Ideas for recruiting top IT technical candidates
Virtual recruitment, advertisements in games or the use of gamification as a method of selecting the best
candidates are just some of the methods of reaching candidates for specialist positions in the IT sector.
What other methods can you use to reach the best?
Companies looking for the best programmers compete with each other in how to reach candidates. One of them is,
among others, attractive presentation of the offer - interesting graphic form, language adapted to the target
group, sometimes understandable only to them, description of additional benefits related to work in a given
position, such as holiday vouchers, employee pension programs, multisport cards and others. Certainly, in
offers for IT specialists, the "We offer" section is much longer than in the case of other positions, ex. in
finance or marketing. The place where the offer is published is also important. First of all, these will be
popular recruitment portals, although employers also do not shy away from more non-standard places, ex. games.
Job interviews are still a common form of selecting candidates for positions related to the IT industry.
And due to the possibility of verifying a lot of information contained in a CV, this will certainly not
change for a long time. However, the form of communication is changing, namely face-to-face meetings are
being replaced by videoconferencing, which saves a lot of time for both candidates and recruiters. Interestingly,
a videoconference can also be a kind of test, revealing the candidate's approach to the process in which he is
participating. This includes inappropriate, homely clothing or too direct vocabulary that does not fit the
accepted canon of job interviews. It is worth mentioning, however, that candidates for programming or
administration positions pay less attention to formal attire. This is due to the location of IT departments
in organizations that rarely have contact with external customers, so their attire is not that important.
Due to the high supply of specialists for IT positions and difficulties
in finding good candidates, relationships and networking are extremely important.
In the era of the ongoing technological revolution, all forms of passive recruitment methods are becoming
a thing of the past. The previously mentioned advertisements on online portals will not replace an active
visit to the market in order to look for the perfect candidate . What matters are relationships and referrals.
Recommendations, especially from people with whom we achieved recruitment success. Candidates often think like
this: if a consultant helped me find a job, he can also help my friends. Unfortunately, in the case
of programmers and IT specialists, referrals from friends are not very common. The direct search method
works best in this group.
Recruitment invariably uses tasks and tests (Assessment Center, competence tests, psychometric tests, etc.)
to increase the accuracy of the recruitment process. More innovative solutions are also being sought, especially
when they are addressed to more specific groups, such as IT specialists, who must demonstrate very specific
knowledge that is difficult to verify. For example, when a company recruits programmers, during the recruitment
process it asks them to write a program or create an application, thus checking the candidates' knowledge of
a given programming language or technology. A correctly completed task shows the level of skills expected by
the client. This form of checking competences is useful and gives good results if we are looking for someone
with specialized knowledge and skills.
In the era of development of modern technologies and widespread access to social media, companies often look
for candidates on LinkedIn and Goldenline. Unfortunately, in the case of some professional groups,
especially those that do not complain about the lack of interest from employers, having a GL or LI profile is not
so common. In the case of IT specialists, we often encounter incomplete profiles. A practice still used by
recruiters, especially those specializing in the IT area, is penetrating specialized discussion forums where
views are exchanged by experts who have extensive knowledge of the topics they discuss. These are often people
who may become our potential candidates.
There are many ways to reach candidates and it is often not enough to use just one. The most important thing is
the effect, i.e. reaching the best candidate on the market.