recruitment strategy, and find out more about our fully integrated communication tools, book a demo by clicking here.