Companies across industries have been facing difficulties in hiring tech professionals.
In 2022, 70% of tech organizations experienced a skill shortage. This shortage is due to many reasons, from a highly competitive hiring market to candidates becoming increasingly fastidious with their chosen companies.
With digitization now an indispensable business strategy, failing to address technical recruitment challenges can harm your organization’s operations.
This infographic will help you navigate the challenges of IT recruitment to find the best candidates for your organization.
Why is recruiting in the tech industry hard?
The global dependence on technology intensifies the demand for technical professionals who can help your organization upgrade its technology stack to meet changing customer demands and business trends.
However, unlike recruitment for non-technical roles, technical positions require highly specialized skills that regular candidates might not have. As such, your potential IT candidate pool is significantly smaller than that of other positions.
Unfortunately, difficulties in IT recruitment can be detrimental to your company. The lack of skilled talent amid high demand for qualified personnel means finding the right fit for your company will be long-winded. You’ll likely spend time and resources that may cost your business in the form of delayed projects, reduced efficiency, and other lost opportunities.
Indeed, IT hiring challenges can undermine your company’s ability to navigate the digital space. Fortunately, all is not lost, as there are ways to address these obstacles.
5 IT Recruitment Challenges
Understanding the barriers to technical recruitment is crucial to help your company develop solutions to these issues affecting the IT industry.
1. Talent shortage
Rapid advancements in technology increase the demand for experienced professionals in software development, cybersecurity, data analysis, and more. These developments leave little room for promising young tech professionals to learn or upskill in time to meet the demand. Because of the scarcity of qualified job-seekers, there are 145,000 unfilled jobs for IT professionals.
If talent shortage is a problem in your organization, you’ll inevitably experience longer hiring times, missed business opportunities, and an overburdened workforce.
2. Stiff hiring competition
The hiring demand for IT professionals is exceptionally high. With numerous companies vying for the same talent pool, attracting and securing top candidates becomes much more difficult.
To stand a chance, you must go the extra mile by showcasing your unique company culture, exciting projects, compensation, and growth opportunities to emphasize why candidates should choose you over other companies.
3. Demand for competitive compensation
Nowadays, tech professionals are more discerning about employment opportunities. They want a competitive compensation package in exchange for providing valuable, hard-to-find labor. For employers like yourself, this expectation necessitates increasing your offer to IT professionals, which can take a toll on your operational expenses.
Unfortunately, failing to offer an attractive compensation package may cause you to lose top-notch talent to rival companies with more enticing offers.
4. Finding the right fit
Hiring IT specialists requires more than assessing applicants’ technical expertise. Additionally, you must find candidates who also fit well with your company culture and work environment.
As such, recruitment is more complex and time-consuming because you need to assess candidates’ communication skills, critical thinking, and work ethic.
5. Maintaining a low turnover rate
Many businesses struggle with a high turnover rate among their IT staff due to the market’s competitiveness and the constant demand for new opportunities. Retaining tech specialists is tricky because headhunters often try to poach them with better compensation and career advancement opportunities.
Tips for Hiring Tech Professionals
The success of your tech company depends primarily on competent and talented staff. If finding and hiring suitable candidates is a struggle for your organization, the following tips and best practices can help make IT recruitment more manageable.
1. Broaden your search for candidates
Before the job market became saturated, posting openings on your website and traditional job boards was enough. While you can still use those methods, it’s also crucial that you employ more modern strategies to reach a much wider audience faster, including social networking sites that target job seekers.
Studies show that 79% of surveyed job seekers use social media to look for a job. With these platforms getting more traction as job portals, it’s in your best interest to leverage them to broaden your candidate search.
Alternatively, you could organize and participate in tech events like hackathons to scout potential candidates and even negotiate with those unaware of their opportunities in your organization.
It also pays to broaden your search beyond IT graduates. Many talented software developers, engineers, and other tech professionals are self-taught and graduated from an unrelated field. You might be able to tap a larger pool of applicants by making your 4-year IT degree requirement an option rather than the norm.
2. Maintain a positive company brand
Ninety-two percent of employees transfer to another company with a positive reputation without asking for a salary increase, so clearly, company image plays a crucial role in attracting top tech talent.
Perhaps a typical day in your office includes regular employee check-ins with random sharing of inspiring stories or motivational words. You might have a collection of photos or videos from your last team-building event. Share them on social to highlight the fun company culture potential candidates and customers can expect from your company.
You may also conduct a one-day workshop for those wanting to experience firsthand what it’s like to be an employee of your company.
It’s also an excellent idea to enlist the help of your current employees as brand ambassadors, focusing on their valuable experiences working for your company. Whether marketing or recruitment, positive word-of-mouth can significantly improve one’s perception of a brand.
3. Offer tangible benefits
If you’re looking to onboard highly skilled IT employees, be ready to offer more than a competitive salary. Here, tangible benefits must be available on top of the regular pay.
For instance, many IT professionals want a remote working option since it’s no longer just a trend but the norm. Employees don’t want to spend hours on the road traveling to and from the office. As such, remote employees are more inclined to work with your company if you let them work wherever they want.
Paid time off, childcare benefits for working parents, and health insurance also help attract top talent.
4. Pursue passive candidates
Passive candidates make up 70% of the global workforce. While these candidates are not actively looking to leave their current positions, some may consider jumping ship with the right offer.
The best thing you can do when pursuing passive candidates is to create a compelling job pitch. It must highlight your positive company culture, top-notch employee benefits, and career advancement opportunities they can enjoy by joining your organization.
5. Invest in career development
Offering meaningful training and growth opportunities creates an attractive work environment for talented individuals. When you prioritize employees’ career paths through benefits like tuition reimbursement, mentorship programs, and the chance to attend industry events and conferences, you send the message that you genuinely care for them and want to see them thrive professionally.
Additionally, these initiatives help you enhance employee satisfaction and retention. It’s an excellent way to position your company as an attractive destination for tech professionals serious about advancing their careers.
Breeze Through the IT Recruitment Process
The tech industry is one of the most competitive sectors. As such, attracting highly talented workers is much more challenging. It takes an understanding of recruitment obstacles and their solutions to give you a leg up over competitors in the industry.
To secure the best IT specialists, you must create a solid recruiting strategy to address your company’s needs. An IT recruitment agency like Ledelsea can assist you with efficient hiring practices.
Established in 2013, Ledelsea provides top-notch IT consulting and staffing services to businesses of all sizes. Our team has the knowledge and experience to ensure your company is always at the forefront of technology.
For inquiries, reach out to our IT experts!
