The role of Human Resources has been established many years ago and continues to gain traction in the business environment. Especially in the IT field, recruiting is a crucial part of a company’s success. A professional technical recruiter needs to understand the most prominent technologies as well as their use in the software development process. Most tech recruiters are not coders themselves, so they are often asked to provide certificates and other achievements that show that they have first-hand expertise in the world of technology. On top of that, they should be qualified to assess a candidate’s soft skills and overall fitness in the company.
How do you go about hiring a technical recruiter who has both technical expertise and excellent interpersonal skills? What are the main challenges of technical recruiting? Keep reading, and you will learn helpful tips from one of the best IT recruitment companies in the business.
Why are we stating that technical hiring is so important for your business?
The fact is that only the blend of both hard and soft skills ensures a truly professional technical recruiter. They are experts who can also evaluate essential soft skills like risk-taking, critical thinking, creativity, and others. Tech recruiters know what set of skills to look for when hiring a junior or senior position, for a worker in a startup or large conglomerate, for a freelancer online, or an in-house specialist.
The valuable input from technical recruiters comes from asking the right questions and playing out possible work scenarios to understand the candidate’s personality. Technical headhunters will also save you money on mis-hiring which might cost you from six employee’s salaries up to almost 27.
The IT field is one of the fastest-growing markets, which is why technical hiring is becoming more and more complex. Once the business grows, labor division becomes essential due to the ever-increasing complexity of the processes. And recruitment is not an exception – when your company gains traction and acquires more business, it is important that every worker focuses on their responsibilities and duties and leaves the rest to others. Even though in the beginning, the tech lead might be capable of autonomously hiring workers, once the company grows bigger, they should delegate the talent management process to hiring professionals.
However, technical recruiters face a number of challenges throughout their careers.
A professional technical recruiter will cut your expenses, accelerate the hiring process, and fill up the positions with the best possible candidates. But what makes a technical recruiter best at their job and what qualifications and skills should they have?
A technical recruiter is a Human Resource specialist whose main duty lies in tracking down and hiring fitting candidates in the IT field. For example, software engineering, UI/UX design, project managers, and so on. Technical recruiters research candidates, contact them with job offers, conduct interviews, and select the best ones to fill technical jobs.
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What makes great technology recruiters stand out from their competition? What skills help technical recruiters do their job well?
Although decent communication skills are important in any occupation, it becomes especially relevant for information technology recruiters. IT recruiters are the bridge that connects tech teams and potential employees, which is why they should present excellent interpersonal skills and find common ground with virtually anyone. On top of that, software engineers are often reserved and introverted, which makes it difficult to establish a trusting relationship. Technical recruiters have to be true gurus of communication and negotiation.
Staffing specialists who are well-versed in communication can mitigate and resolve conflicts that happen in every team. Conflicts are usually expensive since they lead to project delays, misunderstandings, and even failures. Great IT recruiters and HRs will handle the situation and help each party resolve the conflict and find a compromise.
Technical recruiters have a lot on their plates – from composing job descriptions, screening candidates, preparing and executing technical interviews, to constantly reporting back to the employer. This is a job that requires excellent time management and organizational skills as well as the ability to multitask without negatively impacting the results.
A multitasker can juggle many things at the same time without missing deadlines. They can save an urgent project by quickly yet effectively finding an appropriate candidate to fill the talent gap.
ATS makes the recruiter’s work more efficient by analyzing the applicants’ resumes and preselecting the ones that fit the best. ATS will evaluate the candidate’s experience, technology stack, responsibilities, and achievements as well as educational background and choose the best ones to ease the recruiter’s job. Currently, there are quite a lot of great applicant tracking systems on the market, but most of them work in a more or less similar way, so if a technical recruiter has had experience working with one or two of those, they will easily get a grip on your company’s ATS of choice.”
Applying for jobs and going to multiple interviews where you have to be at the top of your game every single time can be highly stressful for candidates. Being under so much pressure, applicants might underperform and show lower results than they can actually deliver. The technical recruiter’s job is to make the candidate feel comfortable and ensure the best experience. First of all, it is crucial for a company’s reputation and possible referrals. Secondly, if your candidate has multiple offers from different companies, he or she will not choose a firm that did not provide a good experience and left a bad impression.
