The tech industry offers many workplace benefits, such as luxurious offices, relaxed dress codes and high-paying salaries, which ensures the industry attracts the very best talent on the market todayRecruiting succeeds when it’s approached as a partnership. An experienced head hunter who knows their way around technology can separate the truly qualified candidates from the ones whose backgrounds might be perfect on paper, but who won’t fill a role with exceptional communications, technical and people skills.
Recently, Dice gave recruiters a chance to explain how tech hiring managers and CIOs can help them conduct a successful search. Mark Feffer highlights 5 key things needed to carry out a successful candidate search.
- Communicate Clearly
“When it comes to working with recruiters, the more detailed feedback you can provide about candidates, the better I can perform for you,” said Doug Schade, a partner in the software technology practice for WinterWyman search in Waltham, Mass. Schade believes “communications is key” in the relationship between recruiters and businesses.
“Specifically, the more a technical hiring manager can provide detailed feedback on their likes and dislikes on résumés and interviews with candidates, the more adeptly recruiters can become at refining search parameters,” Schade said. That, in turn, often results in a search that lands you the best candidate in the most cost-effective way.
- Don’t Underestimate Candidate Experience
One experienced tech recruiter, who asked not to be identified, said that if he could have one wish, it would be that hiring managers treat candidates “like a friend of the family, someone they’d offer basic courtesies to.”
Candidate experience is crucial to a company’s ability to engage and hire the best talent in today’s uncertain labour market. This recruiter, like many others, urges hiring managers to remember that “people talk, and a first-hand negative review is much more impactful than a bad [online] review.”
“Remember that your hiring process is your first deliverable to the candidate,” added Will Kelly, managing director of recruiting firm Veredus’s Dallas office. “If it takes you six rounds of interviews and several reschedules to hire a developer, you’ve already freaked them out.”
- Make Offers Like You Mean It
Kelly also believes the candidate experience extends into the offer stage. “In this market, companies need to say, ‘I value you’ right out of the gate,” he said. “It’s important to build immediate loyalty by making people offers they’re excited about. If you’re patting yourself on the back from a fiscal point of view about pushing out minimal offers, that’s going to bite you in the butt eventually.”
- Take the Long View
Top recruiters want to engage their clients for multiple assignments over the long term. “I would much rather build a whole dev team at 20 percent than just sling résumés at 30 percent,” said Kelly. “If contingency agencies truly believe you will be making placements with them, they’ll gladly charge less.”
- Build the Relationship
Recruiters are well aware that, for them, “better business” is defined by the results of their searches. To deliver the right candidates, they need to know how managers like to work and the type of culture they want to maintain.
Don’t be afraid to work closely with your recruiter. Find a professional who you’re comfortable working with, who’ll put in the time to understand your business and its dynamics. Investing time in building a relationship with your recruiting team will pay off in the long run, as you recruit more highly qualified tech pros.
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