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IT recruitment is one of the most demanded business functions at the moment, but it is also a very challenging one.
Information Technology (IT) recruitment is one of the most sought after professions in these times of increasing demand in tech talent.
LinkedIn data shows that recruiters in general were sought after 6.8x more in May 2021 than in May 2020.
Almost every existing company on the planet needs IT people to automate processes and develop digital products.
And if you want IT talent, you need IT recruiters.
In this blog we’ll break down what IT recruitment, or tech recruitment, consists of, what IT recruiters do and how it is expected to develop in the upcoming years.
Being a recruiter in general can be a very fulfilling profession: building your network, ambitious targets and timelines and learning how to make the right judgment calls about people.
The stereotype of a recruiter is that they drink a lot of (virtual) coffee with a lot of people.
That might also be true, recruitment is a lot more than that.
Especially for the IT recruiters, an emphasis is on using smart ways to find the right people.
Finding the right people has become the biggest challenges for IT recruiters in the last years (source) since demand for IT roles has skyrocketed.
IT recruiters typically search for the following roles:
IT talent can come in many forms and by many more (creative) names.
It is up to the IT recruiter to cut through the noise and find the people who can do the required job.
IT recruitment is the process of finding, reaching and attracting IT professionals, also commonly referred to as tech talent.
Information Technology is a very broad term that describes everything related to computers and processes that run computers.
IT includes anything related to creating, processing, storing, retrieving, and exchanging data and information.
Quite a broad term don’t you think?
So what does the process of IT recruitment consist of?
There are several parts in the IT recruitment process that almost any company has to follow to be successful in finding and winning IT talent for them.
When we look at the recruitment process holistically, we can speak of full cycle recruitment or 360 recruitment.
The most important steps in the recruitment cycle are sourcing, interviewing, assessing and hiring.
Since good IT talent is hardly applying to jobs anymore, you need to chase after them yourself. That means finding the right talent, reaching out to them and trying to get a conversation going.
This is referred to as sourcing, which specifically for IT talent has become one of the most important parts of the recruitment cycle, and still gaining more and more attention.
It is key to acquire people with the right search skill and make use of the right tools while searching the best of the best at scale.
IT candidates are notoriously hard to get. They have one of the most in demand skills, which puts them in a position to say no to a lot of job opportunities coming their way.
62% of software developers, who are one of the hardest to find, are open to new opportunities, but only 13% are actively looking.
This underlines the fact that you shouldn't just post a job on job boards and wait... Don't expect much return with that strategy.
You have to go after technical talent yourself.
When you reach out, there is more to keep in mind than just your job offer.
69% of all candidates reject job offers because the company offering the job has a disappointing employer brand.
You may look pretty as a company, but you can expect this talent pool to do their research.
Winning that beauty competition requires more than putting on a smile, you need to clearly articulate why your company is one that they should wan to work for (or work with, in modern language).
All the fierce competition and candidate criteria requires the IT recruiter to be top of the game, doing more than posting job posts on job boards.
Which all of a sudden makes the profession a lot more exciting doesn't it?
The IT recruitment space is continuously developing.
In 2022 some current trends will continue and new ways of sourcing and recruiting will arise.
These are the developments in IT recruitment that you can expect in 2022:
Since the demand for IT talent is growing, they will get more proposals and therefore have more opportunities to choose from.
Since you can only pick one job opportunity at a time, offers will be declined more than ever.
Since candidates, especially the good ones, get so many offers their way, why would they waste time going on job boards to find a job?
Why would the most in demand talent waste time searching on job boards?
Job boards will lose its effectiveness for in demand talent like IT professionals.
Instead, recruiters have to focus on passive candidate sourcing.
Passive candidate sourcing, also referred to as proactive recruiting, is recruiting for talent who are not actively applying to jobs (on job boards), but who are mostly open to discuss job opportunities.
Not only have companies recognized that remote working is actually working… They also see the benefit and efficiency gain of this model. Also candidates, especially in tech where work can be done location independent, see remote options as an important benefit or even filter job offers for it.
Remote will be offered in different forms, like hybrid, remote first or full remote jobs.
The majority of non-traditional companies will adopt a skill focussed approach to qualifying talent.
‘Official’ qualifications like a diploma, certificates and job titles will be less important in making the hiring decision.
This means IT recruiters will screen candidates differently, but also will search for candidates differently.
Searches will be more keyword driven (based on the required IT skills) rather than filtered for education or years of experience.
The IT recruitment domain is ever evolving and changing faster than ever thanks to increased knowledge and technological advancement.
If you want to keep up with the changes and keep yourself up to date with the new skills in the industry, you have to keep learning.
Here are the most valuable learning resources to keep up with the changing IT recruitment domain:
Hands down the most up to date and inspiring newsletter in the recruiting industry, Hung Lee shares the most valuable and in depth insights on recruiting in his weekly newsletter, delivered every Sunday morning.
Jonathan Kidder keeps track of everything that happens in the sourcing and recruiting world and collects all the valuable resources on his website. Resources go from tools, to learning content, templates and search string examples.
HeroHunt.ai is writing several times a week about upskilling in sourcing and recruitment with practical how to’s and full guides. This includes a weekly newsletter with the best new content on tech recruitment.
If you want to deep dive into sourcing, Irina’s Boolean Strings network and content is the mother of all sources. If a LinkedIn filter is not working as it should, Irina is the first one to know and share with the recruiting community. This includes the LinkedIn group with over 40k members.
Searches through billions of profiles, screens profiles and finds contact details.
Get qualified and interested candidates in your mailbox with zero effort.
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