IT recruitment agency: the light at the end of the tunnel is in the details

IT professionals are not looking for work, and it is this somewhat ironic phrase that essentially distinguishes the search process for programmers, DevOps, testers, SysAdmins and other IT professionals from the search process for professionals in other fields. It is this difference that leads to the specific ways of IT recruitment agency searching for IT professionals, to unique communication messages and to a completely different flow of candidates.

“We placed an advert but didn’t get a single CV”

When you hear this phrase, it is immediately clear that the company is looking for IT professionals for the first time. Unfortunately, public recruitment is very ineffective when looking for IT professionals. Of course, if you are developing a product or service that is based on a very new technology and the product itself is highly valued and well known, then you can expect at least a few candidates to come from a public search, but:

1. Nobody wants to choose from only a few candidates
2. It is very rare that a company is an attractive employer in absolutely all aspects

These two points are why public search alone is a hopeless tool in the search for IT professionals.

Direct search for IT professionals

Patience

Headhunting or simply direct IT recruitment is the most common way how IT recruitment agency is using to select IT professionals, but it requires a lot of patience. Often, in-house HR departments write 15-20 letters to potential candidates and, without a response, become frustrated with the job market. Depending on the “stack” used (its rarity), you can expect between 5 and 20% conversion of passive interest in an IT professional. So, in the worst case scenario, you may have to write 100 messages to a target audience of programmers to get 5 “yes” candidates.

Technical knowledge

To build the right cross-section of the IT professional recruitment audience, you need to have a good understanding of the technological differences. If you are looking for a Front-End Developer with knowledge of React.js and you don’t have a background in Angular.js, you need to incorporate this in your target audience of candidates. There are usually at least a few parameters and you need to assess them well, otherwise you risk making the wrong offers to candidates and ruining a good initial impression.

Attractiveness of the offer

If you are interviewing passive candidates, chances are that they are satisfied with their current job. In this case, you need to offer something more than what the candidates currently have when recruiting. Of course, you can’t give every passive candidate a lively talk about your product, technological advantages or team atmosphere. Engagement requires precise, detailed, engaging ad content that is sent to passive candidates during the recruitment process. It is best to coordinate the content of the advert with the CTO, Tech Lead and other technical team members who can help to develop a suitable list of technologies that will be clear to their prospective colleagues.

Efficiency of the recruitment process

If an IT professional is not looking for a job and is offered a five-step selection structure with a task, it is better not to wait. The IT recruitment and selection process needs to be designed to be as efficient as possible, saving candidates time while ensuring their engagement and objective measurement of suitability. If a candidate has really comprehensive code samples on Github, the task can be skipped. If the candidate is at a high level, then a technical interview is more appropriate than an assignment. You should be flexible and quick, as candidates may be turned down not because of the offer or the product itself, but because of the complicated process.

Conclusions

In short, the search for IT professionals requires a great deal of knowledge in this particular field. Also, technology and the needs of IT professionals change quickly, so you need to constantly improve your skills. This requires a steady stream of IT recruitment, experience in searching for different positions (you need to have a good understanding of the difference between DevOps and SysAdmin or SRE). Successful IT recruitment can only be carried out by a IT recruitment agency with this specialisation. Otherwise, time may be wasted, candidates may be inadvertently misled, the quality of the candidate flow may not be guaranteed, etc. This is not something that any company that needs candidates here and now wants.