Recruiting IT personnel is more than just posting a vacancy. It is a strategic process that requires technical expertise, deep market understanding and proper tools.
We want to share our experience and practices on how to find a programmer, an internet marketer, SEO and other IT professionals even in conditions of acute shortage. To do this, we will consider the key trends and difficulties in recruiting personnel.
Shortage of personnel and high competition
Today, finding a professional, especially a highly specialized one, is a challenging task. The IT market is growing rapidly, and the number of qualified professionals does not keep up with the needs of businesses. Many professionals are already employed and are not actively looking for work, while newcomers do not have enough experience to solve complex problems. This creates an acute shortage of personnel, where companies are forced to compete for every strong candidate.
Mismatch between candidates’ expectations and skills
Many candidates indicate a middle or senior level, but in fact they do not have the required technical skills. This is especially critical if you do not know how to check their competencies or you do not have the resources for multi-stage verification. As a result, this impacts both the speed of hiring and the team quality.
A multi-level assessment system will help solve this problem:
- Initial interview with an IT recruiter;
- Technical screening with a developer;
- Test assignment or live-coding;
- Interview on soft skills.
This set of measures will allow you to objectively assess the level of knowledge and make sure that the candidate really meets your requirements. In this case, the process of recruiting IT personnel becomes transparent and predictable. The main thing is that it helps to avoid mistakes and lengthy additional training after employment.
Where can you look for IT professionals?
Traditional websites like work.ua and rabota.ua are working worse and worse in IT recruiting. The reason is that high-quality personnel simply do not post their CVs – recruiters hunt for them directly.
In case of urgent hiring, the question of where to look for IT professionals becomes especially relevant.
Alternative channels work better:
- Closed professional communities;
- Use of internal agency databases;
- Posting vacancies on a corporate website, in the company’s social media and thematic blogs;
- Targeting via SMM and search networks;
- Recommendations and referral programs;
- Participation in meetups, hackathons and community events;
- Email funnels and parsing of active profiles.
This approach helps expand the funnel and increase the likelihood of a response. When it comes to exclusive personnel selection, the personal network of IT recruiters and the ability to reach out to the right professional using relevant content are especially valuable. This is one of the key features of IT recruiting.
HR’s lack of technical expertise
Regular HR managers often do not understand who an IT recruiter is and how they differ from a regular HR. Without technical training, it is difficult to determine whether a candidate is suitable in terms of the technology stack, solution architecture, and task level. This leads to protracted recruiting and dissatisfaction on both sides.
The recruiting team should be formed from professionals who:
- Understand the technical aspects and trends of the industry;
- Understand the real tasks the team is facing;
- Can skillfully present a vacancy to a developer;
- Are able to evaluate both hard and soft skills.
When you involve experts to the IT personnel recruiting, you will shorten the funnel and minimize the risk of an erroneous offer. This is especially important if you do not know how to hire a good IT professional and are afraid of making a mistake with the choice.
Long approval process and vague requirements
If the ideal candidate profile is not agreed on within a company, the search process can drag on for months. This reduces the motivation of the recruiters themselves and leads to burnout of candidates during the communication process.
Before starting the recruiting, it is important to:
- Conduct an additional audit of the current team;
- Define real tasks, not an “abstract ideal”;
- Agree on the candidate profile and interview structure;
- Set KPIs for hiring.
This approach will allow you to quickly and efficiently fill the vacancy without painful interviews and a large number of iterations. This stage should be allocated in a separate block – brief preparation, selection by competencies and market assessment before the start of recruiting.
The recruiting of IT personnel is a process where both speed and accuracy are vital. A mistake does not come cheap – from wasted time to slowing down the team growth. To avoid these risks, contact the experts.
In particular, the professional community of one of the largest IT education leaders, Hillel IT School, trains qualified professionals and helps employers find suitable personnel, focusing on the real market needs.