Insights
8 min read

Smart IT recruitment means being prepared

IT recruitment process is a big challenge. The deficit of specialists in this field has persisted for years. According to the ‘Industry Balance of Human Capital in the IT sector,’ a study by PARP and the Jagiellonian University, in the second quarter of 2019, employers planned to hire 6,000 IT specialists. 

Still, the shortage meant that a significant part of companies had to resign from projects because they could not provide resources for their implementation. What to do then, to make rapid construction of IT teams possible? What to do to take over technological projects instead of rejecting them? 

It is not enough to make a recruitment decision. How to stand out from the crowd, that is the question! 

The first step to intelligent IT recruitment is competent preparation. You need to develop a good plan and contingency plan to meet the challenges and increase hiring efficiency. 

Pre-recruitment steps to hire the best IT talents 

The pre-recruitment process is a time when you define your recruitment needs, think about the organization of the process, plan when each stage will take place, and who will be responsible for them. During this period, you prepare all communication — you determine the requirements you set for the candidates, the way you want to convey this information to them, and the channels through which you intend to reach your potential employees.

1. Hiring needs 

Start the process by identifying the need in your organization. It may include filling a vacant position, better management of the team workload, expanding the scope of tasks, or the number of resources due to a new project. But, it does not matter whether these positions are newly created or recently vacated; both require careful preparation. 

2. Recruitment process organization 

At this stage, you develop the entire recruitment process organization. It would be best to think over every single item, step, and even a contingency plan to ensure that you will fulfill your hiring goals:

  • clearly define how the new role aligns with the company’s or project’s goals,
  • inform relevant internal teams and employees of a new position and make sure that everyone involved in the hiring decision agrees with the recruitment process,
  • set up criteria for the preselection of candidates,
  • watch out for all administrative tasks (like scheduling interviews, giving feedback) to ensure a good candidate experience,
  • define what the interview process will look like,
  • decide what the measures of success are,
  • determine appropriate communication channels and feedback,
  • assign roles and responsibilities: job description, job advertisement design, and publication, HR research, HR interviews, Tech interviews,
  • think over a backup plan in case if the regular recruitment process will not bring expected results.

3. Recruitment plan 

Vacant positions are costly and harmful for projects or operations. That is why to do hiring as quickly as possible. Once you have organized the recruitment process, ensure that you have a reliable plan in terms of time and resources supporting your business or project goals. 

Create a powerful Excel worksheet or a Gantt Chart template to visualize all the recruitment process steps and get a big picture of it. Assign dates, required resources, make sure that it is feasible or improve in any collisions. Share it with other employees involved in the recruitment process. In this way, you will keep control over the hiring and will be able to adjust the process if needed.

4. Job description 

The job description is an integral part of the pre-recruitment process. In short, it is a list of requirements such as qualifications, desirable qualities, experience, and information about the salary and benefits offered by the employer. Considering the shortage of IT specialists on the market, there is a lot of room for the HR staff’s invention. They must find arguments to attract candidates who are ideally suited to a given project and the entire organizational culture. The LinkedIn study (heat map) conducted on a sample of 450 people showed the most necessary elements of a job description: 

Capgemini, a well-known, global IT brand, seems to be following the results of this study closely. The WHAT WE OFFER section of their job advertisements is a comprehensive list focusing on such subsections as atmosphere, development, and benefits, taking over half of each job description: 

When writing a detailed job description, you also need to consider who your target is — a full-time employee or a contractor. Contractors are valuable because their primary motivation is a job well done. But, they do not have to know and identify themselves with the company’s values. That is why it is so important to adapt job description content to the end recipient. 

5. Job advertisement 

A job advertisement is often the first point of contact for a candidate with your brand. That is why the main requirements are readability and understandability for the potential employee. It should meet his needs. Take care of the content and follow the basic rules: 

  • Visual design: create a compelling and dynamic image of your company and follow the principles to improve readability: paragraphs and subtitles, traditional and legible fonts, graphic symbols (icons)
  • Copy: clear, interesting, attractive, and catchy.
    Great brands like Microsoft, Accenture, IBM, and many others follow the rules you can easily see visiting their career pages.

Benefits and Perks 

Industry leading healthcare

Saving and investments

Giving programs

Educational resources

Maternity and paternity leave

Opportunities to network and connect

Discounts on products and services

Generous time away

Source: Datacenter Security Operations Manager in Quincy, Washington, United States | Engineering at Microsoft 

6. Active recruitment by HR 

Nowadays, posting job descriptions in the career section on the company’s website, on social media profiles, or on dedicated platforms is not enough. HR teams must actively search for candidates by browsing the internet and creating extraordinary events or programs to encourage employees to recommend their friends. 

IS RECRUITMENT EXPENSIVE AND TIME-CONSUMING? 

Nowadays, HR specialists can leverage the power of AI through innovative solutions that help them source, screen, and hire the best candidates. Using AI tools that aggregate people data from across the web and your own ATS/ CRM, you can easily find a shortlist of top talent. AI chatbots help you schedule interviews and answer questions over text message, email, live chat on career 8 sites, recorded videos, and WhatsApp messaging.

AI recruiting software allows your HR team to become much more efficient and consequently also cheaper. That is especially important when there is a shortage of IT talents and the high cost of adding full-time employees to the recruiting team.

Undoubtedly, artificial intelligence will become an increasing part of your entire business, especially the recruitment function. That is why it is worth starting to use it now.

Summing up

IT recruitment is strongly empowered by AI solutions but still not easy. The data mentioned above shows, the shortage of IT specialists is enormous, and the prospects for the coming years are not optimistic. Therefore, IT companies must think carefully about job offers, the whole IT recruitment and the supporting tools to stand out from the crowd and reach the suitable candidates. It is worth spending the time to prepare for the recruitment process. Then, take the chance to succeed and plan to hire in detail!

Sources:

  • https://www.ict2020.pl/uploads/1/2/1/5/121555005/raport_piit_stan_rynku_it_i_telekomunikacyjnego.pdf
  • Here’s What Candidates Actually Care About In Your Job Description | LinkedIn Talent Blog
  • https://careers.microsoft.com/professionals/us/en/job/908586/Senior-RE-F-Development-Leader
  • https://www.capgemini.com/jobs/senior-infrastructure-engineer-french-speaker
  • https://www.selectsoftwarereviews.com/buyer-guide/ai-recruiting
Decoration

Unlock this resource

Complete and submit the form to receive your copy of MAZAJ’s report on your email address.

Unlock resource

By clicking “Submit” you agree to MAZAJ Privacy Policy and consent to MAZAJ using your contact data for newsletter purposes

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.


How does this answer your question?

Decoration

Stay current with our latest insights

Improve your fAInancial results

Contact us