There’s no denying that the world is facing an acute shortage of skilled tech professionals like data analysts, engineers, and web developers.
Startups have the most challenging time when they try to find tech talent faster. Small and medium-sized companies have limited resources which hinders their prospects of hiring the most talented tech professionals.
CNBC reports that the shortage of tech talent is at its highest, as shown by the figure below.
Source: CNBC
You may save hours of valuable time by learning how to get the maximum returns on investment from each successful hire. Some hiring managers have found monetary benefits as the primary selling point, while others believe giving more autonomy to employees goes a long way in hiring tech talent faster.
Becky Frankiewicz, president of Manpower Group North America, has this to say about what employees want from a potential workplace:
“The new angle is you have to start thinking about what workers want. … It’s more than pay, it’s benefits. Companies thought it was going to be popcorn and pingpong. People want robust benefits packages. Employees are now stakeholders in companies’ ecosystems.”
How To Find Tech Talent Faster
As mentioned above by Frankiewicz, salary is arguably the primary driving force behind potential employees choosing a particular organization. However, hiring managers and recruiters should not ignore the significance of additional benefits and perks like remote work, flexible hours, and supplementary bonuses. Here are some of the proven strategies that will help you find tech talent faster and retain them for years to come:
Offer Higher Salary
Higher pay is undoubtedly the most crucial attracting factor when recruiting the most talented tech employees. Hence, companies should offer higher salaries than the current market to attract the best tech talent and retain them for the foreseeable future.
The salaries of intensive technical roles like data scientists, web developers, software engineers, and machine learning professionals are rising at an exponential rate. The below infographic shows the tech positions that saw the highest pay increase, with web developers, database administrators, and technical support engineers leading the pack.
Source: ZDNET
The same study also found that nearly 30% of tech employees are somewhat dissatisfied with their current remuneration. Many of these professionals are looking for greener pastures in other organizations that offer higher salaries and supplemental benefits.
Flexible Work Hours and Remote Working
The Covid-19 pandemic has encouraged remote working environments in many businesses, enabling tech employees to be most creative at a time and location of their choosing. Some companies have implemented a hybrid model, while others have switched to a four-day workweek schedule.
Businesses that prioritize their employees’ mental, physical, and emotional well-being are at a competitive advantage. Burnout is becoming a pervasive issue across industries; therefore, businesses should consider allocating days off for everyone to relax and recover, for example.
That is why, as a recruiter, you should emphasize offering benefits to potential employees to attract them to your business. Flexible working hours provide more autonomy and flexibility to workers, enabling them to be more productive by managing their schedule as per their preference. Numerous studies have found that almost every type of employee is likely to accept a remote working environment.
A recent McKinsey study revealed that more than 85% of professionals would take a remote working arrangement from their employers. The same report also mentioned that workers in technical fields like web development, statistics, and mathematics are more likely to work remotely.
Furthermore, many other experiments have found that remote working and flexible hours promote employee productivity and job satisfaction. Hence, technology companies looking to hire the most talented tech professionals should provide remote working opportunities and flexible hours to potential hires.
Well-written Job Descriptions And Structured Interviews
The average candidate applies to numerous positions when seeking a suitable technology-related job. As a result, the majority of talented tech job applicants give each post a brief glance and generally scan the job descriptions. Long, boring job descriptions frequently strike these candidates as a significant obstacle and unattractive.
Short, to-the-point job descriptions should be written by hiring managers and recruiters. The functions and responsibilities of the candidate should be mentioned in these job descriptions, which should also clearly state what the firm is seeking. Additionally, employers should refrain from using technical jargon and ambiguous language in job descriptions for data scientists because it may turn off candidates.
Companies should use structured interviews in combination to brief job descriptions if they want to find tech talent faster. A crucial element of structured interviews is the use of a set of standard questions. These questions are often composed before the interview begins, unlike unstructured interviews, where the interviewer sometimes doesn’t prepare a list of pre-planned interview questions.
A systematic interviewing procedure can help you remain impartial, employ a legally defensible hiring strategy, and enhance the candidate experience.
Build A Strong Employer Brand
Managing and influencing how job seekers, employees, and other vital stakeholders view you as an employer is known as employer branding. It entails everything you do to market your company as a top employer. Advertising and employer branding is essential for attracting the best healthcare analytics experts.
