These days technical recruiters are more valuable than ever before. That’s because the global economy is expected to add some 5 million jobs in the IT sector by 2027. And with only 18% of the U.S population holding STEM degrees, there’s significant competition for top tech talent.
When it comes to hiring for these coveted tech roles, recruiters need to have advanced knowledge to determine quality candidates from the pretenders. That’s where technical recruiters come in.
What Is A Technical Recruiter?
Technical recruiters help identify, evaluate, and secure talent for technical roles. Using their in-depth industry knowledge, tech recruiters can properly evaluate positions that have complicated day-to-day responsibilities.
So, whether you need to hire a UI/UX designer or a DevOps Engineer, technical recruiters are your best bet.
For example, if you’re trying to hire a web developer to create your new website, you need to know if your candidates are fluent in coding languages like Java, C++, Python, and HTML. That’s hard to do when you’ve never coded anything in your life.
This is why so many tech recruiters have STEM degrees and backgrounds in computer science. Simply put, they speak the same language as the tech workers they hire. And that matters when you’re trying to recruit top tech talent.
What Does A Technical Recruiter Do?
Technical recruiters perform a variety of tasks to successfully place IT professionals. Duties include:
- Create Job Descriptions
- Identify Both Passive and Active Candidates
- Represent The Company at Hiring Events
- Interview and Screen Candidates
- Follow-up With and Deliver Candidates
- Manage Recruiting Connections
In addition to these responsibilities, technical recruiters must maintain a high-level of technical knowledge to successfully hire valuable individuals.
Stay Up-to-Date With Tech Industry Trends
First and foremost, tech recruiters need to stay up to date with the latest industry trends. That means not only being aware of the big industry-wide changes but also staying up-to-date with the day-to-day functions and qualifications of tech roles.
For example, in the past, Computer Science degrees were the only way to secure a role in many of the most crucial spots in the tech sector. Today, that’s changing with the rise of ‘coding boot camps.’
In fact, these days, students from coding boot camps are seen as just as prepared as those with CS degrees by a whopping 76% of technical recruiters. That’s good news for the over 23,000 students who graduated from coding boot camps in 2019.
If you hire a general recruiter, they might not understand the value of coding boot camps, and they certainly won’t have inside connections to any of them like many technical recruiters do.
Determining Contenders From Pretenders
Determining the contenders from the pretenders is the most important role of technical recruiters.
They do this using technical coding exams, by asking probing questions, and through thorough background research into candidates.
Most technical recruiters will do a brief over the phone interview, and then assign a technical assessment to see if the candidate can really do everything their resume says they can. After that, if everything checks out, there will be a second round of interviews with more technical questions to once ensure the candidate didn’t cheat on the exam and is fully prepared to take the position.
Without the proper technical knowledge, conducting an interview like this is nearly impossible. That’s one of the reasons why technical recruiters are so in demand these days.
Why You Need a Technical Recruiter
Technical recruiters not only help make the hiring process easier, saving you time and money, they also help get the right talent to actually take the job.
In fact, according to a Linkedin survey, 89% of talent says being contacted by a technical recruiter can make them accept a job offer faster.
Outsourced technical recruiters can help employers in so many ways it’s hard to keep count:
Securing Passive Talent
Did you know a whopping 72% of the global workforce is made up of passive talent who aren’t actively searching for employment, according to data from Linkedin? One of the main reasons to partner with an IT recruiting firm is because they are willing to put in the time and effort, and have the resources required to recruit passive talent.
Top tech talent is mostly passive; they simply won’t be applying to jobs on job boards. So you’ll need to go to them. And an IT recruiting firm can help you do just that.
Ability to conduct technical interviews
If you don’t know the difference between Java and C++, it’s pretty hard to conduct an interview for a software engineer. IT recruiting staffing firms have technical recruiters that can help wade through the jargon and find out if a candidate is capable of fulfilling all the technical requirements of the position.
In-depth industry knowledge
A technical recruiter’s in-depth industry knowledge goes a long way. A technical recruiter is able to identify the appropriate skills and competencies that make IT professionals valuable. Not just during the interview process, but also in the candidate selection process.
Connections
Finally, you should consider hiring a technical recruiter for their industry connections. The fact is, over 70% of employers are having a difficult time finding skilled candidates, so you’re going to need all the help you can get. Technical recruiters can leverage their industry connections to find quality active and passive candidates.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, if you want to hire top tech talent, you’re going to need technical recruiters to make that happen. Technical recruiters are the only way you’re going to separate the contenders from the pretenders without wasting the valuable time of your current tech employees.
So if you’re looking for top tech talent, don’t waste your time with job boards. Reach out to a technical recruiting specialist. You’ll be more than happy you did.