Digital talents are creators. They thrive in the current fast paced digital world that is ever evolving. They love to master new techniques, use new tools and challenge what they think they know. They are creators of the world of tomorrow and therefore have to continuously adapt and learn new ways of working.

Many digital masters are relatively young, driven individuals who always want more; understand more, build more, innovate more. Understanding this group of people is sometimes hard, especially for organizations and recruiters who are used to sourcing traditional roles. 

Whether you already level with digital talent or not, knowing who you’re talking to and how to get digital talent enthusiastic about your mission and job offer is essential in today’s challenging talent market.

What is digital talent?

Digital talent is talent whose primary role is to help create digital products like apps and content. Since digital talent is always involved in the process of creation you can say that they typically are creators or builders. Compared with other main groups of talent, digital talent is the most sought after talent world wide.

What types of digital talent are there?

We distinguish 5 categories within the digital talent pool, those within:

• Application development: front end, back end and full stack engineers, DevOps engineers
• Automation: Robotic Process Automation experts, Machine Learning experts
• Design: experience designers, interaction designers, graphic designers‍
• Content: blog writers, video editors, audio creators, social media content creators‍
• Product management: product managers, product owners

How to recruit digital talent?

Because digital talent is high in demand and relatively low in supply it is exceptionally hard to find and acquire them. Therefore you need to go beyond the standard recruitment techniques.

Search in the uncommon places

Where else to find digital talent than in the online world. Most recruiters source the conventional places for digital talent like job boards and LinkedIn. But there are many more platforms where digital talent can be found. Developers can be found on GitHub and Stack Overflow. Automation and data experts on Kaggle. Designers on Dribbble and Behance. Content creators on Medium, YouTube, Spotify and social media platforms. Here’s a list of platforms to source digital talent on. 

Find adaptable learners

New technologies enter the market at lightning speed so digital talent has to continuously learn new skills to keep up with new trends. You're looking for fast learners who can make any newly required skill their own in a matter of weeks or months rather than years. Their learning ability is more important than their mastery over one specific skill.

Assess them based on their portfolio

Because digital talent is always creating something, they can showcase the digital products they have built. There is always a product as a result of the work of digital talent. The product is tangible and visible and therefore a good indicator of the required competency. Based on their portfolio, rather than their CV, you can make a good estimation of their actual skills and translate the products or concepts they have already created to what you want them to create.

Do a personality assessment

The only certainty in a digital job is uncertainty. You want to know if candidates bring the right personality and mindset to the job. Do they really enjoy building something iteratively in a fast evolving environment while they have to cope with a lot of uncertainty? Get a good view on their work related needs: flexibility vs consistency, autonomy vs reliance, stimulation vs comfort. Assess them by asking them the right questions in (structured) interviews. Here’s how you can assess digital talent.