Like an onion’s skin, recruiters uncover multiple layers in their recruitment process: sourcing, screening, and evaluation to find the best talent with the modern tech recruiting strategies that gel into your organization.
Earlier, these layers had a traditional face.
Your company is looking for a front-end developer. You create a job description → publish it on job boards → scan the resume of applicants → shortlist the right fit candidate → call them for a walkthrough interview.
But with changing times, traditional talent acquisition has transformed in and out. Now, you can’t *just* hire tech candidates who are willing to work. You need candidates who align with your company values and have relevant skills and attitude to get the work done—which make the attributes of the best tech talent.
The process is complicated and draining. But we have 10 best recruiting practices outlined to help you navigate and find the right fit for your organization.
10 tech recruiting strategies for technical positions
Let’s break down each talent acquisition strategy and how to implement them to make your organization’s recruitment process seamless.
Strategy#1—Look for people who already fit the culture
You need people who understand your company’s vision and align with your values. These people make the best employees who fit into your company culture.
To hire based on culture fit, do this:
- Be clear on the kind of employees you are looking for based on their skill sets, values, good word habits, and personality.
- Ask the candidates to add a cover letter to their job applications. Observe cover letters that emphasize on company aspirations the candidate is attracted to
- Once the candidates are filtered based on their cover letter, give them a brief test to see if they fit into the company culture.
- Ask them specific questions based on their resume to understand their attitude and personality.
- In your interview process, talk about the company culture in detail and highlight what makes your company better than your competitors. Be transparent about the salary, benefits, work schedule flexibility, and type of job.
Strategy #2—Understand how candidates approach their work
Picture this: a software developer kickstarts a new project. No specific requirements have been communicated. There is a high chance that the project will go haywire. That’s where great communication and questioning skills come into play—to scour information from their client to get the project on track.
No matter the tech role you are hiring for, assess their work approach by asking them problem-solving questions.
Few ideas to start with:
- When was the last time you failed a project?
- Share your recent best project and how did you approach it
- Tell about an uncomfortable event or experience in your life that reshaped your work approach
Strategy #3—Review and optimize your job description
Your job descriptions should be able to do two things: be searchable and be easy to understand
When reviewing your job description, make sure:
- The job titles are easily searchable.
- Highlight the must-have skills and experience
- Use white spacing and bullet points for a quick scan
Take a look at how this job description focuses on two things—the roles and responsibilities and the best fit eligibility for the role.
Why this works: We have started by introducing our company and the work done—to give the tech candidate an idea of who we are and the kind of work we have done. Plus, the job description is formatted with bullet points, white spaces, and sections in bold.
Strategy #4—Use recruitment software to save time
Imagine sorting through multiple job applications and selecting qualified candidates for the role of Java developer.
The process can leave you drained. The result? You take a longer time to select qualified candidates—leading the candidates to lose interest. An alternative to enhance this tech recruitment strategy is using the best recruitment tools and improving your hiring performance without losing out on the best talents.
Technology in recruiting like HackerEarth’s Assessments helps you create coding test interviews, evaluate the developers accurately and shortlist them based on an auto-generated leaderboard after every coding test.
Also Read: Redefine Remote Work Management With These 6 Automation Tools
Strategy #5—Use reference screening calls
The reference screening call approach involves setting up a call through your cloud phone system or other available communication channels to a candidate’s former workplace to get more information on the candidate’s performance and skills. By doing so, you get two things:
- Ensure the candidate has the relevant qualifications needed for the job role
- Understand if their attitude and values are the right for the organization or not
To utilize this recruiting tip, ask the candidate to share the contact details of their colleagues you can reach out to. When you reach out to the candidate’s colleagues to know more about them, ask:
- What was the best project that the candidate worked on?
- What are the behavioral traits of the candidate you like?
- What’s one weakness of the candidate?
- What’s the strength of the candidate?
Strategy #6—Work with an industry specialist recruiter
Having an industry specialist or niche recruiter acts as an amplifier to your current tech recruitment strategies. When you work with them, you can expect comprehensive market advice from them—salary expectations, current market trends, and available skill sets.
Also, they have an active network—which gives you immediate access to the niche talent pool.
A simple way to find niche recruiters is through LinkedIn. Search with keywords like “technology recruiter”, “technical recruiter”, and “tech recruiter”. Filter down the searches based on your requirements and check the recruiter’s LinkedIn profiles.
Strategy #7—Hire a recruitment agency
When your company’s hiring requirements include hiring at scale, a single person cannot handle mass assessments. That’s where you need to hire a recruitment agency over a niche recruiter.
To find the right recruitment agency:
- Look for agencies with (at least) some amount of experience in the technology industry.
- Check the agency’s website, Glassdoor reviews, testimonials, case studies, experience, and socials like LinkedIn
- Explain to them your hiring requirements
- Interview the agency and ask relevant questions to understand if they are the right fit. Some questions include:
- how long does it take to find the best talent
- what does your hiring process look like?
- Check the portfolio and testimonials of each recruiter and see how the recruiters of the agency work.
