The majority of developers find the project either by applying themselves or being hunted by the talent acquisitors. So, on the developers’ side, things are pretty easy. Things are a bit more difficult for the IT recruitment representatives, as they often need to come up with new methods of attracting potential candidates, and often have to deal with quite capricious developers. But that’s just the perks of being involved with IT recruitment. Actually, if you know the tools, methods, and stages of your craft, you won’t face any problems when you need to recruit IT specialists. But first, let’s figure out what is IT recruitment per se. The IT recruiter profession is connecting hiring managers with the top talents in the IT industry. Some recruiters are focused on some specific tech specialist, while others search for professionals across a vast array of positions. As a recruiter, you may need to find a person for the permanent position or source people for project-based jobs. In a nutshell, recruiters must be able to tell the right candidate from the wrong one, and present the prospect to the hiring manager. They also pre-screen candidates to make sure that they are suitable for the role and open to work. Aside from that, a recruiter also serves as the link between the hiring manager and the prospective employee. And to be able to do that, recruiters need to know a thing or two about how to do it properly. Here we are going to talk about seven steps of recruitment that most of the recruiters will go through. So, let’s dive in without any further ado.
Picture Your Ideal Candidate
The first thing you need to do is to picture your ideal candidate. You have the job description, so you may get a lot of useful information from it. There you can find information about the years of experience and the skills required for the position. The requirements vary from position to position.
1 Picture Your Ideal Candidate2 Sourcing for the Candidate3 Selecting Candidates4 The Interview5 The Onboarding
While the majority of positions require a Middle or Senior Developer, sometimes you may find yourself searching for a Junior Developer or even an Intern. Sometimes the coding skills of the candidate are the only criteria, while for certain projects, especially, when you are looking for the team lead, you may need a person with good soft skills. Moreover, if you are working in an outstaff recruitment company, from time to time you will have to look for developers who know French or German. So, before you start searching for the candidate, you need to make sure that you have a picture-perfect of what your ideal candidate is. After that, you can start sourcing.
Sourcing for the Candidate
After you know who you need, you start sourcing for the candidate. And while you are going to do it using LinkedIn or UpWork, there are a few tools that you need to use in order to succeed in your search. So, let’s check them out one by one: Using the specific keywords helps greatly in your search. The best way to utilize keywords to find your ideal prospect is Boolean search. You start by creating a Boolean line of keywords that generally looks something like this: Senior Software Developer OR Sr Software Developer OR Senior Software Engineer OR Sr Software Engineer AND Python The main thing is putting as many variations of the keywords as possible. For example, if you are looking for a Node.Js developer you can put it as Node.JS OR Node JS OR Node.js OR NodeJS. Use all the variations of the programming language name that the developer may have put in their profile. While you can write personalized messages every time you try contacting the candidate, it hampers your work. You can use TextExpander or a similar app to create a snippet for each position you are sourcing for. Thus, whenever you’re messaging a new candidate, you just type in the title of the snippet and the message appears. Just don’t forget to add your candidate’s name. Using email campaigns is one of the variants of how to reach out to candidates. You can utilize Trinsly or any similar app to create email campaigns with the job proposition and two follow-ups. Make your messages brief, but make sure that they contain the information about your company and what you have to offer to the prospective employee. Using these tools will help to find the ideal candidate. But mind that tools like Trinsly and TextExpander won’t help if you have poorly written emails and messages that focus solely on you and your company and not on the candidate. So, make sure that you have simple but informative messages that generally appeal to the candidates.
Selecting Candidates
The next step is selecting candidates. You need to explain the hiring process in detail to every candidate you speak with. This will help to set the expectations for them. You explain a thing or two about the position that they can acquire. What are the hiring steps, what is your salary rate. This will prepare the candidates, so they will know what to expect and be able to tell whether they are interested or not. Mind that you need to respect the time of your candidates, especially if you expect them to respect yours. You also need to check whether the candidates have the must-haves and nice-to-haves for the position. Of course, it is way easier to do it while pre-screening the candidates, but there’s a thing that can make your work easier for the candidates who apply on their own. You can apply chatbots for the candidates who apply through the website of your company. The chatbot will disqualify all the applicants that don’t correspond to the requirements. This will help you create your short-list without making a pre-screen on your own. But mind that you cannot rely on bots completely. Always double-check the candidates that were disqualified.
The Interview
Most of your candidates may have offers from other companies, so the speed and convenient scheduling really count. There are lots of tools that you can use to eliminate long coordination of pre-screen and interview dates. You can easily overcome these problems by using Calendly. It’s a calendaring app that allows candidates to book a call for a free slot that the recruiter has. Just set the time blocks when you or other recruiters are free, so the prospects can choose the time which is more convenient for them. It’s a perfect choice for the candidates who are currently employed, as you can have open slots during lunchtime or outside business hours.
The Onboarding
Finally, you get to the onboarding. This is the most important process, as doing it improperly can make all the previous steps go to waste. While it has more to do with the operations and onboarding managers, you need to make sure that the process works well, so the candidates won’t run away right after they have started. The onboarding process must include training, mentorship, and providing newbies with the information and resources. If your onboarding program is lame, newcomers may feel unwelcomed, and wind up being untrained, which will have a disastrous impact on their work. You can automate your onboarding process and make everything digital, but don’t forget to keep in touch with the hires, when they have some questions. Once again, don’t forget that you cannot rely exclusively on robots, human touch is still necessary. Moreover, like when they were candidates, each hire needs a special approach.
