Hardly any other industry faces as many recruitment challenges as the IT sector. An enormous shortage of skilled workers, digitalisation, deeply rooted corporate structures and, and, and: the "battle for talent" is changing everything - and you can't win it with mass processing, but only with a specific, personal approach! Here you will find valuable tips for your IT recruiting.

Many companies still believe that recruitment "runs so smoothly" and are surprised when they are unable to fill their vacancies. IT companies in particular are missing out on highly qualified candidates. We have summarised the most important tips and current trends that will help your company to dynamise the recruitment process and find developers who are a perfect fit for the company and the advertised position.

"The IT department has the hardest time finding suitable employees", more than 50 per cent of the HR managers surveyed in Austria agree.

1. no strategy, no success! Tips and trends

Finding the right people for the company can turn into a needle in a haystack situation. But if you want to, you can avoid this. How? With an onlineRecruitment strategywhich focuses on talented individuals who are suitable for the position to be filled. This is in contrast to traditional recruitment, which is aimed at the general public. Here you have little control over who sees the advert. Only those who know who their potential candidates really are, what motivates them, what concerns them, what professional goals they are pursuing and what criteria are decisive when choosing a new employer - and above all why - can address precisely these aspects and thus attract the talent that is best suited to the position and the team.

The analysis

To this end, the basis of the IT recruitment strategy must be based on an analysis of the candidate's character. Especially in sectors where the battle for the best talent is fierce - such as the IT industry - a company that can rely on persona analysis for recruitment can stand out from the competition. Companies that use content marketing for recruitment to accurately respond to the results of the analysis can tailor and personalise their messages to their candidates' favourites. This often starts when potential employees are not even looking for work. This is a way to build trust and long-term relationships centred on shared values and goals.

In this way, you are certainly leading the way when it comes to employer attraction. This requires a strategy that takes job seekers from potential applicants to enthusiastic employees - with content that is relevant, helpful and offered at the right time and place. Potential applicants need different information at each stage of the process. This information needs to be collected and provided at the right time through the right communication channels. The content of each section has a specific function.

The first phase, for example, is mainly about attracting the attention of potential applicants, the second phase is about making contacts, the third phase is about employment and the final phase is about employees being satisfied enough in the workplace to enter into a long-term relationship that is beneficial to both themselves and the company.

2. create personas

Web developers are light-hearted men with drooling eyes who live mainly on junk food. Right? Of course not! A look at the development offices shows that such clichés are not true at all. Only those who know who their potential applicants really are, what motivates them, what occupies them, what professional goals they are pursuing and what criteria are decisive when choosing a new employer - and above all why - can tackle precisely these aspects and thus attract the talent that best suits the position and the team.

To this end, the basis of the IT recruitment strategy must be based on an analysis of the candidate's character. Especially in sectors where there is a fierce battle for the best talent - e.g. IT jobs - a company that can rely on character analysis for recruitment can set itself apart from the competition. Companies that use content marketing for recruitment to accurately respond to the results of the analysis can tailor and personalise their messages to their candidates' favourites. This often starts when potential employees are not even looking for work. It's a way to build trust and long-term relationships centred on shared values and goals. In this way, you lead by example in employer attraction.

3. IT recruiting with a face

You probably want to know who is applying to you - but that's exactly how potential candidates feel! Candidates need to show their faces - but HR departments don't always do this. In an industry like IT, where you can almost talk about an applicant demand situation, it's more important than ever to put a face to your organisation.

This starts with employer branding, continues with active sourcing and ends with job adverts: However, a strong employer brand should not only help to attract top talent. It should also be about always being "top of mind" for potential applicants.

Employer branding is effective at every point of contact between the company and the candidates - from before the from the application to the employment and career of an individual employee in the company. It is crucial that the values, culture and personality conveyed by the employer brand are not the wishful thinking of a CEO, but reflect the characteristics that are really part of the developers' daily work.

Authenticity

Authenticity beats exaggerated texts full of empty phrases - this is where videos are the ideal format for communication! Online videos enable a direct, more personal connection with the audience. Insights are offered that would otherwise remain unknown. This gives the company a face. What's more, a video can also convey the authentic Effect of the brand which is particularly welcome for employer branding and IT recruiting. One of the highest forms of authenticity is UGC (User Generated Content). The following figures best reflect how well DIY content is received: One third of all media usage consists of UGC videos. However, it is also important to be convincing with a job offer: If you only fill out a general e-mail address and an account form, but do not name a contact person for (telephone) questions, you can give away decisive advantages!

4. the job advert itself

But a job advert has many more pitfalls, especially in the IT sector: lax job descriptions, meaningless phrases or a copy of the company description as an employer profile will at best bring a yawn instead of a smile to a potential applicant's face. False promises and marketing language should be avoided at all costs: an authentic image with minor flaws is definitely more convincing than a falsely advertised ideal world. The times when "Exciting field of work. Internationally active company. Innovative environment" was an adequate job profile are long outdated, but also "We are looking for rock stars, ninjas and gurus!" Nobody wants to be compared with drug addicts, Japanese assassins and spiritual teachers.

The woolly milk sow

However, the demand for a "jack of all trades" - an endless list of requirements for the applicant - is also discouraging. It is often not clear from the job advert which tasks are a "must" and which are a "nice-to-have" - after all, many skills can also be improved through internal training. This can discourage top talent! A precise definition of the vacancy and the skills required is therefore an absolute must.