- Confirm the recruitment agency’s budget before finalizing them.
Strategy #8—Leverage social recruiting
Socially active people are always on the lookout for new opportunities, and that’s where you can fill the gap by leveraging social media as an effective tech recruiting strategy. Social recruiting is all about sourcing and hiring candidates via social channels like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit.
There are two ways you can recruit via social channels:
- By activating your LinkedIn profile and constantly sharing job roles your company is hiring for
- By scanning the LinkedIn profiles of users who match the keywords your company is currently hiring for.
Sidenote: Combine both—activate your profile and do LinkedIn outreach for great conversions.
Let’s understand this with an example of Laura, a tech recruiter hiring Java developers for her company.
To hire the candidate, she created a job posting on LinkedIn and published a hiring post on her LinkedIn profile.
Next, she looked up candidates by adding the keyword “Java developers” to the LinkedIn search bar and selecting the LinkedIn profiles from relevant results. She then reached out to these people who aren’t actively looking for opportunities. She shares the details about the job profile with them and forwards the details of the interested candidates for the next stage i.e, candidate screening.
But here’s the catch: you need to have an effective social recruiting strategy for maximum results.
Here’s how you can do it:
- Define the candidate persona—one who has the expertise and fits your company culture
- Choose the social media platform where your ideal candidate persona is active
- Create an outreach strategy and a list of candidates you’ll reach out to
- Activate your social media profile by posting content about your company culture and the work you do
- Start the planned recruitment activity based on the strategy
- Measure how well your strategy is performing and review the KPIs; if not working well, tweak the strategy
Strategy #9—Invest in employer branding
Your employer brand defines your values and POV as a person and how it aligns with your company—attracting people who want to work with you.
With the changing recruitment practices, having an impactful employer brand is an effective tech recruiting strategy which helps the candidates decide if they would like to work with your company or not. According to CareerArc’s 2021 Future of Recruiting Study, 82% of candidates consider employer brand and reputation before applying for the job. Clearly: investing in employer branding is part of tech recruiting strategy crucial to building trust and getting the right candidate for your organization.
Shield’s Founder and CEO, Andreas Jonsson has built an engaged audience of 40K+ where he talks about personal branding and LinkedIn content creation. Because he actively creates content on LinkedIn, people who read his content know his aspirations and values.
And knowing Shield, and working with the company comes as a by-product. The impact of his employer branding is amplified by his employees too—who talk about their company, personal branding, and LinkedIn—the same content pillars the company is known for.
Because the employees enthusiastically talk about it, their connections got to know about the company, what it does, and the value it serves—which instantly attracts them to work with the company.
Also Read: Building An Employer Brand: Everything You Need To Know
Strategy #10—Organize hackathons
Hackathons are a gateway to hiring employees by testing their skills and selecting the best candidate who gives proof of their expertise. To hire employees through hackathons: create a problem statement for the candidate persona. Candidates who bring you the best solution to the problem statement are the right fit for the role.
To create the problem-solving statement for your hackathon, do this:
- Define the theme of the innovation
- Specify the pain points
- Narrow down the problem
- Define the eligibility rules for candidates to participate
Take a look at how Cogito runs its hackathon on HackerEarth. They have mentioned the job profile in their headline and highlighted the AI solution they want to build (the problem statement).
Also Read: 5 Lessons From Running 200 Remote Hackathons
Use these technical recruiting strategies to take recruitment to the next level
To amplify your recruitment and selection process, club 3-4 of these tech recruiting strategies together. For example, identify the candidates that fit into your work culture. Once identified, screen them and understand how they approach work issues. To screen them further, contact their former workplace to know about their skills and attitude better.
So, what are you waiting for? Solidify your recruitment system with these technical recruitment strategies.
FAQ About Tech Recruiting Strategies
1. What are the most effective tech recruiting strategies?
- The most effective tech recruiting strategies include leveraging AI-driven tools, offering flexible work arrangements, enhancing employer branding, focusing on diversity and inclusion, and utilizing data-driven recruitment analytics.
2. How can I improve my technical recruiting strategies to attract top talent?
- To improve your technical recruiting strategies, focus on building a strong employer brand, using targeted social media campaigns, participating in tech conferences and hackathons, and offering competitive compensation packages.
3. Why is employer branding important in tech recruiting strategies?
- Employer branding is crucial in tech recruiting strategies because it helps attract top talent by showcasing your company culture, values, and career growth opportunities. A strong employer brand differentiates you from competitors and appeals to skilled tech professionals.
4. What role does diversity and inclusion play in technical recruiting strategies?
- Diversity and inclusion are essential components of technical recruiting strategies. By promoting a diverse and inclusive workplace, you attract a wider range of candidates, foster innovation, and improve employee satisfaction and retention.
5. How can data-driven approaches enhance tech recruiting strategies?
- Data-driven approaches can enhance tech recruiting strategies by providing insights into candidate behaviors, optimizing recruitment processes, and enabling better decision-making. Using analytics tools, you can track the effectiveness of your strategies and continuously improve your hiring outcomes.
