Tips to Improve Your Technical Hiring Process

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Photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash

When it comes to hiring, technical positions are among the most demanding and the most rewarding. There has to be a thorough testing and evaluation process to locate the best potential people for the most crucial functions in the IT, engineering, construction, or manufacturing sectors.

There are a lot of factors to keep in mind while conducting a technical recruiting process. However, it is challenging and demanding.

You’ll learn nine useful tidbits on how to enhance your technical hiring process in this article. Here are a few things to keep in mind before we get started:

  • Why is it so difficult to hire technical people?
  • The best applicant will be hired if your technical recruiting procedure is improved.
  • What exactly is “technical” hiring?

An IT, engineering, construction, and manufacturing industry-specific recruiting process demands recruiters to search and screen candidates with specific abilities to fit a highly specialized job description. Systems engineering, software development, and data science are the most common professions in digital settings today, which need technical skills.

Why is it so difficult to hire technical people? The following four are the most important reasons technical recruiting is difficult in today’s business.

Reasons why today’s workplaces struggle with technical hiring

1. Technical hiring requires a high level of expertise.

Many distinct tasks fall to the recruiters in charge of technical recruiting. They have to do the following:

  • Create and establish a recruiting strategy for technical positions.
  • Reach and engage new and existing talent pools in innovative ways.
  • Specialize in the description of jobs.
  • Candidates should be interviewed and assessed for their skills.

If the recruiter doesn’t understand the sector, its terminology, or how to read technical interview responses correctly, they will be unable to find an ideal candidate. For instance, a recruiter may need to know the differences between SQL and NoSQL database systems, when to use each, and if a candidate is familiar with both.

Because of this, technical interviewers must have both industry expertise and standard interviewing skills in HR, such as:

  • A person’s ability to communicate verbally and nonverbally
  • Skills in written communication
  • A strong ability to persuade
  • The ability to manage your time effectively
  • The ability to think critically.
  • Analytical mindset

2. Conducting interviews and assessing technical applicants

A candidate seeking a technical post must be thoroughly interviewed and evaluated by the interviewer. This requires that the interviewer not only guides the applicant through the recruiting process but also recognizes whether a candidate has programming skills, database knowledge, or a cloud-based engineering software application.

On top of that, the interviewer must devise interview questions and/or scenarios that enable them to assess the applicant correctly. For a JavaScript programmer, you may want to offer him or her a problem to solve, whereas, for a salesperson, you may want to give him or her situational questions.

3. Creating detailed job descriptions for specific roles

Creating job descriptions that are appropriate for the vast pool of available technical talent is an important component of the technical recruiting process. The recruiter must do two things to write an effective job description:

The job description should include all the abilities necessary for the position.

Remove everything from the work area that isn’t necessary.

Suppose your job description calls for someone with at least three years of C# programming expertise. What are you hoping to achieve by putting this in place? You should ask for particular expertise in C# rather than three years of experience, or even test the candidate’s knowledge and remove that criterion from the job description entirely..

4. Identifying fresh sources of talent

Did you know that less than 50,000 computer science degrees were produced in the United States in 2017? Compared to the more than 500,000 unfilled IT roles, it’s easy to understand why there is a “technical skills shortage.”

Additionally, according to Gartner, the lack of skilled workers has slowed the adoption of 64% of new technologies. As a result of the enormous lack of tech expertise, recruiters need to uncover new talent pools for IT experts to fill the gap.

These nine suggestions and methods will help you enhance your technical recruiting process after we’ve discussed the most pressing issues recruiters confront.

1. Make sure you know exactly what you’re looking for in a new hire.

You shouldn’t make it more difficult for IT companies to hire qualified employees. Determine precisely what you need in a new employee:

  • Is it necessary to hire a full-time employee?
  • Is it necessary for them to come to the office in person?
  • What type of abilities are required?

If a candidate sees your job description and thinks the post isn’t for them because of a needless requirement, you can’t afford to have them apply.

2. Create a thorough candidate persona.

The next step is to create a thorough applicant persona based on the answers to the questions listed above. The reason you’re doing this is multifaceted:

This means that you may use advertising to reach them directly.

