Technology is one of the fastest-growing industries, brimming with opportunities for people searching for meaningful careers. Unfortunately, the demand for talented employees in the tech field often far outweighs the supply.
Whether you’re looking for someone to help you maintain and build a mobile app, or you need a big data specialist, finding the person with the right skills is challenging. Although all industries struggle to track down the perfect employees these days, technology brands seem to have a particularly hard time right now.
Fortunately, when you know the challenges you’re likely to face on the path to a successful hire, it is easier to avoid the most prevalent problems.
Here are the most common challenges involved in hiring tech talent.
Competing with Larger Companies
Today, technology permeates our lives. It is highly likely that you have digital experiences on an almost constant basis. Maybe you interact with your smart speaker whenever you want to listen to music or purchase products from your smartphone.
The growing need for technology in every part of our lives compels companies of all sizes to a continual search for talent.
As a business owner or HR expert, there’s a chance that you’ll be competing for the ideal candidate with dozens of other reputable brands, often with a larger presence in the market than you.
To ensure that you have the best chance of finding the people you need, remember you have to do more than just highlight what you need in your job descriptions. Address the benefits your candidates can expect when they start working for your brand.
Finding the Right People
This is one of the most common challenges of hiring, which impacts business leaders in all industries. However, it can be particularly challenging to find the right talent in the tech industry.
Many of the major options in your talent pool will be passive applicants. In other words, you will come across people who are already employed and just looking for a better opportunity.
Finding the right people often means looking in places that you might not have considered before. One such option is to ask your existing team members to refer people they consider a good potential fit for the job. Another is to look into social recruiting on LinkedIn.
Additionally, remember to think beyond the hard skills of your tech professionals.
While your candidates need to know the right development languages and feel confident with the tools you want them to use, they should also share the same values as the other people in your company. Make sure you find someone with the right cultural fit.
Testing Their Knowledge
To narrow down your options and save yourself from wasting time on an unsuitable candidate, you will inevitably have to test each applicant in advance. A job posting will list the general skills you expect from your candidate, but in the testing stage you want to zero in on the specific expertise they will need in their day-to-day tasks.
Digital amenities allow you to assess your candidates’ skills with a quick online program asking them to solve problems in a predetermined amount of time.
It isn’t easy to find people that are familiar with multiple technologies these days. Even if someone claims they can use all the tech tools you need them to work with, it is essential to put that claim to the test. Make sure to examine their experience and check how they tackle specific issues.
Asking your candidates to showcase their abilities will help simplify the choice of who to hire for you and the rest of your HR team. At the same time, you might find that conducting these tests makes it easier to get buy-in from the C-Suite when it becomes their turn to approve the candidate.
Overcoming Hiring Inefficiencies
The technology landscape always moves at an incredible pace. Whether you need a new staff member for app development or product design, you can’t afford to waste time on inefficient hiring processes. That’s why it’s essential to streamline the experience for you and your candidates.
Replacing the usual face-to-face interactions you have with candidates with more effective video conferencing is an excellent strategy to achieve that. This way, you can connect with potential employees wherever they are, without having to wait for them to become available to travel to the office.
Moreover, the system works for them too, as you eliminate the discomfort of having to prove themselves in an unfamiliar environment. This has the added benefit of giving you a more accurate assessment of their skills.
An effective system of evaluating your candidates’ skills and their fit for the job in question will also accelerate the hiring process and filter out anyone who might not require a full interview early on.
Finding the Best Tech Talent
Unfortunately, finding the best hires isn’t always as simple as it seems, with so many companies on the hunt for the best talent to help their business evolve with the changing landscape. From bypassing common hiring inefficiencies to ensuring that your candidate is the perfect fit for your company culture, there are many hurdles to overcome.
Fortunately, now that you are aware of the most common challenges of hiring tech talent, you can optimize your hiring strategy and avoid the common pitfalls. You’ll be on your way to a high-performing team in no time.
Ashley Wilson is a digital nomad and writer for hire, specialized in business and tech topics. In her self-care time, she practices yoga via Youtube. She has been known to reference movies in casual conversation and enjoys trying out new food. You can get in touch with Ashley via Twitter.
