The Art of Hiring: Enhancing Your IT Recruitment Process.

Recruitment for an IT role in the current market is a fine art. No longer can you rely on posting an advert and finding the right candidate. Instead, your entire recruitment process needs to be carefully calibrated to make sure you’re securing the best person for the role with the right qualifications and/or experience.

That means you need to take a look at your recruitment process to see which areas can be enhanced and refined to elevate your IT recruitment process. Taking time to improve your recruitment process will not only improve your candidate experience, it’ll shorten your search and give you a replicable process for future success.

 

The state of the IT market

The demand for roles in cybersecurity, data science and artificial intelligence has increased by 20% compared to last year. Combine that with 59% of businesses that are experiencing increased competition to find the right candidates and it’s no surprise that to stand out you need a slick IT recruitment process.

High-quality candidates are in short supply right now, last year more than 2 million tech vacancies were advertised, and around 1 million of those are still open.

That means it’s not just a question of finding the right candidate, but having a process which is flexible enough to qualify, interview and offer that candidate quickly. Job seekers aren’t hanging around, if your recruitment process takes too long or has too many hoops then they’ll look elsewhere. Often it’s the company that moves quickest that secures the top talent.

As an international tech staffing solutions provider, we currently successfully place about 1 in 3 of every CV we send to a hiring manager.
So here's what we suggest for those looking to improve their IT recruitment process.

 

Areas for improvement

When you’re looking to enhance your IT recruitment process it’s best to look at how you currently operate from start to finish. Doing so will ensure you don’t miss a crucial area out and you can follow the process through from both a candidate and an internal perspective.

Expectations and adverts

Before you get to recruiting, it’s essential to check what the essential criteria are for the role and what skills are needed. It’s easy to get caught up in like for like recruitment, but over time roles change as do the needs of the business. When you’re confident in the role you need to fill you’ll be able to craft a more specific job advert to help target the right job seekers.

Realistic budget

Your recruitment process should start with a benchmarking exercise to ensure your salary is competitive. If the remuneration package isn’t on par with other vacancies a barrier is automatically up, preventing you from attracting the best potential candidates.

Employer brand

Choosing a new job in today’s world is about more than the salary and job title. It’s about what the business stands for - their purpose, their mission, their values. That means to attract the right candidates all of that information needs to be communicated through the employer’s brand.

An explainer video showing your audience that you specialize in IT recruitment is a great way to synergize your offering and brand.

Typically when we think of branding we think of marketing to consumers. But job seekers need to be considered as a separate audience. Ensuring that everything from job adverts to about pages to the recruitment process itself needs to support and communicate the organisation’s values allowing job seekers to decide early on in the process if they’re aligned to that business or not.

Networks and referrals

Research has shown that the way people conduct job searches has changed. 73% of those aged 18-34 have found their job through social media. For hiring managers that means the way we advertise roles has to change too.

We need to think about utilising networks, building relationships and encouraging referrals from our current employees to ensure we have a pool of IT candidates who are primed and ready for our next vacancy.

Taking a proactive approach to networking allows us to reach those unicorn candidates. Those highly skilled in a niche tech area who may not be actively looking but are open to the right opportunity. By cultivating a network of warm candidates you’ll find a higher success rate in filling your next position but filling it with the best talent, not just the talent who found your advert.

A system we proactively use is to collect CVs of talented tech professionals looking for work; upload your CV here to join our network and be reachable to our recruitment team.

Interview format and duration

When it comes to recruiting right now, time is of the essence. The slower your process or the more hoops there are to jump through the higher the chance of your candidate accepting a role elsewhere.

If you’re serious about enhancing your IT recruitment process then you need to take a hard look at your interview format and duration to make sure it’s as streamlined as possible. Do you need 4 rounds of interviews plus a task? Or would a pre-screening call and a panel interview be sufficient? Of course you want to make sure your process is robust but you also need it to be efficient.

Start by looking at what you have in place currently and the dropout rate and point for candidates to give you an idea of where the end point should be. Remember every step, activity or point of contact should exist for a reason, not just for the sake of it.

Candidate experience

Every part of your recruitment process needs to create a positive candidate experience. They need to feel informed, supported, empowered and able to do their best. Any negative experiences will harm their perception of the business and may be a reason why they withdraw from the process or decline an offer.

Even if a candidate doesn’t progress to the next stage, if their experience with you is positive it’s likely they’ll share that with their friends and family, enhancing your employer brand and wider reputation. That’s not to say that you need to pander to your candidates, instead it’s about focusing on clarity, regular communication and respecting their time.

Candidate management

Put yourself in their shoes, and treat them how you’d want to be treated.

When it comes to enhancing your IT recruitment process the best advice is to take a step back and review every stage. It’s not a case of revolutionising your process, instead it’s about looking at it from an internal perspective but also a candidate viewpoint.

The best recruitment processes result in hiring the best people for the job, and in the fast-paced, competitive world of IT recruitment that’s essential. Streamlining your recruitment, building a strong employer brand and focusing on creating a positive candidate experience will stand you in good stead to stay ahead of your competitors and secure the right candidates.

At Source Technology, we are an international staffing solutions provider that specialises in placing the best candidates into growth focused technology companies. If you're currently hiring skilled IT workers, let us help you make the process of finding the right fit for you a breeze (Submit your vacancy here)

Alternatively if you're a tech worker looking for your next career defining role, you can find tech jobs that match your skillset and location here.

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