It’s no secret that tech skills are in short supply. The hiring market for individuals who possess them is extremely competitive. What that means for you as a recruiter is that if you’re going to attract the best talent out there you’ll need to go the extra mile at every stage of recruitment.
That means well-branded and properly-optimized job listings. It means better communication and follow-up throughout the hiring process. It means better workplace perks and benefits.
In short, it means you need to make your business an attractive place to work and demonstrate that it’s attractive in your marketing.
There are a few steps involved here – we’ll start with recruitment.
Build a Reputation
There are countless businesses that are looking to hire people with technical skills. There are countless organizations that need new developers and administrators. You need to distinguish yourself from them. One of the best ways you can do so is by establishing yourself in the local tech scene, notes Forbes Magazine.
Host development workshops and hackathons. Put money towards tech scholarships and educational institutions. Find events you can sponsor that will attract and inspire tech-savvy men and women in your city, and you might be surprised at how recognizable your brand becomes among them.
Tone Down Automation
Your recruitment process should be as personalized and humanized as possible. I’ve lost count of the number of organizations I’ve seen with poorly-implemented automated recruitment systems. While technology may take some pressure off hiring managers, things like questionnaires and keyword-sniffing algorithms ultimately only serve to drive people away.
A report published in 2017 by national staffing and HR service organization Randstad US found that 82 percent of job seekers find recruitment automation frustrating and off-putting. Given how competitive the market you’re targeting is, you don’t want to make people frustrated right out the door. You can use automation to support your recruitment efforts, but don’t remove humans from the process entirely.
Your top candidates should only ever be one or two steps away from talking to a living, breathing human being. Make sure you always follow-up with candidates on any questions or concerns as quickly as possible.
Create Better Job Listings
A good job listing is clear, concise, and straight to the point. It establishes an applicant’s necessary qualifications, what the applicant will be expected to do, and why the applicant might want to work for your company. You want to convey this information in as few words as possible – and focus more on the latter than either of the former.
I guarantee yours is not the only post job seekers will be looking at. And I promise you that if your description is overly long, confusing, or packed with too much jargon, plenty of people will just ditch and move on to the next one.
Don’t make people read a novel. Keep it short, sweet, and readable on mobile.
Don’t Boil The Ocean With Your Recruitment Process
If your business has an eight-stage recruitment process, there’s something I need you to do.
First, ask yourself if you’re a better place to work than Google, Apple, or Microsoft.
Second, consider the possibility that recruitment might not be the right career for you.
Just as applicants aren’t going to stick around and read through an encyclopedic job posting, they also won’t be willing to sit through an overlong, cumbersome hiring process. Make the application process as simple and streamlined as possible. Ideally, it should look something like this.
- The applicant submits their resume through your job listing.
- Recruiter reaches out to the applicant to schedule an interview.
- The applicant and recruiter meet for the interview.
- The applicant is either hired or informed that someone else has been chosen.
Perks and Benefits
Before we wrap things up, I’d like to talk about perks. Stuff like flexible work hours and the opportunity to work remotely should be standard. These are table stakes, and any organization worth its salt provides them, especially to people working in IT.
It’s also important that your business has (relatively) modern tools for your tech professionals to leverage. People aren’t going to want to work with you if you’re still running everything on Windows XP and don’t support smartphones in the workplace.
Finally, you also need to focus on what else makes your company a great place to work aside from compensation.
Do you support employee advancement with educational funding? Do you have a strong, compelling corporate culture? Do you provide flexible compensation packages, each tailored to the individual worker?
Conclusion
IT and security skills are in short supply these days. In order to attract the necessary talent to your organization, you need to get creative with your recruitment process. Because if you don’t, applicants will just go to a competitor.
About the Author:
Max Emelianov started HostForWeb in 2001. In his role as HostForWeb’s CEO, he focuses on teamwork and providing the best support for his customers while delivering cutting-edge web hosting services.