Tech Recruiting Guide: 8 Tips to Snag Top Talent
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Unemployment rates in the US have reached record lows in the past year despite layoffs, and talented candidates understand the power is in their hands. This phenomenon is most pronounced in job positions with a growing skills shortage, like specialized technical roles.
In this context, companies can no longer assume that advertising a high salary will get them the best applicants. The 46% of HR leaders that say recruiting is their biggest priority have to give the proper care and attention if they want to attract top talent. Especially in tech, getting the best talent is essential if you want your company to scale.
In this article, we’ll cover strategies to help you win over top tech professionals—from how to position your organization to what you must offer candidates. And with IceHrm’s modern recruiting tools, your company can stand out from the crowd and quickly find the talent you need.
What Is Tech Recruiting?
Tech recruiting is the process of identifying, attracting, and hiring qualified candidates for technical or IT-related positions within an organization. This could include various roles requiring specialized technical skills to support operations, including computer science professionals, software developers, engineers, data scientists, and many more emerging positions.
Tech Recruiting Challenges
Why are people needed in the technology industry? When the need for highly specialized labor combines with rapid evolution and growth—like in the tech industry—the skilled professionals who can fill those roles naturally experience high demand. In fact, 81% of organizations have a shortage of specialized tech skills, with 28% of the leaders believing they’ll have to revamp tech skills for one-third of their talent base by 2025 to stay competitive.
So despite layoffs, tech companies are feeling the pinch for talented staff. As a result, organizations are competing for the best workers by offering more perks and higher salaries plus revamping their overall recruitment strategies.
How to Attract Top Talent for Tech Jobs
In the following sections, we’ll go over eight top tips for attracting tech talent. They include advice about the recruiting process and ways to make your organization seem enticing to candidates. Here’s a quick summary of what we’ll cover:
- Gain exposure at tech industry events.
- Implement a data-driven recruitment strategy.
- Involve your current team in the recruitment process.
- Take a holistic approach to tech recruiting.
- Highlight flexible hours and total compensation.
- Leverage career development as a tech recruiting tactic.
- Take tech recruitment cues from marketing.
- Invest in HR software.
1. Gain Exposure at Tech Industry Events
Many cities worldwide have thriving tech scenes, attracting both tech companies and talent. These areas host various tech-related events like conferences and workshops, drawing passionate tech enthusiasts.
Establishing a presence in these scenes is crucial to appeal to tech professionals as a potential employer, even if you're not immediately hiring. Being seen as an active participant in the tech sector helps your company come to mind when talented individuals are ready to be hired.
You can achieve this by becoming a corporate events sponsor, which associates your name with the occasion and reaches attendees. Alternatively, hosting your own events allows more control over brand visibility but requires more effort and investment.
But it’s okay if neither of those are within your budget; simply showing up is worthwhile. Face-to-face networking creates an emotional connection to your organization for prospective candidates and those in the industry who might recommend your company as a great place to work.
2. Implement a Data-Driven Recruitment Strategy
At its core, a modern recruiting strategy is data-driven. As in many areas, algorithms have changed the face of HR. They can process and assess vast swaths of data to streamline the hiring process, drawing from various sources like CVs, application responses, and public information on individual candidates.
Data-driven recruiting allows talent acquisition teams to find, engage, and interview candidates more efficiently. Then, once candidates are in your pipeline, recruiting software tools can provide a more well-rounded picture of each candidate, including their strengths, weaknesses, and suitability for the role. That’s precisely what you need when you’re looking to fill a high-level and demanding vacancy in the tech field.
3. Involve Your Current Team in the Recruitment Process
The tech talent you already have at your company is an invaluable recruiting resource. Too often, business decision-makers fail to consult the experts they already have and move forward with candidates without considering how well they’ll fit into the team or handle the job’s demands. This can create redundancy, leave needs unfilled, and even risk the team culture.
