Being on the right page in any industry, particularly during the hiring process, is vital to connecting companies with their ideal employees. The pandemic that began in 2020 severely impacted every industry and completely altered how businesses hired people. The tech industry specifically has seen the most significant impact. Both recruiters and developers experience frustration on a continuous basis even a year after COVID-19 swept across the world.
But what are recruiters doing wrong? What are they doing right? And what will the rest of 2021 look like surrounding the hiring process?
General E-mail Spamming is a Problem
In a bid to hire developers, recruiters have resorted to sending out general e-mails to potential candidates. The significant issue with this is that recruiters contact developers who don’t have relevant skills for the open positions. Another part of this is the obvious lack of attention paid to a developer’s public resume or experience, something developers find disrespectful. Frustration (and desperation) combined with inadequate knowledge of how to reach out to proper candidates makes the hiring process worse for both ends.
Developers Are More in Demand Than Ever
An expected technological evolution has been thrust against a health- and financially-weakened world. Recruiters are desperate to find developers to fill positions or help companies finish jobs. Thus, they are going to extreme lengths. A shortage of developers hinders the economy in several ways, and that gap is only expected to grow.
What Can Recruiters Do About It?
One thing recruiters have implemented is something called ‘inbound recruitment’ where the recruiter actively puts in more effort on behalf of the company to bring in desired candidates. Essentially, they become ‘applicants’ so to speak for the developers to choose from.
Recruiters can also expand their recruiting plan to include developers who have been self-taught. While it may seem ineffective, the number of self-taught developers has risen substantially over the past few years in particular. Some studies have reported nearly forty percent of developers list themselves as self-taught. Adapting to this shift can save recruiters and developers a lot of headache.
Explore Job Boards Other Than Indeed and LinkedIn
Recruiters should check out other job boards beyond the most popular sites. For example, Unicorn.io’s technical sourcing platform which enables recruiters to search for developers using specific criteria.
Other IT niche job boards that are worth checking out are Careers.sh and WhoIsHiring.com.
What’s Next?
Developers and recruiters making active attempts to approach each other in relevant fields could make a significant difference. A poor example of this is a recruiter e-mailing a Node/React full-stack developer for a position and asking questions regarding any prior use of SpringBoot or Maven. This is a clear demonstration to a developer that a recruiter hasn’t read his or her profile or resume.
Since developers are in such short supply, recruiters need to make a more personalized approach toward potential candidates. In other words, convince the developers that the company would truly benefit from and love to have them as an employee. Technical and soft skills are vital for developers but, for recruiters, treating their potential candidates in a caring manner should be their strength.
