The demand for engineers is at a record-level high and is likely to rise further as traditional businesses shift online. According to Microsoft, by 2025 the world will have 149 million new tech-related jobs. The gap between demand and supply for skilled engineers is likely to grow much wider than it already has in recent years which means that finding and hiring your next tech employee will be quite difficult.
What you should be prepared for when hiring tech talent
Today, engineering talent receive job offers almost every day. This means that if you don’t have a strong employer brand that they want to be a part of, here are some possible scenarios you need to prepare for while conducting your hiring process:
Interview no shows
It is quite common that engineers do not turn up for an interview even after having applied for the job. In the time between when they apply for your vacancy and when you respond to them, they could have already been onboarded onto other jobs or were retained by their current employer.
Tip: Talk to each potential applicant within 24 hours of the application time to ensure that you will be in contact with them earlier in the application process and prevent any no-shows.
Good counter offers from their current employers
Usually, engineers are difficult to recruit and with employers expanding their tech team, you need to be prepared for strong counter-offers from the engineer’s current employer since the cost of replacing engineers is significant in terms of time, effort, and money.
Tip: Make sure to address the counteroffers right from the beginning by asking questions such as “How do you expect your company to react in the event of your resignation?” “What will make you leave or stay?”. Prepare yourself for a lengthy process for managing offers and don’t let go of an engineer too soon.
Reluctance to take lengthy technical tests
This is a major issue. Although technical tests are crucial for ensuring you hire the most qualified engineers, however, many engineers are hesitant to spend time on lengthy technical tests, particularly for less well-known employers.
Tip: invite engineers to technical rounds after engaging them in a personal interview. If you need to make a large numbers of of tech hires and you can conduct coding challenges to attract engineers regularly and build your talent pool early. Additionally, you can remove technical tests and employ the top engineers by hiring engineers who have been vetted by Snaphunt for a minimal fee, based on the success of the job. Register your interest here
Expectations for massive salary increases
While certain professions are experiencing higher unemployment rates and wage reductions, the situation for engineers is just the opposite. Most engineers (especially in the developing world) are expecting an average of 30% to 80% rise when searching for jobs! This is amplified because many engineers from developing countries are looking for remote positions in developed countries because they offer appealing salaries.
Tip: Think about hiring junior engineers and training them. The approach of hiring early-career engineers and then mentoring them is not often considered nowadays, but it is the best option because you’ll get the benefits of a varied experience as time passes. If you live in a developing country and are losing engineers to remote work, you can try finding remote workers in smaller towns.
Sourcing & screening engineers
Define your ideal engineering hire
Develop a list of the skills required by your ideal engineer. What are their skills? What do their experiences look like? What are the companies they could be employed by? Are you in search of remote or on-site engineers?
This will likely be different based on your company’s kind and the stage at which you are. An excellent engineer for startups is someone who can deliver quickly, makes the right decisions and trade-offs, can think for themselves, and is a master of many trades. A good engineer for an enterprise is someone who can collaborate well with other people, adhere to procedures, works with massive abstractions and codebases, and follows best architectural practices.
Expanding the top of your funnel
Utilize a variety of candidate sources. Recruitment is essentially a numbers game. You can increase your “winning” chances by increasing the top of your funnel. Snaphunt’s multichannel sourcing lets you access candidates from more than twenty social media platforms, job boards, and other data sources to ensure that you can have a constant supply of candidates to fill your positions. Try Snaphunt’s sourcing tools through post your job at no cost.
Send a message to passive and active candidates
In the search for engineers, employing a method that relies on just job boards is insufficient. Engineers today want to be approached by businesses and consequently, it is essential to implement an outbound strategy for recruiters to connect with the passive talent pool.
Outbound recruitment is, in essence, when you search for someone who is already working on the job that you require and then go after them. Benefits include high-quality candidates as you can recruit an individual who has already succeeded in the exact position you’re looking for. Snaphunt simplifies outbound recruitment by automatically sourcing passive candidates through various data sources for your specific roles. It is easy to view the passive talent’s profile in the ‘Invite Talent’ tab of your job. You can also send personal invitations to the talent to inspire them to take a look at your job posting. Gain instant access to active and active talent through Snaphunt when publishing your job for free.
Speed up your hiring process
It is crucial to ensure you speed up your hiring process so that you can minimize the number of candidates that quit mid-hiring process since a majority of them are interviewing for multiple opportunities.
Make sure your process does not exceed two weeks from the beginning to the end for your engineering role and align your stakeholders so that you can access talent through more interviews and fewer rounds whenever you can. Snaphunt allows you to collaborate seamlessly together with the hiring staff to conduct rapid hiring processes.
Sell right from the beginning
With the demand for engineers increasing, it is an era of selling. Make sure you communicate your company’s vision and values in your job advert and on the first phone screening. When you interview candidates, make sure you understand what the applicant expects from their new position and explain how your company will be able to meet their needs.
Structure your interview process
To make sure you get the right choice, you must search for the right qualities. While assessing applicants, their technical skills can be analysed through assessments but it is equally crucial to look at other qualities like teamwork, ownership, as well as curiosity. An excellent framework you can use is “ABCDEF’s Of Tech Hiring”: agility and brains, communication drive, empathy, and fit.
Closing your candidates
When you are offering a deal, do not reduce your potential finalists’ offers as a first step, or you might not have the chance to counter-offer. Create an offer you believe they’ll be willing to take and be receptive to any verbal or non-verbal signals that indicate resistance or hesitation. Also, pay attention to any questions that the candidate asks during the offer process. This should be performed by the hiring manager since it builds a rapport with the potential hire and make them eager to be a part of the team (remember…people quit bosses, not businesses. Therefore, having a great prospective boss could be an excellent incentive).
In the period between when the candidate accepts and before they starts work, invite them to social events and make them feel like an integral part of the team before they sign up. This will prevent no-shows at the joining date.
A few thoughts
Continue to be in the hiring mode
Do not wait until your hiring needs are urgent to get going, as it can take time to create pipelines. Don’t be averse to hiring those with lengthy notice times because of urgent requirements – you’ll likely need additional talent in the coming months.
Build a strong employer brand
The brand of your employer is a blend of your business’s and your team’s image and is crucial in helping you find top talent. The more positive your brand for employers is, the more high-quality candidates will be willing to talk to you about your jobs and the higher the quality of your hires will be.
About the Author
Snaphunt is a leading remote hiring platform that gives employers instant access to remote & onsite talent, anywhere in the world.
Snaphunt’s comprehensive platform also provides employers with cutting-edge screening & collaboration to manage their process with ease, all the way till hire. Snaphunt has a sourcing reach of over 650m professionals & a dedicated talent pool of over 1.5 million candidates.
In addition to the platform, we also offer tailored solutions, to help you scale your team fast with vetted talent, so that you can make your next hire in days instead of months!
Try Snaphunt for your tech hiring by signing up for free.
