Technical recruiting is a complex process that requires strong technical knowledge and is quite different from recruiting for non-technical specialties.
Technical telecom recruitment matters now more than ever. Just imagine, instead of hiring a team to solve a technical task, thinking about motivation and benefits, paying taxes, you just need to contact technical recruiters who know their business well and will find you specialists with the required level of knowledge and skills.
In this article, Olesya Gaidukova, Technical Recruiter at Telesens, will tell us how a technical interview is performed, what mistakes candidates make most often, and what recruiting trends we should expect in the next few years.
IT technical recruiter and non-technical recruiter: what’s the difference?
In fact, the first word contains the answer. The main aspect of the role of a technical recruiter is at least basic and, in some cases, quite deep understanding of the technical component of the IT sector. This is necessary to achieve a match between 3B (three businesses) — the candidate, our company, and the client. It is important for me that each of them gets their value.
The candidate finds a good place to work, the company obtains a good specialist, and the client gets a specialist who will fulfil the criteria of all the requirements of the project. All of them must be 100% satisfied.
A basic understanding of the technical requirements for the job also helps you find the perfect candidate and facilitates further communication. You have to admit, it’s easier to sell what you know than what you don’t have a clue about.
Hiring in IT is a scrupulous journey that begins with a vacancy, the search for a valid candidate, and further stages in the face of a large competitive workload. An important technical skill of a recruiter is to competently present the position: highlight those points that are popular, relevant, and will definitely interest the candidate.
The moment of finalising communication with the candidate and providing detailed technical feedback also differs from non-technical recruiting.
A technical recruiter should always understand that even if the candidate is not suitable for the current project or vacancy, you will be able to cross paths again in the IT space more than once in the future.
The recruitment process itself may also include not 1 but up to 5 interview stages. In the non-IT recruitment, most likely, there is no such selection. In the non-IT field, more emphasis is placed on soft skills, the motivational component, and experience in general.
In any case, any work with people that requires both technical and non-technical skills is not easy.
What soft skills should you pay attention to?
In fact, this is true for any company, not just Telesens. The company is primarily interested in long-term cooperation with a specialist. Communication skills and the ability to present oneself and the company are also important.
Equally important is the ability to adapt to new market trends, which are changing very rapidly. I always want a professional to be able to work in a team and be stress-resistant. They should not be afraid to solve certain issues and take responsibility.
What is the recruitment process workflow at Telesens?
It all depends on the position itself. It also happens that hiring takes place in one stage. If we talk about the average life cycle of the technical recruiting process, the first stage is the recruiter’s technical screening, where the recruiter understands and correlates the necessary valid experience of the candidate with the requirements of the position.
Based on this conclusion, we understand whether to continue further processing or not. If everything is in order, we suggest that hiring managers consider the candidate, be sure to add your own attached feedback, which contains the main technical aspects specified in the vacancy.
The next step may be a test task (if there is one for the position), an internal interview, and a client interview (optional, again, based on the requirements of the vacancy).
Digital tools used in recruitment: your practice
My favourite tool for many years is LinkedIn and very occasionally job sites.
I don’t use AI for recruitment or automated email campaigns for my scripts, I write everything myself.
5 years ago, I had a negative experience when my page with a large candidate network was permanently banned by LinkedIn due to the large number of invites I’ve sent every day.
I had a heavy workload, and I needed to process up to 5 vacancies a day, and I did actually approached candidates on Linkedin.
Therefore, LinkedIn considered my manually sent invites as spam. It turned out that my speed level and quantity of invites sent to candidates was at the level of automation.
Common mistakes made by candidates and how can they be avoided?
They read the job description inattentively and, unfortunately, ignore certain technical aspects (tools, frameworks, databases, etc.) that are a must-have for the position. We always try to highlight them and emphasise their necessity.
However, candidates decide to include certain knowledge even if they heard something about it 15 years ago. They say they can quickly learn it on the job.
Not taking technical recruiters seriously. Superficial attitude as an intermediary who plans meetings in the calendar and talks about the company’s benefits. They are not perceived as a colleague who will help and set the technical tone of voice, and all attempts to give hints are negated. Listen to recruiters. They don’t mean any harm.
How has the COVID-19 pandemic and the war affected IT recruitment?
Undoubtedly, they had a great influence. As soon as everyone adapted to the remote schedule during the Covid, everything became more complicated with the war. The market has changed and recruitment faces certain challenges in Ukraine: jobs have been cut, and foreign clients have more concerns about working with Ukrainian specialists.
It has become harder for the younger generation of IT professionals. Previously, they had a lot of opportunities to develop their practical technical skills from the first years of study and gain experience in commercial projects. Now the field of opportunities is not the same as it used to be.
IT recruitment trends: what do we expect in the future?
Remote work is something that will be with us for a long time. Everyone has gotten used to it, adapted, and created their own workspaces at home.
AI-based recruiting is a trend that is very confidently implemented including technical recruitment.
Artificial Intelligence in recruitment will make the search and hiring of candidates more efficient and less resource-intensive. This is likely to reduce the influence of the human factor at the initial stages of selection. Therefore, it will be very important for candidates to carefully prepare their resume, portfolio and self-presentation because the future of AI in recruiting is promising.
I also notice a trend that is becoming more and more common, so I can name this as an upcoming IT hiring trend — promoting job accessibility for inclusive groups of people. The labour market is becoming more accessible. The future of IT recruiting sounds very encouraging.
Conclusion
Technical recruiting is undoubtedly a relevant trend for decades to come. And if you are not yet ready to engage in in-house technical recruiting and want to take all the worries off your plate, Telesens has the best recruiters for remote jobs (and not only) and is always happy to help in finding tech talents.