The digital landscape is rapidly changing, giving rise to increased demand for highly skilled tech talent.
Organisations that intend to succeed and gain a competitive advantage in the ever-evolving marketplace must have the right tech talents to help them with their innovative growth plan.
How Do You Attract Top Tech Talent?
Establish a Presence in the Tech Community
The most effective way to attract top tech talent is to position your organisation as an active member of your local tech community.
Maintaining active participation in the local tech scene will provide excellent opportunities for partnership. Your organisation can sponsor workshops, community forums and hackathons.
One significant benefit of participating in these events is increased brand awareness for your organisation within the tech space.
Keep Up To Date with Technology Trends
Top tech professionals want to work with technologies that challenge and keep their skills fresh. This means that your organisation needs to invest in ensuring that your technology stack is current, relevant and exciting.
Make Attractive Professional Growth Offers
Career development is one of the most essential things to top tech talent. Before applying to your company, tech professionals need to know that they will be working on projects and be exposed to internal opportunities that will positively impact their career development.
Offer Attractive Salary and Compensation Packages
When making salary offerings to top tech talent, ensure that you are meeting market rate and expectations.
However, the focus should not be solely on the salary being offered because there will be companies offering higher pay.
What you can do to set your organisation apart is by providing benefits that are tailored to the needs of tech professionals such as on-site cafeterias, games and relaxation areas, free or subsidised daycare and paid time off to pursue a field of interest.
Your compensation package should be the right balance of lifestyle benefits and professional development opportunities.
Who Is A Tech Talent?
Over the years, when organisations think of recruiting tech talent, they are often referring to people who possess specific IT skills. However, being a tech professional is beyond possessing technical skills.
In addition to technical skills, tech talents should possess soft skills such as communication, project management, ability to work in a team, leadership etc.
However, the pool of highly qualified and well-rounded tech talent is severely limited. Recent research by Korn Ferry predicts that the labour skills shortage in the tech sector is expected to reach 4.3 million workers by 2030.
The implication of this is that organisations and technical recruiters are forced to compete to attract and recruit the right tech talent.
Benefits of Recruiting Top Tech Talent
There are several benefits that organisations can get from recruiting tech professionals.
Competitive Edge
Incorporating the right technology in your business processes can make a significant impact on the business. And for companies to implement modern IT solutions and systems, they need to have well-versed tech professionals.
Top tech talent will leverage their skills and experience to look at your current, and future business needs to determine the type of technological systems you need that will help you gain a competitive advantage.
Innovation and Growth
To remain competitive, businesses need to keep innovating. Having quality tech professionals as a part of your workforce will foster innovation as they will utilise their unique set of skills and industry knowledge to identify ways to improve business processes to increase efficiency and productivity.
With technology, you can reduce inventory costs, improve customer satisfaction, keep track of your profit margins, adopt a just-in-time relationship with even suppliers and create control over inventory-resources.
Increase in Revenue Generation
When a business can improve its processes, products and services using technology, it will enjoy increased profitability.
Hiring top tech talent will enable you to leverage existing technologies to improve products and services and also increase revenue.
As much as technology professionals are needed, they shouldn’t only be hired for their technical skills.
Along with the ability to code, quality tech talent needs to have strong communication chops, the ability to adapt, and a passion for learning.
This article will highlight some of the skills that employers and technical recruiters should look out for when recruiting tech talent.
11 Skills You Should Look Out For When Hiring Tech Talent
Technical Skill
Tech hires must have a good understanding of computer programming. Developers will need to know how to build a software or an app from scratch, and this requires solid coding skills.
A good developer should be able to write clean, high-quality code and be familiar with several programming languages.
Problem Solving Skills
Problem-solving is one of the core skills that a software developer should possess. Your potential tech hire should be able to prove that they can quickly identify problems and also proffer effective solutions. A good software developer needs to be able to think outside the box.
Ability to Hit the Ground Running
Software development is a fast-evolving profession. It would be best if you had a developer who can keep up with current trends and apply them to the business quickly and effectively.
A good programmer should be able to adapt rapidly to your business environment and get to work.
Team Player
Software development requires a lot of collaboration. Developers will need to work side by side with designers, clients and other developers.
Thus, one of the skills to look out for in a software developer is the ability to be a team player. A software developer should be able to write code that makes logical sense to other developers. He or she should also be able to take and offer constructive feedback.
Communication Skills
Communication is an essential part of every business process. A slight breakdown in communication can lead to severe implications for a business.
Hence, the need for potential tech hires to possess the ability to articulate project needs and also discuss challenges or problems.
Cultural Fit
It is essential for you as an organisation to ensure that potential employees fit into your company culture. Tech recruiting requires the same process.
Ensure that the developer shares the same ideals as your organisation and that his goals are aligned with your business goals. This will ensure that they utilise their skills to drive business success.
Curiosity
Curiousity is a potent fuel for new inventions and personal development. Observe potential tech hires for their level of curiousity and how well they research and learn new things on their own.
This is a skill that ensures that the tech talent is updated with industry trends and is always seeking ways to improve on existing products and design.
Passion
A software developer who is passionate about his or her work will be 5times more efficient than one who wants the paycheck. A passionate software developer will want to explore new technologies and always push their limit.
He/she would not need to be asked to work extra hours to deliver on a project because they are internally motivated to do their job.
Attention to Detail
A good software developer should master how to utilise version control systems to avoid losing old work.
They should also possess an analytical mindset that would enable them to identify potential problem points and develop relevant solutions. They should be able to write well thought out and tested codes with creativity and dexterity.
Focus
Working on things like product development and design requires a high level of focus. One skill that tech hires need to have, is the ability to focus and keep their eyes on the ball.
You want a tech hire who can both be passionate about their job and remain focused on the short/long term goals at hand.
A tech hire who is able to exhibit a great understanding of what they are doing and why they are doing it, will prove to be a great asset in ensuring that essential tasks are completed quickly.
Multitasking
Software developers usually have to handle multiple projects with tight deadlines. A good software developer should be able to prioritise and manage all the various milestones of the project they are in charge of, at any given time.
If companies want to hire the right tech talent, they must start by developing an effective and bias-proof hiring process.
At Workforce Group, our Recruitment division has helped various organisations identify and hire the right tech talent.
Contact us to help you recruit the right technical professional that will drive your business goals and help you achieve business success.
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