Written by shr 
New Trends in IT Recruitment
Our new team member Alp Aziz Timur wrote a blog post about new trends in IT recruitment to kickstart his learning process at sHR. We wish you a good reading.
Recruitment is a major topic for organizations. Considering the function as deciding who will be a member of the team and who will not, we can understand why it is so essential, and why hiring strategies are constantly changing over time. While all sectors have their own drawbacks at the recruitment process, IT-Tech recruitment is maybe the hardest one because of its constantly changing nature. In this review, first, I will point out the recent trends in IT recruitment for better outcomes. Then, I will discuss the qualities that are made an IT recruiter successful.
First of all, today, HR and management ought to know fundamental IT terms and skills. Without this essential knowledge, both employers and employees suffer from a lack of communication that leads to a waste of resources or employee turnover. Since learning IT terms and skills is not an easy task for HR practitioners and managers, many companies are either working with external IT recruiters or having a special expert on IT hiring if their company is big enough. Either way, today, employers need to know what they want from an IT expert.
Good recruitment starts with an attention-grabbing job ad. In the current market, to hire talent, you need to attract talent with a good and engaging description of the job. Today, the demand for IT talents changes the old power relationship between employer and employee. IT experts have the power to choose the companies that they want to work with. Also, these job descriptions should provide all the information necessary for the job. Ambiguous descriptions cost not just money and effort but they create an atmosphere of mistrust between talents and company. And of course, they will talk about their reflections about the company.
While most companies are still using traditional boards such as LinkedIn at IT recruitment process, it is obvious that most tech talents cannot be found at these platforms. From that point, IT recruiters start to search for IT talents from new platforms such as GitHub to find passive candidates. These new platforms cost time and effort since the recruiters need to have technical knowledge but it is a more efficient way to find IT talents. However, while recruiters build a network at these platforms, they should avoid advertising their company. Instead, they should focus on becoming a member of a community that works with referrals.
At the interview stage, use the time efficiently and keep the interview stages at a minimum. While many companies have a long interview period, it is a well-known fact that most of the employees are applying for more than one job at a single time. While the employees got an offer from one of the companies, they lost their motivation to continue to the others. So, keeping the interview stage at a minimum helps the company to find the best candidates for the job. What should companies do to shorten interview period? Firstly, they should skip the personality batteries and logic tests and start with an interview. Everybody looks for IT talents, and recruiters should not waste their time with these tests. Secondly, instead of putting candidates on technical tests, recruiters may check the candidates’ portfolios or coding samples. While checking their portfolios, use the knowledge that you get from them at the interview stage for more insightful conversations. So, recruiters could understand both technical and personality skills of the candidates better.
The most important element of IT recruitment is the understanding of the candidate on a deeper level. There is an understanding of IT recruitment that the sector is impersonal. Today, against this idea, we know that IT talents are looking for what they care most. So, IT recruiters should learn more about what the talents are looking for. Especially, there are some dimensions that IT recruiter should emphasize. How important the role of fun in the working environment for the candidate? Does the candidate look for psychologically safe environments? What types of rewards and punishments make sense for the talent? All these questions are important to understand the desires of the candidate. Also, a recruiter must be clear on certain aspects of their company. They need to clearly articulate the task identity, the variety of the skills that are needed for the job, and the autonomy that the candidate will have at the company. In the end, this information will help to match the candidate with the appropriate company.
IT recruiters should be clear about the company’s culture and organizational climate. While companies should strive for building an engaging environment, recruiters should always tell the truth about the autonomy and flexibility issues. This trustful environment will lead to long term employees which are always better than short term ones. Since the innovation needs a certain degree of autonomy and flexibility, today, building an engaging environment is a must for tech companies.
Lastly, an IT recruiter should know the fact that factors that are related to the happiness of IT talent. While most companies think that they could hire the best talents with the extrinsic motivators such as money, in fact, this is not the case. Most of the IT talents look for career opportunities, autonomy in the work environment and opportunities for learning while they apply for a job. IT recruiters should know the importance of these factors and should articulate these motivators to the applicants.
So, what are the qualities of a skilled and successful IT recruiter? Like I explained on the recent trends in IT recruitment, a good IT recruiter should understand the sector both technically and ergonomically. A simple recruiter could hire just looking at the technical skills of the candidates, but we know that this will not be a good choice if the candidate does not fit into the company’s culture. For the happiness of both sides, an IT recruiter should understand the needs and desires of both. This will be possible only with the knowledge of the required language.
To understand the success of an IT recruiter, the best way is to ask the jobs that they helped for previous clients. It is important in two ways. Firstly, you will have a good understanding of the experience they have. Secondly, their knowledge of what previous clients did show they have built strong communication with them. If they don’t know what the previous clients do, this is a strong indicator that they are only working for commission and do not care for the people that much.
Lastly, an IT recruiter ought to get along with the talents well. It may be sound funny but nobody wants to work with an angry, cold and manipulative recruiter. In the end, the relationship between an IT recruiter and IT talent prospects how they understand each other. An enjoyable contact is a need for all the sectors, but it is important especially for the IT sector since most of the managers think that these technical jobs are impersonal. Today, the best IT recruiters are the ones who become friends with their clients.
Pingback: HR From the Intern Perspective | sHR.