How to become a technical recruiter worth hiring? If you would like to up your game and learn what it takes to stand out from the competition, browse through our helpful tips.
If you want to learn more about becoming a technical recruiter, there are several options for achieving this goal.
Udemy offers affordable online training that covers everything you need to know about technical recruitment. You will learn about the most prominent languages, tools, and frameworks, understand the difference between frontend and backend as well as software and hardware. Finally, the Udemy course will provide you technical interview practice, which will help you create relevant questions and tasks in the future.
Another must-have tool for a technical recruiter is StackOverflow. Much like GitHub, it is an online community for IT experts to exchange knowledge and share know-how. What makes it so useful for recruiters is their special solutions to speed up and improve the hiring process.
Geekology is an online learning platform for people who are looking to learn or deepen their technical skills. Besides lessons on coding and software development, they offer a special course on technical recruiting that will teach you everything you need to know to start your new career.
We are lucky that we live in the age of digital expansion, where we can onboard new staff with Freshteam. Onboarding checklists, employee self-service, emails, reminders, and e-signatures make it a perfect choice for new employees’ onboarding,
What is the best source of discovering technical recruiters? You can hire an in-house worker who will enrich your corporate culture and become a part of your team. Alternatively, you can use the services of a recruitment agency or find workers on recruitment platforms. What are the advantages and downsides of these options and is there a better way?
The benefits of hiring an in-house IT technical recruiter are quite obvious. An in-house worker becomes a part of your team and is interested in the company’s success. They are more driven and motivated to find the best people for the role as it benefits the company’s goals. The most common downside of in-house hiring is its high cost. You will have to pay for the worker’s office space, equipment, benefits, insurance, and so on.
Instead of hiring an in-house technical recruiter, you can use the services of a recruitment agency. They usually have enough resources at their disposal to track down the technical workers you need. Tech recruiting firms work fast and precisely as they look for a technical workforce all the time. They are familiar with technical requirements, latest trends, salaries, and have access to the largest databases like LinkedIn premium. The biggest problem with technical recruiter companies is the cost – for every successful placement they will charge you up to 25% of the hire’s annual salary.
The most prominent recruitment platform is Reflik – an online tool designed for both recruiters and employers. An independent technical recruiter can sign in, select one or several positions he or she would like to fill in, and start working. It is a large platform with thousands of recruiters where you can find a dedicated worker. The only drawback is the lack of vetting on the platform since anyone can sign in and work. You will have to handle interviews, background checks, and tests yourself.
DOIT Software’s recommendation is staff augmentation – a new way of hiring technical specialists. Staff augmentation is an alternative hiring strategy that allows filling the talent gap in your team with one or several experts. The IT Staff Augmentation Partner receives your requirements for the project, the exact skill set you need, sets up technical interviews, and evaluates the candidates according to your company’s requirements.
For a certain amount of time, the duration of the project, these workers become a part of your team. You might even say that you “borrow” their talent, skills, and experience to fulfill a certain function in your team and successfully execute the project. Our tech recruiters know the best software developers who have first-hand experience with building software from scratch.
Cost
The most expensive model (office space, dental, benefits, etc.)
One-time payment, however, they charge 25% of the hire’s annual salary
The most affordable model - you only pay the hourly rate of our top experts
Time
Finding a fitting in-house worker might take up to months
On average, these agencies take one month to find a candidate
DOIT guarantees the first interview within 10 days
Quality
You will have to conduct the vetting process by yourself, so the outcome is on you
Agencies conduct screening and interviewing, so the quality is guaranteed
DOIT runs three interviews and evaluates candidate’s soft and hard skills - the quality is guaranteed
Through 7 years of successful work and dynamic development, DOIT Software has built expertise in mobile app development and staff augmentation. We have been helping companies from various industries and sizes to create applications that attract users and drive business growth. Here, we would like to share some tips on hiring the best talent in the IT industry.
“Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” Steve Jobs
One of the most important things that we have learned is the fact that people are your greatest and most valuable asset. You should make sure that your business goals correlate with your employees’ individual goals as well as ensure adequate work-life balance. But it doesn’t end with your employees – it also applies to your customers. Make sure they are at the center of your decision-making and your top priority. Build an authentic, genuine bond with your customers by welcoming them as a part of your community.
In the last several years, we have witnessed rapid development of the IT market that has resulted in thousands and thousands of jobs. As a result, we have a scarcity of IT talent and an abundance of IT jobs. The situation is changing since more and more people are going into the IT-sphere after recognizing its potential, however, at this point, there is an obvious imbalance.
While IT experts are sitting back and choosing between the best offers that will bring them money and exciting projects, companies are left to compete for them. You have to be able to offer something special and interesting to work on, decent pay, which is quite high in the IT world, and some enticing perks. IT workers are more than aware of their privileged position and don’t waste their time on companies that they don’t think are not worth it.
So how do you stand out from the inevitable competition and land the crème de la crème?
As it turns out, the salary is, although a significant factor, not the most important one in the candidate’s decision-making process. New technologies are far more crucial for the candidate since most of them are motivated by an exciting project. There are eight things that impact their decisions:
While benefits like free gym membership and free healthy meals bring quite apparent value to the employee, company culture does not seem that important. However, it is highly underestimated. The meta-analysis by University of Iowa has shown that there is a clear correlation between cultural fitness and employee retention rates. People who feel like a part of the team and fit in well with their coworkers are more loyal to the company and more satisfied with their job. Even when the company experiences downturns and volatility, they are more likely to stick around.
The technical interview is an essential step of the hiring process whereby a candidate’s skills and knowledge of technologies are being evaluated. Without a technical interview, you cannot make an informed decision about an applicant’s level of expertise, logical abilities, and problem-solving skills.
9 tips to conduct a technical interview
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We value the importance of company culture above other things. We look for people who share our values and believe in teamwork, professionalism, orientation on customers, self-development, and a high grade of morality. In addition to that, we find the candidates’ proactivity and ability and desire to take initiative highly important.
Having accomplished many complex projects for various clients, we concluded that the positive correlation between the developers’ work and the company’s expectations is the most important part of the project’s success. This is why we have integrated a quarterly feedback process between clients and professionals working on the project.
The best part of this approach is the opportunity to quickly respond to misunderstandings and inconsistencies between the two parties and optimize the workflow. For example, if we receive negative feedback from our client about one employee, we quickly organize a meeting where we discuss the client’s issues, figure out how to solve those, receive feedback from the employee, and provide the necessary support for all the participants.
Our strategy enables the perfect labor divisions where DOIT Software handles HR and administrative tasks, developers can focus on writing code, and the company’s executives can think about the big picture – long-term goals, strategies, and future projects.
The unique technical recruiter skills and competencies DOIT offers will help your company find workers that ideally fit into your company, share your values, and bring in the exact set of skills that is required for the position. The expertise and knowledge that IT recruiters possess will save your company money and time as well as establish the culture that will make your business stand out and attract the right people.
DOIT Software offers a unique approach to hiring IT personnel that has already shown its benefits for businesses. By using our IT staff augmentation hiring model, you will shorten the hiring process, lower the costs, and receive the best experts for the required roles. Contact our team of professionals to get a consultation and ask any remaining questions about staff augmentation and software development.
A technical recruiter is a recruiter who finds and hires talented prospects in the IT-sphere. Tech recruiters are a part of the HR department and take care of finding, interviewing, hiring, and onboarding IT staff.
Technical Staffing is the part of the staff augmentation model whereby a company uses services of technical recruiter companies and fills the skill gaps in their team by short-term hiring one or several professionals.
Technical recruiter interview questions are twofold: first, they evaluate a candidate’s soft skills, and next, they check their technical knowledge based on tests. They differ from position to position, which means that technical interview questions for engineering or project managing positions will contain different tasks and scenarios.
A good IT recruiter is a professional who can assess a candidate’s personality traits and soft skills as well as is knowledgeable enough to evaluate their technical skills.