As a result, you may say to the individual, “I understand.”

A person’s location (talent pool), income (junior or senior), and location may all be figured out so that you know what you’re dealing with (additional cost-of-living expenditures)

3. Only ask for skills that are relevant to the task at hand (write a good job description)

When you’re a recruiter, it’s your job to include just the talents that are really necessary for your roles. If you don’t have a lot of applications, it’s important to write a solid job description. After completing the previous stages, you’ll have a better idea of who your target audience is, which will make it easier for you to craft a job ad that grabs their attention.

4. In the “fishing ponds,” look for prospects (where your technical talent usually gathers)

Due to the sheer severe lack of qualified technologists, you will have to be resourceful in your search. Due to the obvious abundance of “fishing ponds,” your tech talent may still be found in uncharted waters.

Talent from all around the world. There is still a great deal of technical skill and promise to be discovered all around the globe. So the first step in filling tough technical tasks should be to discover the places/websites where global tech talent “hangs out.”

The ability to think differently because of one’s neurodivergent background. There are still many jobless neurodivergent. Therefore you should check into this talent pool to see if there are any acceptable individuals there.

5. Communicate in tech jargon – master the language of technology.

With your requirements and target persona in place, now it’s time to speak with your IT staff in their language. As a result, you’ll need to become familiar with their language.

If you want your IT people to think, “This is the ideal location for me,” you must communicate in their language. If you owned a gym, you’d target guys with a different marketing strategy than you would women. For men, you might use “Get Buffed,” while for women, “Get Lean” might be a better choice.

The more you communicate in the language of your IT talent, the more likely you are to attract the right people.

6. Be ready to compromise with your applicants while interviewing them.

Make sure you’re prepared to bargain if you locate the appropriate individual and they make it through the recruiting process.

The most sought-after positions in the market will also pay the most. In 2020, a software developer’s average income was $110,140. Make sure to bargain with the best candidate after you’ve found him or her, and keep in mind that today’s job market offers numerous choices.

To help you and the recruiting manager get along better, work on a payment plan that rewards you and the executive team.

7. Organize local tech talent gatherings in your area.

You may also host local tech talent events to help your recruiting process. You may stumble across them at local events and “snatch” before a competitor does if you’re seeking young IT talent.

There are two things you should do while shopping locally:

Make it look as though your organization is approachable. Your technical recruiters will be able to meet prospective candidates at these events, and they will be able to ask them questions to see whether they are a good match for your organization.

Look for up-and-coming artists. At local tech events, you may be able to discover new talent and obtain them in the early stages of their professional development.

Create a career portal for those who work in technology

Creating a tech-focused employment portal is a great idea for both local and international talent.

They must rely on proxies to assess if your business is a suitable match for their expertise, talents, and attitude since global talent cannot readily comprehend what your company is about and what you stand for (your goal, vision, and values).

A tech-focused employment site is an excellent method for prospects to learn about your firm, grasp what it stands for, and decide whether or not they want to apply for a position there.

Assess applicants’ skills and competencies via pre-employment tests

Pre-employment testing is the last step you can take to enhance your technical recruiting process.

Before hiring someone, it’s a good idea to do a pre-employment test: Bias-free. Using pre-employment exams, you may objectively assess a candidate’s talents. Candidates may also be compared since they have all been assessed on the same scale.

First impressions are important. Before screening a CV, you should do pre-employment examinations. You may lose out on some excellent prospects by using CV screening tools if their CVs aren’t entirely keyword optimized or if a recruiter fails to see them. (On average, a CV is only seen for six seconds.) With a pre-employment exam, the sole deciding factor is the candidate’s skill set; you provide everyone the chance to show their abilities.

Option to scale up or down. You may utilize a pre-employment exam as a scalable alternative since you always spend the same amount of time administering the test, regardless of the number of applicants.

The best applicant will be hired if your technical recruiting procedure is improved. However, technical recruiting is not impossible. You’ll have an easier time streamlining your technical recruiting process if you follow the nine-pointers in this article.