Featured Article from Dasro, a CIPS Corporate Partner
Tips for Hiring Top Tech Talent
This is the golden age of technology and skilled workers, and no organization can succeed without them. Information Technology (tech) professionals are those rare birds that keep businesses functioning.
These talented individuals make the networks secure, the systems do what is necessary, and everything else needed in an organization that depends on technology. Without them, an investment in technology is just an expensive curiosity. Since they are rare and in demand, hiring this talent is a challenge.
Here are 7 pointers that will help overcome the challenges of hiring top tech talent:
1. Position your Organization
Recruiting has become a lot like marketing. That means the most important decision you make is how to position your organization to potential candidates.
Questions to think about: Are you offering an opportunity to grow? Are you offering a short-term contract? Does it involve doing something new and innovative? Do you make incremental improvements? Or something else?
The results of your efforts will be more successful if you and the candidates have the right expectations going in.
2. Values
What are your values?
The best people don’t just work for a paycheck. Rather, they look for employers and opportunities that satisfy them in many ways. Money matters, but compatible coworkers, an appealing mission, moving a career forward, and other benefits and incentives are equally or more important.
Pointers: It will help attract and fit the right people to the right opportunity. Never forget employees and contractors are ‘customers’ too. They can say NO. Give them reasons to say YES to you.
3. Job Description
What is the job? The job description is the only thing potential candidates know about you – it is how they decide to apply for your opportunity.
Write a job description that motivates them to act. The better the job description, the better and the greater the number of candidates, and the faster you will get qualified applicants.
4. Listen and Observe Non-Technical Skills
Technical skills aren’t enough. The world is full of educated people. Their professionalism matters, how they fit into the team matters, and their values matter. “Pay careful attention to their attitude, the quality of their writing and emails, and listen carefully for the things they don’t say”, says Kamal Kataria, founder of Dasro. Listen to how they talk about previous employers, coworkers, and assignments. Listening is the number one skill in this step of recruitment.
5. Where to Look
Learn where to look. The miracle of the internet is that there are uncounted resumes available. Truth be told, many of the best people aren’t actively searching, they may not have the ‘perfect’ resume, or are otherwise hidden from you. There are many other places to look for talent.
Attracting the right talent means looking a little further, a little longer, and being open to pleasant surprises. Use your network and spread the word. Referrals and word of mouth still remain most trusted source for succesful hires.
6. Prescreen
Prescreening is an art. You may be inundated with resumes. Stick to your top requirements. Read our upcoming blog about prescreening.
7. Interview
Prioritize the remaining resumes and schedule interviews.
About Dasro:
Dasro Consulting is a Tech Talent Solutions company. Established in 2013 in Regina, it provides services to a variety of clients across Canada.
Dasro specializes in hiring IT professionals for a broad range of companies in a number of industries including Finance and Banking, Oil and Gas, Health, Telecommunications, Insurance, Agriculture, Transportation and Logistics, Government, and Gaming. We work with clients ranging from start-ups to multi-million-dollar firms.
Dasro believes there is a better way to do recruitment. A more valuable way, where organizations and professionals are connected based on the best fit for each other, rather than just because they satisfy some requirements.
Dasro’s mission is to help organizations and candidates achieve that optimal fit. They invest personal time and effort to get to know their clients and candidates and what they need — then find the best solution, all around.
For more information visit www.dasro.ca