Tech recruitment - The good, the bad and the ugly

Everyone has an idea of what tech recruitment is. But much like how people only like photographs of themselves that they look good in, tech recruitment tends to vary from stakeholder to stakeholder and organisation to organisation.

Let’s start at the very beginning: technical recruitment is the process of hiring technical talent for organisations. This process can include recruiting for roles such as engineers, developers, as well as data scientists. Moreover, it can encompass both internal recruitment teams, external service providers, and individual headhunters, depending on the nature, urgency and level of the roles in question.

Technical recruitment is different from generalist recruitment in many ways. The most obvious difference is that most people have an understanding of what an Accountant or Sales Manager does, but those same people might have quite a limited understanding of the difference between a Backend Developer and a UI Developer. Tech recruiters, on the other hand, while not being required to build and maintain technical applications, must at least have some knowledge of the technology stacks that they’re recruiting for, and know where people using those specific technologies tend to spend time online. As such, technical recruitment comes with a couple of challenges.

Let's first take a look at some of these challenges:

*Skills shortages: *

One of the biggest challenges that technical recruiters face is the limited talent pool. Highly skilled technical candidates are rarely unemployed, and often highly irritated by constant communication attempts from both internal and external recruiters trying to garner their attention. (Evidence of this, you ask? Check out r/recruitinghell on Reddit.) Finding the perfect candidate is one thing. Convincing them to move to a different organisation is another Herculean task entirely.

*The requirements are constantly changing: *

Recruitment requirements change as the needs of the business change. In tech recruitment, the pace of these changes happens at warp speed. It’s imperative that a good tech recruiter is agile and able to pivot along with these changes. Another key skill here is to be able to identify transferable skills.

The competition is incredibly fierce

Gone are the days when organisations considered candidates lucky to be employed. Employer value propositions (or EVPs) are critical to finding and maintaining a top-tier technical workforce.
Given all these challenges, getting started in technical recruitment may sound like a daunting task. But fear not! There are some things that you can do to strengthen your approach.

*So how do you get started as a Tech Recruiter? *

There are many paths into tech recruitment but for the most part, I recommend the following as a very basic pathway into this incredibly rewarding environment:

1. Educate yourself. No varsity? No problem. There are loads of resources available on Youtube, LinkedIn and Reddit.
2. Perfect your non-technical skills. Recruitment is ultimately about people, so you need to know how to connect with them.
3. Know your tools, and be open to new ones!
4. Learn how to take, and act upon, criticism. Feedback is often ruthless, but don't take it personally, and instead grow from it.
5. Keep your stakeholders at the forefront of everything you do. Both candidates and hiring managers respond to great experiences, it’s your job to provide those for them!

Sounds tough, right? It is. But a career as a technical recruiter can be an incredibly rewarding career choice. Firstly, as a technical recruiter, you get to understand how and why technologies are built from the ground up, as well as stay on-top of tech trends. But, at least in my humble opinion, by far the most rewarding element of recruitment—technical or otherwise—is that you get to make a genuine impact on people's lives.

I can only speak for myself when I say that placing a candidate in a job that you know is going to make them happy, make their situation easier, or will improve their life in some way, is absolute magic!

One last thing, we’re #hiring!!

Check out our open positions here