The starting point for IT recruitment is defining the specific role and requirements.
When initiating a new recruitment in the IT field, the first meeting with the client to understand the profile being sought is vital to begin the process. In this instance, it is necessary to fully understand the tasks and responsibilities the person will undertake in the role, beyond the job title or position they hold. Differentiating between the job title and the activities to be performed is of utmost importance, as there is a wide variety of similar-sounding titles in the IT market that involve different tasks and obligations. Likewise, it is important to understand the project scope in which the candidate will be working, in order to have the appropriate resources for dialogue with candidates regarding doubts or inquiries.
Similarly, jointly defining the desired years of experience and seniority in candidates with the client is essential for achieving a solid starting point in IT recruitment. This point is valuable because, while there are commonly understood and accepted parameters in the market, there is no objective and defined categorization to label profiles at the Junior, Semi-Senior, or Senior levels.
To facilitate recruitment advancement, it is paramount to consider the need for flexibility in the original proposal requirements, as well as effectively communicate this to the client. This means being aware of the high volume of searches from clients and the scarcity of available candidates in the market, which allows for a negotiation phase where candidates can make demands during recruitment.
When handling such information, it is essential to reach an agreement with the client and to design a proposal that is cohesive internally and coherent for the market in terms of: work modality (remote, in-person, or hybrid), exclusionary and valued requirements (technical and soft skills or abilities), required years of experience, salary, and non-salary benefits.
Finally, as mentioned previously and is widely known, the IT market is highly in demand and, consequently, demanding. There is a large number of job openings that technology profiles receive, and they are motivated to change jobs by aspects such as training in soft skills and languages, development projects and professional growth, opportunities for new challenges, and a large number of other benefits beyond the fixed monthly salary. This is why it's important to highlight the value of defining non-salary benefits to enhance recruitment success in the IT world.
How to ensure an effective IT recruitment process?
When designing an IT recruitment process, the main recommendation is to achieve a predominantly agile process. In certain cases, this may mean eliminating traditional recruitment, to which people are accustomed, 100%%. As they are employed and receiving numerous job offers simultaneously, it is important that contact with candidates is personalized and flexible, adapting the stages to facilitate the candidate experience. Likewise, it is also important to recognize candidates' preferences, sometimes generational, in order to generate greater empathy and cooperation between both parties.
On the other hand, the strategic selection of business partners is transcendental for effectively achieving objectives in IT recruitment. Due to the high competitiveness of the market, it is effective to form alliances with good employer brands, as well as to maintain an attractive image in the market to motivate candidates with interesting and differentiated proposals.
What skills and tools should an IT recruiter have?
It will be of great importance to have technical knowledge of specific technologies and roles, as well as the tasks, functions, and responsibilities appropriate to the position, in order to adequately interpret what the relevant designation will be and its possible variations, since there is currently no specific standardization of them.
Having knowledge of different platforms where these profiles spend most of their time, whether searching for jobs or simply sharing and requesting information with other developers. Some of these may include: LinkedIn Recruiter (using advanced filters like Boolean operators), GitHub, Stack Overflow, Discord, Dribbble, among others.
In keeping with the previous point, having different options for finding these profiles allows us to amplify our search, achieving greater reach for both our search and our publications.
Soft skills
- Tolerance for ambiguity, uncertainty, and frustration, as a high turnover of these profiles is a frequent panorama, even more so for those belonging to Generation Z. In this context, it is paramount to achieve identification with the company culture, implement innovative talent retention strategies, paying attention to the needs expressed by each person, and demonstrating an open space for listening.
- Negotiation / cunning / strategy from both the client's and recruiter's perspectives, to reach common ground and differentiate the proposal.
- Creativity, imagination, daily updates, and learning by an IT professional will allow for finding new search methods. Understanding their usual interests, as well as paying attention to webinars and surveys, will help in discovering what motivates and attracts these candidates.
- Dynamism and managing agile processes, reducing steps in the process, will make a difference when it comes to closing proposals.
- Self-awareness is fundamental to understanding the personal limitations of the recruiter and their team, enabling them to conduct processes that align with their capabilities and values.
- Results-oriented, it will be key to keep in mind the objective of our search, and likewise, to have the ability to redistribute found resources, since there are usually different openings in parallel.
- Self-taught, a quality that will allow us to keep pace with the IT market, which advances rapidly and does not stop.
Brief guide to interviewing these profiles
When making an initial approach, it will be important to consider which generation they belong to in order to establish an adequate connection that can have an impact on the person and motivate them to respond.
Get to know the project being offered in detail, being concrete and enthusiastic. It's possible at this point to apply the Storytelling technique so that our narrative is interesting and we achieve a positive connection.
It would be prudent to be aligned and up-to-date with IT market trends, where traditional interview methods may impact one generation but not others.
Asking the person if they are undergoing other interviews and stages of the process they are in will provide us with valuable information to understand the context we are operating in and, if possible, to expedite the process in order to maintain motivation towards the project.
There isn't a guide that covers the number of different profiles within the IT field, but as a generalization, we could mention:
- What types of companies have you worked for?
- How is your work team composed?
- What specific tasks have you completed and what technology stack have you worked with?
- What kind of projects have you done?
- Do you work with agile or traditional methodologies?
- Do you document in the project? What tool do you use to log actions and project tasks? (Jira, Project, Excel).
- What is your strength in application development?
- Where is your career headed?
- What is your biggest motivation when thinking about a career change?
- What is your estimated salary for these types of positions? (Don't be afraid to talk about salary. Percentage-wise, it's one of the biggest motivators for IT profiles). It's not interesting not to mention the company you are applying to, nor to know the salary range; this is something that must be made clear when releasing the requirement to the client.
