Tech recruiting—what’s that?
In the real world, the term is directly related to niche recruiting: technology
Just like you need candidates from specific industries with certain expertise, you need recruiters who do the same in the technology domain. That’s what sums up tech recruiting.
In this article, we’ll uncover:
Tech recruiting is all about sourcing technical talent for IT and technology-based roles. It involves finding technical talent from a sourcing pipeline to match the hiring manager’s requirements. Simply put, tech recruiting helps recruiters to attract tech talent, and recruit for roles—software developers, IT professionals, computer science professionals, data scientists, and engineers.
Case in point: a recruiter reaches out to a full stack developer on LinkedIn asking them if they are open to new job opportunities.
Because the recruiter is hiring for a technical role such as that of a full-stack developer or a cloud professional, they are called tech recruiters. However, generic recruiters can also hire for technology roles. So what’s the difference? Technology recruiters:
Tech recruitment involves a specialized approach to sourcing, assessing, and hiring candidates for technology-based roles. The duties of a tech recruiter include:
Let’s discover two skills every tech recruiter must have.
To assess the technical competency of the candidate, you must have a good working knowledge of tech trends, skills, technical skills training and technologies.
The best recruiters have exemplary people skills. They must listen, build rapport, trust, credibility, and relationships, resolve conflicts and consult with people.
There are no hard-hitting rules for technology recruiters to attract tech talent. They are similar to regular hiring. But the only difference? Having technology expertise to hire tech employees.
Let’s understand the 6 ways a technology recruiter attracts and hires employees.
Tech recruiters and technology jargon need to be best friends. Because you’re constantly recruiting technology geeks who consume and speak tech, it’s critical to understand these terms.
For example, if a technology recruiter doesn’t understand terms like DNS, Sharepoint, Framework, and the difference between programming languages like C++, Java, and Ruby, they’ll struggle while communicating with candidates.
Here’s a list of technical jargon you can start with:
💡Ask your recruiters to consume more tech content that includes technical jargon. Reading Technopedia is a great starting point.
Picture this: The tech recruiter is recruiting for a Java developer role. Their understanding of the role—hiring a Java developer who is well-versed in Java and Java-related frameworks and executes performance load tests.
The hiring manager wants the candidates to be proficient in Java 8 and also, demands other skills and responsibilities like knowing Unix/ Linux basic commands, performing detailed code reviews, and creating automated build and deployment scripts.
But, the recruiter hires a candidate who has experience working with Java 7 (for which Oracle has discontinued support), resulting in a mismatch between the employee and the required skills. How is a generalist recruiter to know that a candidate working on Java SE 7 may not be knowledgeable enough to work in Java 8?
Thus, it is important you fully understand the job role and all the detailed requirements. Talk to your hiring managers and get a detailed overview of what they expect from a Java developer —their responsibilities and expected outcome.
Also download: The Complete Guide to Hiring a Java Developer
As a tech recruiter, your job demands writing technical job descriptions. But, if you do not have a tech background, it will be challenging for you to write technical job descriptions.
Here’s a job description for the role of Senior Web Developer at Upler. The recruiter has outlined the responsibilities and requirements.
What works: Under roles and responsibilities, you’ll see terms like Shopify app development, Shopify liquid code, and programming languages HTML, CSS, MySQL, and PHP highlighted.
You’ll see the experience and expertise mentioned under requirements section. If the technology recruiter doesn’t know about these terminologies, they cannot craft such detailed job descriptions.
While writing a technical job description, make sure to:
Also read: A Checklist For Writing Job Postings That Actually Work
Hackathons are an effective way to recruit highly engaged technology geeks. The most appealing part about hiring via hackathons: you know these people are passionate about tech. Because they have participated in a hackathon, you get to know their ability to work.
When a tech recruiter hires through hackathons, just like job descriptions, they need to write relevant content for hackathon challenges.
Take a look at this hackathon created by IPETRONIK using HackerEarth’s Hackathons to hire software developers.
The company has given details about the challenge, eligibility criteria, challenge format, and the recruitment process. An alternative some companies use is creating certification or offering courses through platform like Udemy or its alternatives. You then try to hire the top talent from the courses
If selected, the candidate will be judged based on the hackathon, and enter the virtual interview and HR interview.
While writing the description for the hackathon, the tech recruiter must understand the challenge and the skills that will make the candidate eligible for the challenge. Only then can they write accurate descriptions for the challenges.
Also download: The Complete Guide to Organizing a Successful Hackathon
Reference screening calls are important when deciding whether the candidate is the right fit or not.
Two ways how the recruiter can screen the candidate for references:
With skill assessments, you can identify whether the candidate understands the technical skills you are hiring them for. For this, the recruiter needs to ask the candidate the right set of questions. If a technology recruiter is hiring for the role of a front-end developer, they’ll ask questions related to JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and REST web services. Only a technology recruiter with a background of working in the tech industry can craft such assessments.
HackerEarth Assessments offers pre-made programming questions. Use these questions and create skills assessments within minutes and save time. Bonus? Recruiters with minimal technical know-how can easily create accurate assessments!
Here’s the crux: you cannot hire the perfect employee for open tech roles at your organization unless you have the right tech recruiters.
So, before you go on to hire for tech roles, assess your recruiters. Either they should have hands-on technology qualifications or technical work experience.
Tech recruitment is not only an IT job. While IT roles are often the focus of tech recruitment, there are many other types of technical roles that may require recruiting, such as engineering, data science, cybersecurity, and digital marketing.
In addition, many non-technical industries are increasingly reliant on technology – especially post COVID. As a result, they do require help from tech recruiters to fill technical roles within their organization. For example, healthcare organizations may need to recruit for positions such as health informatics specialists or medical software developers, and manufacturing companies may need to recruit for automation engineers or industrial IoT specialists.
While having a background in tech can be helpful for tech recruiters, it is not always a requirement.
Some employers may prefer that their tech recruiters have technical knowledge and experience in the industry so that they can better understand the requirements of the role they are recruiting for and effectively screen candidates. However, other employers may prioritize strong recruiting skills and experience over technical knowledge and may provide training to help recruiters understand the technical aspects of the job.
Some challenges in tech recruiting include a shortage of skilled talent, competition from other organizations, and the need to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies. Additionally, diversity and inclusion can be a challenge in the tech industry, and recruiting efforts may need to focus on reaching a broader range of candidates.
As a tech recruiter, some of the most important duties include:
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