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How to Attract Tech Talent:
Creative Recruitment Ideas
Have you spent days reading through resumes of over-qualified and under-qualified candidates, only to end up with a few mediocre candidates to choose from?
That’s because tech talent on average receives a job offer every 48 hours. They don’t need to post their resumes on sites like Workopolis or Indeed. They’re constantly in demand, and they know it.
Scoring an opportunity to hire tech talent requires creative and innovative thinking to make your company stand out from all their other offers.
If you’re looking for a unique candidate, you need a unique approach. Here are some examples of some brilliant tactics companies are using to attract top technical talent.
Find New Hires with Friendly Competition
Complex puzzles can be a great way to attract the attention of potential tech hires.
Innovative developers, like the ones you want to hire, arecreative and often competitive. Allowing them to evaluate their
skills against their peers will motivate them.
But how do you let the right people know about your puzzle competition?
Traditional job listings won’t help. The exceptional candidates you are looking for aren’t unemployed. You’ll need to find them through social media.
A simple way is to use keywords from your job description on LinkedIn. For example, if you’re looking for a developer, use the keyword “develop”. Visit groups and profiles that match your keyword and you’ll discover talented professionals that have the relevant experience and skills for your position.
After narrowing down your search to what you think are the top 25 candidates, send a unique invite through email or InMail messaging asking candidates to compete in a preliminary round of your puzzle challenge. Offer a reward of some kind to help motivate the candidates to compete.
Pro Tip
Create more traction for your recruitment campaign by announcing or posting the winners of the qualifying round on your company’s social media accounts. This can create interest, and you might even get a few more candidates who want to try out the challenge!
Once you’ve found a few candidates that aced your first puzzle, invite them into your office for the “final round”.
This next puzzle should be more complicated, and you should introduce a time-sensitive question to test technical skills in a high-pressure work environment.
Not only does this recruiting technique start your conversation with the candidate, but it also lets you evaluate a competitor’s skills without going through a lengthy interview process.
This will give you some great insight into each of the candidates and you can select the winner to move forward with your next round in the hiring process.
Involve Employees with an Employee Referral Program
Most companies have heard of Employee Referral Programs, but have trouble setting up an effective one of their own.
Maybe you already have a referral program in place but is it producing the results you hoped for?
Here’s how you can change it.
Keep everyone in the loop
Implement a program where employees are notified where their referral is during the interview process, don’t just ask them to pass on a resume to the HR manager. If the candidate makes it through the initial interview process, let your employee know! It takes a few minutes to keep them in the loop but makes a big difference for morale. You can take this a step further by interviewing the employee to ask why their referral would be the right hire. Their opinions matter, and ensuring they know this can help improve your company culture.
Streamline the process
Identify top-performing employees that are passionate and loyal to the company. Invite them to lead the referral process. Without having management overlooking, employees can feel empowered in being part of the team. You can even ask these leaders to talk to other employees and set up potential rewards as part of the program.
Spread out the money
Don’t spend your entire budget on giving your employees cash at the end of their referral’s probation period. Incorporate little surprises that show appreciation and accomplishment along the way. Award them with a small gift card once their referral is hired; drop them off a treat with a note of congratulations once their referral completes training. Employees will feel involved and valued, especially during long hiring processes.
Assess Candidates with Gamification
Everyone loves a good game, and Gamification has been a recent recruiting trend.
How does it work?
Candidates typically play in a virtual reality work environment. They receive missions, attend training sessions, negotiate with clients, and solve business problems to earn points toward getting hired. They can play in a waiting area, the conference room or your office. You can have company headsets available for use and all you need to do is download a VR training simulator software. Some VR companies even offer a headset with preinstalled modules, all you have to do is hit the order button!
Gamification is not only a creative and engaging way to test potential hires. It has several benefits for the candidate and the company.
How does gamification help the hiring process?
- You can screen candidates with more information than just a resume and without several rounds of interviews.
- The potential new hire can gather ideas about the role and the company in a unique experience that they’re sure to remember.
- The work stimulation provides insight into behavioral traits. You can see if they’ll be a good fit with company culture.
- They’ll know what you expect from an employee at your company, which can help with retention policies.
Tech professionals are constantly in demand. Companies want to continue hiring creative candidates but rarely have an innovative hiring process. Success in hiring comes from the willingness to compete in the current market and innovating to find the right prospects. Make sure you make use of one of these three recruiting ideas and see how they work!
Let our team of recruitment professionals match you with your next opportunity. Take advantage of our resources and network. They were designed to help you succeed.
