You finally have the budget to add to your IT staff. The trouble is: you can’t seem to find the right industry talent.
Sound familiar? If so, you’re certainly not alone. As one of the leading providers of Healthcare IT solutions, Morgan Hunter Healthcare knows many company CIOs are looking to enhance their teams with new hires, but are having trouble finding people with the right skills to help maintain and expand operational abilities.
To help you ramp up your efforts – and uncover the best tech talent for your IT jobs – here are some steps to take and mistakes to avoid.
#1. Know Where to Look
Any candidate is easy to find; but it’s the right one you’re looking for. To target them, you have to be willing to participate in their communities. Look to sites like Stack Overflow and Github to start. These online communities enable you to go beyond just sourcing potential candidates, but also give you the opportunity to assess what they know and can do.
#2. Tap Your Current Team
As the saying goes, “birds of a feather flock together.” When it comes to recruiting IT talent, one of the best places to start is with your current team. You can guarantee they have friends and colleagues with the exact tech skills you need who may be looking for new opportunities. To leverage your team’s connections, develop a program for candidate referrals and promote it often to existing IT team members.
#3. Be Clear About the Job
When IT talent is looking for new opportunities, they want to be able to find out about jobs quickly and easily. Don’t make it hard for them. Create simple, clear job descriptions with just a few key requirements (not a list of 20) and promote all your company has to offer to potential hires. Remember, it’s not just about your needs; you want to hire candidates who actually want to work at your company.
#4. Create an Easy Application Process
Too often, the application process is long and convoluted. This leads to frustrated candidates who drop out midway through submitting their information. If you want to capture the right candidates, you need to ensure your process is fast and intuitive. You’re not trying to hire via an application form; you’re simply trying to source candidates.
#5. Take Your Time Screening
You have projects in the queue and work to get done. But that doesn’t mean you should hire in a hurry. Take your time to thoroughly vet each candidate so you are confident in your final hiring choice. Don’t be afraid to invest in conducting skills tests, background checks and verifying references. These are the steps companies often skip when they need people quickly – a decision they will come to regret when a hiring mistake ensues.
#6. Communicate Often
Keep in contact with your candidates, even if it’s a quick update about the hiring process. There is plenty of demand out there for IT recruits. So if you’re keeping candidates in the dark and uninformed, you’re going to lose them to your competition.
#7. Always Be Recruiting
You’re thinking about filling a job opening. But did you know someone on your team is probably already planning on leaving? Most IT professionals are passive candidates, which means if another – better – job opportunity comes along, they could take it. For you, that means recruiting needs to be an ongoing effort; not one meant to fill an empty seat.