3 Ways to attract tech talent
Tech talent has always been in high demand, but today with most teams now working virtually in at least some capacity and many organizations speeding up their digital transformation, the competition is fiercer than ever. Today every company is a tech company in some form and is competing for the same talent.
One of the most common questions we get from clients is: How can I attract tech talent?
To help out, we’re breaking down data-backed tactics that we use to advise our clients when helping them attract highly sought after tech talent.
Shorten your application process
Tech talent gets bombarded with LinkedIn messages and other requests for interviews without applying to roles. So if do you actually want them to take action and apply to your roles, you have to make the process as quick and seamless as possible.
An application flow under five minutes is a good place to start, as Appcast found that an application that takes shorter than five minutes produces 385% more applicants than a flow that takes more than 15 minutes.
Go through your process as if you’re the candidate and evaluate what information you absolutely need to know. To do that, start by cutting back the amount of information candidates are required to submit when first applying. Stick to only the basics as best you can: first name, last name, email address, mobile number, and resume.
You can cut this down even further to request only the applicant’s name, LinkedIn URL, and email address. This is an approach more companies are beginning to take. Remember, the goal of an application is to get an interview. With that in mind, if you can get to that interview phase more quickly, you’ll also be able to get to the offer stage faster — a helpful framing when working with candidates on the market for fewer than 10 days.
And if you do have a more complex hiring process, like requiring candidates to complete an assignment, be upfront about it from the start. And if possible, make it paid. That’s because if you’re having candidates develop solutions for your actual problems, this should be considered consulting work product. Not only that, but it may also push candidates to apply to your company over competitors as it demonstrates that you value their expertise and time.
You have to assume your candidates are also getting counter-offers, so if your application process is long with multiple rounds of interviews, lengthy assignments, you’re likely losing people.
Diversify your talent pools
LinkedIn and job posting sites undoubtedly produce applicants, but in today’s diverse hiring landscape, they can’t be the only places you rely on to reach candidates, especially for highly sought after tech talent.
Explore unique places to reach candidates right now. First, it’s important to research your target audience to see where they are online, and you can start by asking your current employees in tech roles.
While less popular platforms may have fewer candidates, they also have less competition, making it easier and more affordable for you to stand out from the crowd. For example, the CareerArc 2021 Future of Recruitment Study found that 96% of employers use LinkedIn to post jobs, but only 25% use Facebook Marketplace to post jobs. The study also found that platforms like Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest, and even TikTok (used weekly by approximately a third of job seekers) offer similarly low recruitment competition. You can read more about building out social recruiting strategies on different platforms here.
Twitch is another great place to connect with tech talent, as a live streaming platform where the most popular searches are “games,” “computers,” and “technology.” Given that Twitch plays ads before their streams, you can easily get in front of tech talent through targeted ads of your own, similar to Indeed’s approach in this ad.
Reddit is another under-utilized recruitment platform that also allows targeted ads, which is home to over 52 million users and 100,000 active communities, many of them related to technology. Even better, many people go to Reddit specifically for answers to questions about topics in their community. Not only is this great for connecting with knowledgeable tech leaders, but it also presents an opportunity for savvy organizations looking to establish themselves and themselves as authoritative sources within the community.
Aside from diversifying the sources you use, your current employees can become your greatest ambassadors to reach new audiences. If you’re not already enabling and incentivizing current employees to advocate on your behalf, now’s the time to start! Learn more in this article how to turn employees into employer brand advocates.
Send tech talent to dedicated microsites and landing pages
The more competitive the hiring landscape, the more targeted you should aim to be in every aspect of your recruitment strategy, and that includes where you send candidates. Instead of directing tech talent to your general career site, make it personal and something that resonates with your target audience. A more effective approach is to send them to dedicated landing pages, and even microsites, filled with specific details they need to decide if they want to join your team.
If you’re targeting multiple tech audiences (and you have the resources), you may even have to create multiple landing pages catered to each audience, perhaps using different employee value propositions (EVPs). That’s because someone on your finance team, for example, is going to have a very different experience at your company than a developer, and may value very different things. It’s important to reflect that in the site that you’re driving them to.
Which details you include on these pages will naturally change from audience to audience (a good place to source these details is existing tech talent within your company), but they generally include:
Available tech careers
The tech stack you use
The projects they’d work on and how they’ll make an impact
The growth opportunities and what it’s like to be a technologist at your company
You want candidates to get to your site and be able to envision themselves at your company, which is where employee stories come into play. Instead of just saying these details, show them from a tech perspective through employee-created or employee-led videos, blogs, testimonials, podcasts, and any other forms of content.
And to improve your application conversion rate, also allow candidates to apply directly on these pages without having to navigate back to your general career site.
If you have a lengthy application process, are sticking to the same old traditional job boards, and not targeting your content to your audience — you’re likely losing out on qualified tech talent.
Want to learn more?
Get in touch with our team today. We work with many tech companies as who face these challenges every day. We’re here to help you stand out from the competition through creative recruitment marketing and employer branding strategies. Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter in the footer below to receive how-to and inspiration articles like these on hot employer brand and recruitment marketing topic
About The Employer Brand Shop
The Employer Brand Shop is a boutique recruitment marketing and employer brand agency located in Kitchener, Canada. Our team helps organizations around the world attract and engage talent using creative marketing strategies.