The competition for good tech candidates is getting fiercer with each passing day, with software becoming a mainstay for businesses throughout the world.
It isn’t just about tech giants competing against one another for top candidates anymore; other industries too have entered the equation and are winning a larger share of quality tech talent quickly.
One recent article by Forbes goes on to explain why businesses will be dealing with this talent squeeze challenge for years:
“The shortage of tech talent is not a new problem. Over a decade ago, more than half of CEOs expressed concern over the dearth of talent for digital roles. By 2019, 79% had concerns. COVID severely exacerbated the skills gap, and there’s no end in sight.”
What’s more? According to Harvard Business Review’s recent analysis, over the past decade alone, startups have increased the size of their software developer and engineering staffs by as much as 60% every year, the fastest hiring pace across all companies so far.
These factors only point toward one thing – to win the best tech candidates, hiring managers and talent acquisition leaders need to think out-of-the-box and create differentiators that help them beat out competitors.
In this article, we look at a few such simple yet effective tips that can help you attract the best tech candidates out there.
1) Highlight Career Development and Growth Opportunities
When it comes to attracting the best candidates within any niche, learning and development programs can be a highly appealing benefit.
A 2021 Gallup survey conducted on behalf of Amazon found that skills training is one of the most important perks younger workers look for in a new job. A whopping 66% of workers aged 18-24 ranked learning new skills as the third most significant perk when considering new job opportunities, only behind health insurance and disability benefits.
“Employers are getting a hard wake-up call around how competitive their offerings are—pay, benefits, flexibility,” says Britt Andreatta, CEO of a workplace consultancy firm called 7th Mind Inc., based in Santa Barbara, California. “But these standard, if shifting, incentives aren’t the only options companies have for setting themselves apart. Another way to be competitive is to allow for learning,” he continues.
While many businesses in the United States were significantly understaffed in 2020 because of the COVID-induced financial crunch, Adobe saw another year of exceptional new talent entering the organization in decent numbers and record financial results. The tech giant contributes it’s success to the fact that they invest generously in the growth of their workforce.
As businesses continue to adjust to the after-effects of the pandemic and the resulting talent crunch, there is an even greater need for business leaders to prioritize career development and growth opportunities to attract good potential recruits and to make them feel more optimistic about the opportunity.
There are a number of ways companies can show their potential employees that they’re invested in the latter’s growth. Quantum Workplace’s recent survey that examined 11 types of professional development opportunities highlights the top five preferred formats:
- Tuition reimbursement for college credit
- Internal company training
- Mentorship programs
- Multi-day conferences
- Coaching from a mentor/manager
2) Place Emphasis on the Company’s Cause and Culture
The path to creating a solid company culture to attract the best candidates can seem like a lot of work in the beginning, but it’s going to be well worth the effort once you see how rewarding it is.
One of the reasons company culture wins good talent is that the top candidates are looking for organizations that have a strong mission, brand, and values that resonate with them on a personal level — and that invest in and develop their skills.
In fact, when potential recruits ask questions about the company’s purpose and mission, it can be a strong indicator of a candidate’s overall potential or talent.
In one of it’s recent articles titled ‘Culture Wins by Attracting the Top 20% of Candidates‘, Gallup goes on to state:
“In our experience with talent selection, less-talented candidates ask more transactional questions. They focus more on things like pay, benefits and days off. In contrast, high-talent candidates ask higher-level questions like “Who will my manager be?” “How will I learn and grow?” “What does this company stand for? These are the employees who will generate innovation, growth and productivity in your organization.“
World-class organizations have frequent conversations with their best employees on topics related to culture fit — and then build their hiring strategy around that feedback to attract similar stars. They also seek out other kinds of feedback, like focus groups or assessing Glassdoor reviews for culture language, to stay well-informed about what candidates are looking for with respect to a company’s culture.
Some of the best practices you can follow to foster a positive culture include:
- Working on implementing feedback from your existing employees
- Encouraging your potential hires to ask questions and proactively answering those
- Promoting team spirit and inclusivity through various group activities
- Creating avenues where new recruits can comfortably interact with the senior management
- Leveraging tools such as a company-wide communication platform that will boost employee engagement
3) Think about Ways to Optimize the Potential Candidate’s Experience
Did you know that nearly 60% of job seekers have had a negative candidate experience, with over 72% of them going public about their dissatisfaction?
This makes it all the more necessary for hiring managers to ensure that their organization is furnishing a one-of-a-kind recruiting experience to it’s potential recruits.
You’ll have to think about everything that goes into attracting the best candidates within your niche – right from coming up with optimized, highly specific job descriptions, to meeting your potential candidates where they are and tailoring your marketing campaign in a way that it gets all eyeballs your way!
Once a good candidate is in your hiring funnel and you have an interview scheduled with them, the first thing you should be focusing on is losing the one-size-fits-all pitch.
“Remember that each new recruit is an individual, so be ready to tailor your pitch to the person on the other side of the Zoom call. Your recruiting process already includes determining if the recruit is a good fit, so now play back to them what you have learned about how their skills and needs are a great match to your specific company“, says Eric Laughlin, CEO of California-based Agiloft Inc.
Next up, to attract your potential recruits, you need to give them what they want and lower every possible chance of them choosing to opt out of your hiring process.
According to one recent report, some of the leading factors for candidates feeling disappointed in the recruitment process and choosing to disengage are:
- Unnecessarily long application processes
- Lack of communication
- No confirmation or acknowledgement emails
- No means to contact the recruiter
You need to make sure that you can steer your interviewing process clear of these negative markers for as long as possible to attract and engage the best candidates.
Lastly, think about ways you can create excitement in your organization, roles, and culture. To encourage candidates to engage with your company means feeding them all the things they need to know to choose you as an employer over your competitors.
Include testimonials from your existing and past employees on your company’s social media channels. Draw your potential employees toward these posts and your official website’s careers page to show how much your workforce enjoys working at the organization, how exciting every day at the office will be, and how much they stand to gain.
VR, videos, live feeds, and online mixers with the team is also one of the ways all their questions can be answered. That way, you can give them a true taste of what they’re missing on well in advance.
To learn more about how you can attract top tech talent and land the best hires in no time, get in touch with us at BenchPoint today – top healthcare IT recruitment agencies in USA!
We’ll be happy to guide you with your smallest queries and help you build result-driven, employee-centric workplaces in the long run.