Tips to Source Superstar Tech Talent for your Organization

Why are we Talking About it?

With the recent layoffs at Twitter, Amazon, and Meta, we are slowly hitting towards recession. A recession for employers means less money in the market and putting recruitment on the back burner. 

However, it is the other way around for tech talent. According to The Bureau of Labor Statistics it has been projected that the need for software developers will increase by 21% by 2028! 

With such booming stats, it is always an opportunity-filled market for the techies. But recruiters and sourcers always find it difficult to source and hire tech talent. Almost 9 in 10 HR professionals (86%) say they find it challenging to find and hire technical talent, with over a third (36%) saying they find it “very” challenging, as reported in a recent Indeed survey.

It is crystal clear that recruiting managers and HR professionals find it extremely mind-chewing to hire tech talent. But, we live in a world where everything is dominated by technology, and every business needs a fully packed powerhouse tech team to keep their business running. 

Whether you are a small 10-person organization looking for your next strategic hire or a large multinational hiring 30 developers for offices around the globe, the best practices for sourcing tech talent remain largely unchanged.

1. Reset your radar to find undiscovered gems

You often tend to overlook what is lying right next to you and instead aim for far-fetched things. Full-fledged enterprises or even startups should tap into their professional networks for sourcing tech talent. Try these tenets to build a solid foundation for your hiring pipeline and your professional reputation as well.

Foster your Connections:

 By assisting others with their problems or giving them a hand when you can, you can develop long-term trust with your connections. You can do so by expressing congratulations for major achievements in their career or personal life, passing along a job opportunity, or giving guidance or mentorship. It's crucial for hiring managers and technical recruiters to build relationships with potential candidates so that they perceive you as genuine people who aren't just looking to fill positions.

Focus on tech-oriented platforms:

 Have you ever used LinkedIn to find technical candidates only to find bare profiles, blank profile images, and out-of-date information? If so, it may be worthwhile to spend some time searching through technical communities like Women Who Code, Stack Overflow, GitHub, and Stack Overflow where your next back-end developer or QA engineer is likely to be working on the next great thing rather than refining their LinkedIn profile.

2. Use Advanced Sourcing Techniques

Recruiters often hesitate to take up new techniques for tech talent sourcing, not realizing how impactful and time-saving it can be.

- Recruiters can benefit greatly from using boolean search, which is the tactic of using commands like AND, OR, and NOT. For more accurate applicant matches, you can use Boolean search to sort through a ton of data from job boards, career websites, ATS or CRM databases, and even Google directly.

- It is very 90s if you are still manually sifting through every resume and keeping a track of potential candidates in a spreadsheet. You need to amp up your game and start using automation technologies that can take your talent sourcing to higher levels.

- For example, use Calendly or Microsoft Bookings for automated interview scheduling, prepare an email template to save time, and last but not the least, use One tab to consolidate all your tabs into one linked page. 

3. Build long-lasting Interactions

It is an uphill battle to source tech talent and hence you need to think of strategies that will make you stand out from the crowd. On average, 5 to 8% of candidates respond to cold emails, but it can go as high as 30% by crafting personalized ones. Here are a few tips for the same.

- Find something common between the candidate and you such as educational background, skillset, connections, geography, or working history to connect with them.

- Emphasize how your company has a great work culture by mentioning your Glassdoor rating and the diversity of your team.

- Think of a catchy and unique subject line to increase the number of candidate responses. 

4. Give a Seamless Candidate Experience

No one enjoys waiting. Because of this, every day (or even hour) that you can save from the time it takes to complete a recruiting is priceless. Moving forward with speed and efficiency improves the candidate experience.

- Reduce the number of interviews in your entire sourcing process. According to Google, you collect almost 86% of data about candidates in the first 4 interviews.

- Make sure to keep the interview timings aligned with both the applicant and the hiring manager.

- Use pre-employment assessments to efficiently evaluate your potential candidates. For sourcing tech talent you can refer to platforms such as Codility and HackerRank.

- Be quick to wrap up the entire process in 2-3 days, after all, it will save money for you and time for the candidate. 

5. Build your Employer Brand

Which techie doesn’t want to work at Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other tech giants? 

Build an employer brand so strong that potential candidates get attracted to you like iron to magnets. 

Did you know that a whopping 92% of already employed candidates would consider leaving their jobs if contacted by an employer with an excellent brand and reputation?

- Have excellent company ratings on company review websites such as Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and Indeed. Candidates tend to check an organization’s ratings before accepting a job offer.

- Not just that, go through those reviews and improve all the negatives to enhance your reputation.

- Organize offline seminars and conferences to connect with top-quality professionals.

- Learn the tech lingo. Understand the tech stack, tech skills, team hierarchy, and engineering roles to have increased trust from the candidate. 

Best Platforms for Tech Talent Sourcing

1. GitHub

GitHub is one of the largest code repositories out there. Developers from around the world store their codes and projects they are working on this platform. This makes GitHub the best database of techies for recruiters.

You can use three filters namely, language, location and followers to source the apt candidate for you. On GitHub, the more the number of followers a developer has, the more credible they are.

2. Stack Overflow

The biggest online community for programmers, especially coders and developers, is Stack Overflow. Stack Overflow users primarily utilize the site to share their knowledge with the community and ask and answer technical issues. Based on how many answers they have provided to the website, users are given gold, silver, and bronze badges. 

You can view a user's reputation, responses, and language specialties by conducting a user search. A premium alternative on Stack Overflow lets recruiters publish job posts, look for prospects, and set up corporate pages to promote their businesses.

3. Women Who Code

A nonprofit group called Women Who Code helps and enables women in technology. By reducing obstacles and giving women chances to study, develop, and thrive in the field, it aims to close the gender gap in technology. Employers can use the platform to add female software developers to their teams, enhancing their diversity and inclusivity.

4. AngelList

The largest job marketplace for startups, formerly known as AngelList and now called Wellfound, specializes in tech jobs. The website was established in 2010 to link business entrepreneurs and angel investors. Since then, AngelList has evolved into a startup resource directory that also connects job seekers and employers. 

The website gives companies in their early stages the chance to get in touch with potential job seekers and shorten the hiring process. AngelList enables you to only get in touch with applicants who have shown interest in working for your company, greatly accelerating the sourcing process. 

Final Thoughts

With sourcing becoming more challenging than ever, why not shrug this responsibility off your shoulders by trusting professionals?

At HireQuotient, you can delegate all your non-technical sourcing requirements to us and enjoy a seamless experience. 

Book a demo today!