Despite the continued growth of the IT industry, there are still many myths about both programmers and IT recruiters. But is a programmer always a pampered introvert in a plaid shirt? And an IT recruiter is a mere , “solicitor” who just drinks coffee and spam candidates on LinkedIn? Of course not! We can put these stereotypes in a drawer and instead arm ourselves with concrete knowledge on how to combine the interests of both groups. It might seem that the two sides have a somewhat complicated relationship with each other, yet they are ultimately playing to one goal. How to effectively recruit IT professionals?
Knowledge of technology fundamental to successful IT recruitment
Although it seems like basic knowledge – not every recruiter takes technology knowledge for granted. While we shouldn’t expect recruiters to know all the details of a programmer’s job, fluency in general conversations with IT candidates is essential. Starting with the famous “Java is not JavaScript”, i.e. knowledge of programming languages, through the software development cycle to general information related to the work of programmers (work methodology, application architecture, testing) – the recruiter must be able to freely provide information on these topics. Without this, the recruitment process may not be perceived as professional.
If you want to learn about the software development cycle in detail – check out our article.
Of course, there are questions that IT recruiters may not know the answers to. One of the main sins of recruiters is making impossible promises. Our knowledge should allow us to have a fair conversation with the candidate, describing the technical aspects of the role. Always open to us is the Internet, full of valuable sources, such as: IT Glossary.
Active search for IT specialists
How to start sourcing? The simplest way is to use the contacts you have gained. Go through your friends on LinkedIn, check the internal candidate database and contact people who were already interested in a similar role. When looking for candidates for junior positions, manual testers or business roles – you can try using advertisements. For other roles, direct contact works best, especially through LinkedIn. If you use a premium account, you can organize sourcing by working in Linkedin’s recruitment projects. In addition, the “open for new opportunities” option allows for much more efficient sourcing of programmers. This option shows us a list of people considering new job offers.
What if we don’t have that option? Without a paid recruiter account, we can still do a good job of sourcing on LinkedIn. How? Start by building your contact base by adding friends to your network.
Do you have a database with phone numbers? Call candidates directly! But first, send an email or message on LinkedIn, and then schedule a phone interview. Then you can calmly present all the information related to recruiting for a particular IT position. Remember that IT candidates are passive and it is up to you to take the initiative, keep the other party interested, and above all, don’t stop looking!
Candidate Experience
IT candidates are being snapped up in the job market. For such recruitment candidate experience, ongoing contact and feedback are particularly important. If you delay feedback for, say, two weeks after the interview, you may find that your candidate has received an offer at a competing company. Not only recruiters, but also IT managers/leaders should be mindful that after verifying a candidate’s technical competence, they should provide feedback from that area as soon as possible – this is how effective IT recruiting should be done. After all, it’s no surprise that candidates share their experiences of recruitment processes with others in the industry, and this affects both the employer’s and recruiter’s brand, which is extremely important for IT recruitment processes.
External recruitment support
Whether you are a recruiter or a company that is looking for IT professionals, all of the factors mentioned above will affect the final recruitment success.
If your company does not have an internal HR team or its resources are inadequate, it is then worth using an external recruiting firm with expertise in IT recruitment. One such company is Talent Place. With a large community of HR experts specializing in a wide range of industries, it can find and match IT employees to any organization. Talent Place recruiters work remotely and are dispersed in different locations, so they are also familiar with the specifics of the local labor market. This makes them reach exactly where they need to reach, and they are able to find a perfectly matched candidate at a fast pace. And as mentioned earlier, speed in the IT industry is invaluable. An example of successful recruitment in the IT industry is Talent Place’s partnership with Microsoft, which you can read about in the Microsoft recruitment Case Study post on our website.
We hope the above post was useful and you already know how to recruit IT professionals. Want to learn more about how we can support you? Visit our website and see what crowdstaffing for the IT industry looks like – fill out the form and we will contact you to tell you more details.
If you are an IT recruiter who wants to work in an expert environment and carry out interesting recruitment projects for well-known brands, please visit the For Rec ruiters tab and join our community.
Also check out our previous article on how to reach passive IT candidates