Many developers are self-taught without a formal university education and yet have a broad range of expertise. It is therefore not advantageous for adverts to contain phrases such as "university degree and at least 5 years' experience". Instead, we recommend, for example, "extensive PHP knowledge" or "confident handling of CMS systems".

5. active sourcing in IT recruiting

Active contact with developers is absolutely desirable - but be personal and situation-specific!

One of our candidates told us: "I recently received an email from a company with the subject: "Visionary startup needs your potential ...". At first I thought it was a hip advert, but no, it was serious. The text actually only said that I was recommended (but no name was mentioned) and whether I was interested in a position. In three paragraphs, I was told that I was the ideal candidate for the job and if I was interested, had studied IT and had experience with HTML5 and CSS3, I should apply."

In order to contact a potential candidate for a vacancy, a database must first be set up: This is only possible with a comprehensive recruitment strategy!

But what is the best way to get in touch with a developer? To be able to communicate at eye level and in a specialised wayAlternatively, an employee from the HR department can also make the initial contact: "The technical interview will be conducted by the head of the IT department, I'm just making the potential contact" shows the candidate that they are being taken seriously and that the recruitment process has been thought through. Incidentally, many developers prefer to make contact by email rather than by phone!

Passive candidates

"The general job platforms don't work for IT talent. They don't even reach the target group because IT specialists and developers are not actively looking for jobs due to the market situation. They are passively on the move and can only be reached via niche channels. These include WeAreDevelopers, Stack Overflow or GitHub, for example. Most companies are not yet actively using these channels because they have no plan for how to reach the IT target group. Combined with a lack of budget and unqualified HR specialists, this leads to a shortage of IT specialists within the company," Benjamin Ruschin, Managing Director of WeAreDevelopers.

6. IT-specific sweets

Karriere.at recently conducted a study that provides fascinating insights into the pain points of developers: For example, one in five (20.3%) say that a free choice of operating system would be a reason to change jobs. Almost 87% currently work on Windows computers, but only 70% would choose this operating system. 28% would like Linux (reality 21%) and 27% would like OS X (reality 17%).

IT employees are as diverse as their skills: many have a university education, but self-taught professionals are also not uncommon in the industry. For the latter in particular, part-time jobs and projects play a decisive role.

7. values and perspectives

In 2021, candidates will search for the right company themselves and take a close look: Glassdoor speaks of 69% of job seekers who would not sign a contract with a company with a poor reputation even if they were currently unemployed, and 84% would consider quitting their current job if they received an offer from a company with an excellent reputation. This means that potential candidates look closely at shortlisted organisations and that their values are important to them. A job offer alone does not tell them whether they can identify with the company. This requires more information and interaction. This is exactly what inbound recruiting focuses on.

Another reason why developers do not apply for jobs is that they are advertised to solve specific problem situations. But what happens to the employee after they have solved the problem? With the help of expert employer branding and concrete information in the advert, you can arouse the interest of potential applicants for a career in your company! This important point in particular is often forgotten, but leads to major losses in the number of applications.

8. make success measurable

Most people will answer yes to the question "Is your IT recruitment successful?" - but how successful is it really? This is where most people start to stutter. It is in the interest of both management and HR to know what is working and why or what needs to be improved. Choosing the right KPIs is is of crucial importance here. A suitable KPI is specific and provides information about a particular measure or step in the recruitment process. "Number of jobs advertised" versus "number of employees hired" are therefore not targeted.

For this reason, we have compiled the most important key figures that you need to implement in your IT recruitment strategy:

• Number of actively seeking candidates

  • To put the figures you have collected into the right perspective, it is first important to realise the size of the candidate pool with the help of SEO tools such as Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush. To do this, enter the relevant position (e.g. front-end developer) and obtain the monthly search volume.

• Number of positively answered contacts

  • Active sourcing is absolutely essential in the IT recruitment process. But is contact being made with the right people, or are contact attempts going unanswered and being rejected?

• Number of applications

  • How many applications do you receive for advertised positions and from where? Is the strategy already mature enough to bear fruit, or are applications still coming in via expensive job platforms? Another good indicator is the number of unsolicited applications!

• Number of job interviews

  • The number of interviews in relation to the number of applications provides information about the quality of the talent recruited in IT recruiting.

• Offer - Acceptance - Relationship

  • How many Offers does your company have to do before it is accepted? Were you able to convince the desired candidate with IT-specific tidbits, company values, salary and prospects?

• Time to Hire

  • Time to hire refers to the time that has elapsed from the time a vacancy is approved (headcount) until the employment contract is signed.

• Number of clicks and conversion rate

  • The number of clicks on a job advert indicates how well-known you are as an employer in general. The conversion rate indicates how attractive you are to visitors.

• Length of stay (quality of visitors)

  • The length of time visitors spend on your careers page is an interesting factor: How attractive is your content? Do you need to make improvements here, e.g. use a video? On the other hand, the duration of an advert is also relevant: Does the visitor click away after a short time? Then perhaps you should improve the design. Do you get a lot of clicks and arouse a lot of interest? Then you have already done well - in terms of the number of applications and the number of interviews, you can determine how much you want in general and for the talents you are looking for.

• Number of followers

  • Even if measuring the number of followers alone is outdated, measuring followers on certain career pages, such as a Facebook page, provides information on how many people want to find out about employer branding content and vacancies on social media.

Our offer for you in IT recruiting

If you want to reach the best IT professionals, get in touch with us. indivHR helps you become even more successful in IT recruiting and avoid common mistakes.

As IT recruitment specialists with many years of experience, we know exactly how to organise the candidate journey so that you are always ahead of your competitors. So that you get the best employees.

IT Recruiting