These days, just about every business leader has a common challenge: finding technical professionals to fill their open roles and harness economic opportunities. On a national scale, we are in a challenging situation, where the overall unemployment rate is at 5.5%, and job opportunities are unfilled.

Since the unemployment rate for the tech industry is at 2.4%, there’s even more of a struggle to attract and hire technical talent for the post-pandemic boom. When companies like yours find key talent, there’s a high risk that those very candidates will vanish unless you are the first to reel in your net. That’s why you need to always act with urgency and employ hiring practices that reflect that mindset.

Whether you’re dealing with the current shortage or a more robust talent pool, it’s imperative to move fast when you find the perfect person. In our experience, here are a few strategies that your organization can utilize as you determine how to hire more quickly.

Create a Structured Recruitment Plan

Olympic sprinters square up on a starting block because it gives them the right footing to achieve top speeds in the race. Without that structured support, it’s easier for them to stumble at the start, trailing far behind the competition. The same principle applies to quick and effective recruiting.

Organizations that create stable, foundational hiring processes are better at springing into action to find and acquire the tech talent they want. At every step of the recruitment cycle, they have best practices in place that allow them to move forward without hesitation. Here are essential considerations at each stage:

Preparation – At this stage, it’s important to include stakeholders who understand how the skills and qualifications will impact the role in designing the position’s parameters. Otherwise, it’s easy to create unrealistic job requirements that suffer from wishful thinking rather than reality or generalized needs that don’t resolve the root of your business and tech challenges.For example, it’s reasonable to expect to find a Software Developer with extensive Java, Python, and JavaScript experience. However, it’s far more unrealistic to demand four to six years of data science experience or Padrino (according to the HackerEarth 2021 Developer Survey).If and when you make a bad hire, evaluate your requirements to see if they are the root cause of the misjudgment. As always, be willing to adjust your process and expectations as you work towards better results.
Sourcing – It’s essential to identify which candidate sources yield the best results. Whether job boards or LinkedIn Recruiter, networking events or industry conferences, referrals or outsourced recruiters, it’s important to track the spend and effectiveness of each strategy, rather than wasting money on dead-end resources.Also, it’s essential to recognize that not all choices within a specific recruitment source are the same. Before writing off any candidate supply point, be sure to determine if it’s the type of source that isn’t working or the specific source. For example, does one job board outperform another? One convention? One staffing partner? It’ll help your speed if you can find practical resources that consistently deliver top talent.
Onboarding – Once a consultant has accepted your offer, your recruitment process must move full speed ahead. Your top candidates may continue to receive offers even after they’ve signed on with you. Whether or not those proposals seem appealing in part depends on your onboarding experience.If you help your new team members to quickly integrate into your company, introducing them to your processes and culture right from the start, then their immersion should go off without a hitch. Delay the transition or try bringing them up to speed in fits and starts, and they might abandon ship before you’re full steam ahead.

Use Proven Ways to Verify Talent

In an attempt to avoid bad hires, many organizations resort to technical assessments to verify IT talent is up to par. However, those assessments can sometimes slow down the process when organizations squander opportunities with professionals who want to move forward to their next position quickly. That is particularly the case if you do not have a streamlined approach to provide a rigorous review while remaining within timelines.

One way to accelerate the verification process is by asking the right questions during their job interview. Though your questions should balance evaluation of their hard skills and soft skills, you can screen for IT expertise with these types of inquiries:

Project walk-throughs – How well can candidates explain the results of their work? Having candidates explain their technical output in practical outcomes can show their understanding of their subject matter. The ability of a technical person to condense complex ideas into simple statements can show their depth of knowledge and the strength of their communication skills.
If/Then statements – How resourceful are your consultants when it comes to solving problems? Asking them If/Then statements can gauge their problem-solving capabilities as well as their experience with a range of technology, tools, and methodologies. Some hypotheticals will have one answer, while others will encourage candidates to present an array of fixes or next steps.

Working with the right technical recruiting solutions partner can speed up the process as well. At Capstone, we leverage internal SMEs along with a trusted portfolio of technical assessments to authenticate tech and framework knowledge along with the maturity level of their experience. That way, we can maintain rigorous quality control while also delivering talent promptly.

Research Competitive Offers

With the speed at which in-demand talent is being snatched up by nimble HR and recruiting teams, businesses need to expand their search to passive candidates. Unlike active job seekers, the primary motivation of passive job seekers is often higher compensation. With the range of job opportunities available right now, candidates can choose from the best of the bunch. They may even overlook engaging work and exciting technology if the compensation falls short of the curve.

Consider Job Flexibility

We’re at a point where one in three IT professionals are willing to leave jobs if they are required to return to the office. Though you might want them in-house on occasion, you can expand the pool of candidates interested in working for your company – and accelerate your time to fill – by offering a hybrid position.

To get the full advantage of work-from-home or hybrid positions, you need to advertise this benefit extensively. From job postings to in-interview discussions, your candidates should be repeatedly reminded of this asset. If you’re working with recruiters, it’s something they can be sure to emphasize with any candidate they approach.

Respond to Questions and Messages Quickly

Any lull in conversation with candidates in this market can result in unfortunate falloffs during any stage of the hiring process. The number of offers coming to candidates these days ensures that only those companies that maintain the most active presence in candidates’ inboxes and DMs have realistic odds of persuading them to join their team.

Unless your full-time focus is hiring, this can be a challenging prospect. Consultants need a lot of TLC. In general, candidates are far more likely to trust their career to a company that has shown investment and interest in the candidate’s career and goals. This sense of value encourages consultants to show up to work engaged and their total energy to do exceptional work. And why working with the proper staffing and recruiting partner might be your true advantage to hiring fast these days.

Work with the Right Partner

Trying to create a framework that incorporates all of these different strengths can be time-consuming and exhaustive. Rather than pioneering these hiring techniques on your own, your organization can receive all of the benefits without all the requisite time to scale up your recruitment operations.

At Capstone IT, we have refined processes that help us to pinpoint the exact requirements and formula for successful placements with each client. With our quality pledge and in-house solutions, we can rapidly evaluate tech skillsets and guide you to make offers capable of acquiring top talent.

Want to learn more about what Capstone IT does to accelerate our hiring process and find exceptional candidates? Check out our case study to see our people in action.