Hiring IT professionals is competitive! A large pool of companies must compete to hire a limited number of qualified professionals. Also, candidates are often interviewing with multiple companies all at once. So, chances are, if you want to hire the candidate you will be against another company trying to do the same.
To combat this aggressive hiring market, you need to make sure your IT hiring process is thoroughly-planned and well-executive. If you have a long, drawn-out hiring process, you risk another firm extending an offer to your top candidate and them accepting. Then you will have to start the hiring process all over again – which is costly and time intensive.
Here are four ways you can streamline your hiring process and snag top talent:
Have a clear idea of your hiring needs. Before you start reading through cover letters and resumes, you need to a clear picture of your hiring goals. Think about the short-term and long-term projects this candidate would undertake.
- What skills will they need to complete these projects?
- Will they need to have certain areas of expertise?
- Do they need to have leadership qualities?
Fully consider the type of candidate you have in mind and use these attributes to help craft the job description. By writing a clearly-defined job description, you have a better chance of finding a candidate who is a good fit for the position more quickly.
Interview selectively. Screen your applicant pool and narrowed it down to candidates who are a good fit for the position. Don’t waste your (or the applicants’) time by setting up and conducting interviews with everyone who applies. Rather, only interview candidates who seem to be a good fit for the position.
Plan your interviewing process. In most interviews, the applicant will meet with the hiring manager, potential colleagues, possibly even an HR representative. The more people that you have interview the candidate, the higher your chances of the interviewer thinking “I’m sure someone already asked that,” potentially missing out on key answers from the candidate.
Before conducting interviews, clearly delegate areas each person should ask the candidate about (i.e. skills, education, previous work history, etc.). This will give the interviewers direction and will hopefully ensure all job candidates are asked similar questions.
Be decisive. The longer you wait to make a hiring decision, the higher your chances of losing your applicants to other offers. Once your hiring team has met with all the candidates, immediately have the whole team debrief each other on their interview findings, and try to pare down the field to just one applicant to extend an offer to.
By having a clearly defined hiring process, you will increase your chances of hiring a top candidate and will avoid long (and costly) hiring processes. You can also streamline your hiring by working with an IT staffing specialists. They have extensive networks of qualified IT job candidates and can help fill your position quickly. To work with an IT recruiter, contact Contemporary Staffing Solutions today!