Candidates want to work for a tech company with a strong reputation for investing in research and high brand value among potential employees. Technology experts of today aspire to take part in the current healthcare revolution and actively change the sector as a whole.
For instance, it will be much more difficult for a business to recruit top tech talent if it has a bad reputation for offering a harsh work environment, minimal investment in research, and inadequate perks. Utilizing social media, maintaining a company blog, and using referral programs are some of the best ways to improve your employer brand.
Sources To Find Tech Talent Faster
Companies must go the extra mile to find tech talent faster. Everyone knows about the traditional job portals and boards like LinkedIn, Indeed, and Glassdoor, but firms must look deeper. These job boards undoubtedly have a pool of talented candidates, but the top talent prefers other platforms.
Here are the most underutilized sources for firms where they can find tech talent faster and keep them for years to come:
1. GitHub
One of the biggest online forums for software engineers, programmers, and other IT specialists is GitHub.
It is a unique hosting platform where programmers worldwide may cooperate on projects and keep their work. Because of the extensive functionality of the platform, GitHub is utilized by both large corporations working on commercial projects and programmers experimenting with personal projects.
Whether you’re looking for more information about a current applicant or scouting potential possibilities, GitHub is an excellent place to find tech talent faster with projects supported by actual usage statistics.
2. AngelList
For companies looking for the most brilliant members of the tech industry, AngelList is a well-known name. Since its humble beginnings as a job portal in 2010, it has grown into a vast global network where entrepreneurs can communicate with angel investors and employ skilled people.
Developers who have profiles on AngelList are either already working for start-ups or looking for jobs in small businesses.
Some estimates place the number of active subscribers on the platform between 3 and 5 million. The majority of developers on AngelList are highly qualified and have years of expertise, but they seek employment in a setting that encourages innovation.
3. Twitter
Many people are unaware that Twitter may be an excellent resource for finding the most qualified technology professionals.
It is primarily renowned as a microblogging and social media platform where users can quickly express their opinions to the globe. But recently, Twitter has become increasingly popular as a hiring tool, particularly for technical positions in fields like data science, software engineering, web development, etc.
The communications firm claims that conversations around marketing and careers have increased by 13% year over year. Hiring managers who wish to use Twitter to find tech talent faster can benefit from tools like Follwermonk.
4. Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow is a knowledge-sharing website similar to a question-and-answer forum that enables online communication between IT professionals, business owners, and computer firms.
Users can upvote or downvote answers to inquiries and edit their responses, leading to comparisons to a cross between Reddit and a wiki for techies.
By choosing the subscription plan that best meets their needs, businesses may reach more than 5 million individuals with exceptional technical capabilities. It is user-friendly and enables recruiters to narrow down the pool of potential employees depending on criteria such as area, developer type, programming language, and others.
5. Meetup
Meetup is a social networking platform enabling people and communities with similar interests, hobbies, and vocations to host and organize in-person and online activities, meetings, and events. Many people don’t know, but Meetup can be an excellent source to find tech talent faster than other places.
You can locate IT talent by skill set and geography because meetup groups are hosted in cities all across the US and worldwide. Additionally, finding and connecting with IT experts online utilizing accessible insights is simple. It doesn’t involve in-person networking, even though you can attend Meetup events to speak with them in person if you’d like.
Without creating an account, you can explore Meetup groups and member profiles without restriction, but if you intend to message other users directly through the site, you’ll need to do so. You may search the homepage’s categories by topic and find events and groups nearby when you first arrive (e.g., learning, data science, bioinformatics, tech).
6. Emerging IT Markets
Besides the sources mentioned above, companies can outsource their tech needs to offshore candidates from emerging IT markets. You have a vast pool of applicants to pick from because of these countries’ enormous populations and booming IT industries.
One best practice would be to look for job openings in fields with a large skill pool, eager for new chances if your primary goal is to find tech talent faster than your competitors.
Contact BenchPoint, a healthtech recruitment firm, if you want to learn more about finding the most talented tech professionals.
We believe that our record speaks for itself, and we are happy to help you with any questions you might have. Moving forward, we may collaborate with you to create hiring strategies that are more precisely defined and swiftly produce the desired results.