Your specialist tech staff will be better equipped to create an accurate job spec. They understand the role’s practical elements and the specific skills and abilities you should look for when hiring. You might not have them create the full job description—that’s a task HR should undertake—but you should absolutely tap into their tech knowledge to ensure your job ads are accurate and have the right tone.
It just makes sense to use the knowledge and expertise already at your disposal. What’s more, involving your wider team allows you to benefit from the wisdom of crowds. Decisions are proven to be more accurate and successful when reached by consensus.
4. Take a Holistic Approach to Tech Recruiting
Competitive pay is essential when hiring top tech talent, but it's not the sole determining factor. If your budget doesn't allow for high salaries, consider other ways to attract talent, such as targeting different candidate pools.
Some companies hire new graduates to keep costs lower and provide an entry point into the industry. Building relationships with universities and attending career fairs can help with this approach. On the other hand, experienced tech professionals in their 40s or older might value work-life balance over high pay, making flexibility in their roles a compelling offer.
Expanding your search beyond your headquarters' city can lead to finding exceptional talent, especially with the possibilities of remote work. Cast a wider recruiting net, and you may be able to land an even better employee—and possibly at a much better price.
What’s more, allowing employees to ditch those daily commutes can make them more productive. That, in turn, can increase your company's productivity and bottom line.
5. Highlight Flexible Hours and Total Compensation
When professionals can be more selective about where they work, they think about many things besides pay, such as better work-life balance . Offering work schedules tailored to individual needs and wants can make a lower salary or limited benefits package less of a deterrent to prospective employees.
If you can embrace the idea that the ‘standard’ working week is going extinct, then flexibility is a strategy to attract talent. Offering schedules that cater to a candidate’s life needs—whether through flex scheduling or remote working on a permanent or part-time basis—shows them how much you trust their abilities and dedication.
Compensation packages are another thing you should tailor wherever you can. You might set yourself apart from your rivals by offering free childcare to a new parent, allowing time off for continued education, or training younger employees seeking to bolster their skill sets. The key is understanding what’s important to each individual, not the entire organization, and leaving room in your budget to allow that flexibility.
6. Leverage Career Development as a Tech Recruiting Tactic
Traditional, linear career paths are becoming a thing of the past. Across all industries and talent levels, workers no longer stay in any one job for as long as they used to. Many younger workers are feeling restless, with 26% planning to quit within a year.
Non-linear career paths are more common for high-skilled jobs in the tech industry, partly because top tech talent is often more excited about new challenges than traditional promotions. They jump from project to project and company to company because it keeps work interesting—and is a proven way to secure a significant pay increase.
Try to retain your top employees by creating that excitement and variety internally. Give them the opportunity to switch up their responsibilities and the projects they work on, plus make more eccentric career paths available within your organization to satisfy their natural wanderlust. On the other hand, don’t forget to review their pay structure against their skillset. No matter how exciting the work is, a competing company can still poach your best employees with a fat signing bonus and a top-tier salary.
7. Take Tech Recruitment Cues from Marketing
Your marketing efforts aim to attract new customers or clients and improve your employer brand. But it’s also worth considering how your marketing relates to recruitment.
Popular, higher-profile brands automatically get more interest than competitors when they start a hiring initiative. By advertising your business in the local area, you can create a higher profile that will attract more applicants from your local talent pool.
You could also consider a more public approach to recruitment. Advertising in the community that you’re hiring shows you’re interested in supporting the local economy and may get you some goodwill from competitors who also want to attract more talent to the area.
8. Invest in HR Software
Top tech professionals are not only highly skilled with technology but also passionate about it. So it’s a no-brainer that companies should offer potential and current employees the technology they need to do their best work productively.
On top of that, it’s vital to make a good first impression during recruitment. With IceHrm’s robust Applicant Tracking System and mobile hiring tools, you can maintain consistent and timely communication with candidates, ensuring the hiring experience is seamless from application to offer letter.
