Recruitment tips for searching IT profiles

Selecting a candidate for an IT profile requires a recruitment and selection process that involves not only the hard and technical skills needed for a certain position, but also a search for soft skills that, considering the modern development methodologies, are just as important. 

In case you didn’t know, IT professionals are the third most difficult type of talent to find, just behind sales and engineers. The information technology (IT) sector has experienced very strong growth since the technology revolution in the late 1990s and continues to develop rapidly today. 

While the number of candidates has grown since that time, the market remains tight, especially for qualified profiles. In the following Talent2Win article, we will give you recruitment tips and the best practices for obtaining IT profiles. 

1. Lean on Social Networks

60% of recruiters use social networks as a complementary recruiting tool. The first reason is to be able to track candidates already in a position. Checking specialized sites or social networks is a good strategy to better target your search. Remember that IT is a particular sector, as it requires qualified and specific profiles. Find out which are the most visited sites by the job seekers you are looking for. 

When the positions to be filled are higher in terms of responsibility or require more qualifications, candidates become rarer. In this case, a website of choice for searching IT profiles is LinkedIn. Yes, the site is not specialized in the sector; however, it is a great alternative for headhunting.

Searching LinkedIn could turn out to be more productive than sifting through a database of resumes. Even in premium mode, LinkedIn allows you to spot candidates who are attentive to the market and therefore better target your search. 

To recruit the best IT profiles, be flexible and responsive to meet their expectations. You can also use an IT recruiting company to support you, from sourcing to hiring. 

2. Work harderon your attractiveness

If you can’t compete with the salary levels of the competition, bet on your other strengths! In sectors such as Information Technology, you must work to promote your offer and your brand. In this sector, it is almost always the companies with the biggest budgets that will be able to afford the skills they need. Therefore, it will often be difficult to compete with the salary levels of the competition.  

In these cases, what you can compete with is the attractiveness of the offer, in a broad sense. Your speech about the position to be filled must be well established and, as a recruiter, you must be able to provide the candidate with enough details: responsibilities, missions, objectives, among others.  

Promote certain characteristics that are not always found in highly segmented positions: autonomy, versatility, skills development, to mention a few examples. Admittedly, it is rare that the above mentioned are the number 1 criteria for candidates when they apply. However, they are usually the number 2. So, go for it. 

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3. Partner with educational institutions 

Establishing a partnership with educational organizations can facilitate the direct hiring of young graduates. They are often a great alternative for finding IT profiles. Likewise, don’t just focus on the most recognized universities or institutes, you should also consider other places where they train many new talents every year, who should be ready to be recruited. 

One of the ways to get involved is for example by presenting your company, participating in an event, giving a speech, or being part of the jury of a competition within the institution. The dominant problem in IT profiles is, as expected, the strong market stress. Redouble your efforts and creativity to attract more and better the talents of tomorrow. 

4. Create a sourcing process for IT profiles

In a sourcing process, you start by defining the profile of your ideal candidate, and establishing a job description and an evaluation grid for future job interviews. After that, you obtain different profiles, classify them and get to know more about the candidates that seem to you the most qualified for the position to be filled.  

However, to recruit talent in the IT sector you will have to forget everything you have learned in your previous campaigns. The specificities of this market, but also the profiles that compose it, make this scheme not so effective. 

Don’t settle for a passive recruitment campaign and take a much more direct approach. Isolate some IT profiles and personalize the first contacts. Remember that a simple job offer will not always be enough to attract this type of talent. Also, don’t forget to remain available at all times.  

The high tension that characterizes the IT job market will force you to be responsive, especially if you are embarking on a hiring process. If you don’t respond quickly enough to your candidates’ requests, you may find them with the competition in the coming days. 

Hiring IT profiles can be particularly complex. That’s why you have to consider IT professionals as real customers. Retaining them will cost you less than organizing recruitment campaigns throughout the year. Knowing that, increase the attachment and loyalty of your collaborators. 

At Talent2Win, we strive to align your company’s business objectives with the best Talent Acquisition strategies available. If you want to learn more about the services we offer, do not hesitate to contact us.