Contributing Author: Inga Daliba I Owner of DarbaGuru I IPTER Latvia
Information Technology recruitment is the personnel selection field, where the main searching focus is on finding IT specialists.
While other niches can be filled with vacancy proposing on the labor market, we can see that with IT positions most of all specialists don’t apply.
What’s the difference? Why are IT specialists so hard to find?
It’s quite simple – job tasks and projects in the market are more than technical specialists. The others have an opportunity to choose.
We can see that many IT specialists are not even responding to a variety of recruiters messages because they are receiving too many. They are focusing on their own work and don’t even open the proposal email.
With good cooperation of recruiters, HR managers and Technical Directors there is a chance to get a technically strong person on board.
- First, there is a need to understand what’s in the market. What are the current rules? What is a middle salary range, job tasks, specialist count, asked bonuses and the working model on each active IT role?
- Second, while working in an IT position it is significant to understand that job advertisement is not enough. Recruiters need to actively work to find the specialist and invite them into the contact circle.
- Third, it is very important to understand the difference in technical terminology to relate with candidates in their work language and propose potentially interesting job roles for them.
- Fourth, is that the recruiter needs to contact candidates more than 1 time. It could be the invitation or 1 email, then a bit of information about the vacancy – possibly the link, and then remember to make at least 1 follow up. However, the experience is showing that IT people can respond after the 3rd follow up.
And you as a recruiter can do that, but don’t turn on an aggressive spam mode with texting every single day. Give specialists time to read, analyze the want of change or at least see what’s in a market and respond.
Also, many times the salary range is not the only criteria for a job change, however it is very important too.
And for long-term recruitment work, especially in the IT field, there is a need for a strong personal networking circle that is made of a variety of specialists. Developing this pool ahead of time will allow you to reach people faster, the next time you are searching for a specialist.
The best IT recruitment practice from my side of view is a mix of knowing what you need; making an approach to the market situation; doing specific searching; making person-to-person communication; building stronger networking circles; and being open to talk about different cooperation model opportunities.
