5 tips to boost your career as an IT recruiter

Hiring TipsDeveloper Recruiting

You want to move up in your career?!

In this step-by-step guide, we describe five actionable ways to move your career as a tech recruiter forward:

Automation implementation to market trend tracking and more.

Strengthening these strategies together will improve your recruiting process - and help you achieve measurable success in hiring.

1. Investing in relationship management

Recruiting is about people.

At any time, you can interview technical candidates, inform personnel managers or coordinate with colleagues. Success in this sector requires excellent interpersonal skills as well as a commitment to open communication.

Remember: Strong relationships pay off. Building trust with hiring managers is an important component of a productive job search. Aligning with the wishes and needs of companies is a proven way to success. This increases your chances of finding the right employees for open roles.

Of course, managing candidate relationships is just as important.

Building relationships with candidates can uncover important insights such as desired compensation, competing interview activity, and honest company feedback. The demonstrated transparency is often appreciated and reciprocated from the first call. Maintaining an informative and transparent relationship with candidates contributes to short-term activity promotion and long-term positive brand awareness.

As a human resources manager, you are also a brand ambassador who usually acts as the first point of contact for candidates for the company. Positive interactions improve the company's reputation and thus also yours.

2. Become an expert

Technology landscape is constantly changing - as are popular programming languages.

It is crucial that you are aware of the conversation topic when a candidate is expressing their preferences for programming languages. Staying up-to-date on the latest programming trends can give you several benefits - from increased trustworthiness to a higher success rate.

Knowing multiple languages, frameworks, and tools also helps to establish trust. By discussing together which skills are essential for the role and what other experiences could replace them, the search will be made much easier.

In a survey of over 1,000 developers, respondents rated Python, JavaScript and Java as their three most important programming languages. If relevant, IT recruiters should mention these languages in job descriptions and when contacting candidates, and highlight overlaps between programmers and companies. This will give you a competitive advantage and increase your success in hiring.

Developers and IT specialists want to work with modern technologies that they find interesting or challenging, and most are willing to learn new skills that they can use in a new environment. Clear communication across programming languages ​​also helps recruiters filter out people who don't fit the position - thus reducing the time spent talking to the wrong candidates.

3. Optimising the teams workflow

In 2017, McKinsey predicted that automation would help businesses achieve results beyond human capabilities. Today we know that these words are true.

Technology has transformed countless industries, from healthcare and hospitality to banking and dating.

Recruiting isn't an exception here.

Among other things, automation provides:

• Top candidates tailored to the company who can be listed according to their fit.
• A faster occupation of the open positions through the constantly newly generated pool of talents.
• A significant time savings, as unsuitable candidates are automatically sorted out.

But with all these advantages, we mustn't forget that such automation also has its problems. For example, a small input error can mean that a candidate is immediately ruled out for a job—even if they would have been a perfect fit for the position. Additionally, we can't underestimate the human element. Getting to know the candidate and their wishes often sheds a different light on the situation—people can and do change over time, just like industries do.

4. Expand the search

Too often, HR managers seek out equality and filter for certain colleges or companies during the recruitment process. But it is time to put such practices in the past.

Good candidates are everywhere, just needing to be found.

By seeking new places, you can discover top candidates who have taken the less traveled path - and, at the same time, achieve a significant return on investment.

Another way to find qualified IT candidates is to embed yourself in the tech community and join Slack groups and dedicated developer sites. This way, you can meet talented candidates who might have otherwise been overlooked.

5. Follow market trends

Data tells a story.

By tracking market trends, HR managers can determine which cities to target, what salaries to offer, and which benefits to highlight during discussions with candidates.

According to data, 49% of new tech talent is open to remote jobs. For 47% of programmers, the best part is that they don't have to waste time commuting - and for 35%, a flexible schedule is key.

Given these findings, you can adjust job descriptions to highlight modern perks like work-from-home or free food delivery (since stocked kitchens won't attract remote candidates).

Furthermore, those surveyed rated personalized messages as one of the five most important reasons for collaborating with HR managers. In the end, loving detail can greatly increase your return rate - showing that a little research can make a big difference.