Hiring IT Talent: Attracting Passive Candidates
If you’re hiring IT talent this year, what is your strategy for identifying the top talent? It’s easy to stick to a tried and tested IT recruitment process. If it has worked for you so far, is there any reason to change it?
Sometimes, it’s not about changing your approach to recruitment, but evolving it. Many employers will receive a sea of applications from IT professionals looking for that next step. Of course, this is a great way to find a really solid candidate. However, is this approach limiting your talent pool?
Attracting passive candidates, those who aren’t actively looking for a new role, is a winning move when hiring IT talent. If they’re not looking, how are you supposed to get their attention? Here’s what you need to do to…
The importance of market mapping
Market mapping involves evaluating the current market to determine not only the quality of talent but also their availability. It allows you to identify competitors who may be housing talent you want to speak to. More importantly, you can divide candidates between active and passive. This will really help when it comes to targeting the passive candidates alone. Then, you will have identified a stream of talent for future hires with a much wider selection to target.
The right content for a passive audience
Once your market mapping analysis is concrete, you need to think about how to engage this audience. If they’re passive, they are likely happy in their role and committed to finishing long term projects. So, it’s not just about telling a software engineer that there is an exciting position for them. They probably find their current position exciting and can find many more like it.
Specific content tailored to this audience is key. It has to be completely about the opportunity and the real life changes this presents to them. These unique experiences should be central to your recruitment marketing. From salary increases to company changing projects they will work on, the value needs to be extremely high. Motivations have also changed. If you aren’t offering benefits that help work-life balance and employee happiness, don’t expect the passive candidates to come knocking.
Employer brand is key
Attracting passive candidates isn’t always about securing them right now. Gaining their attention while they’re passive means you will be on their mind when they do actively start looking. Candidates are particularly more careful when choosing a new role or company. You need to show them that yours is the right choice.
Your existing workforce are the people candidates will want to hear from. Senior management should encourage the team to tell stories about their working life. Asking real questions that will invoke an emotional response. ‘What has been your biggest achievement here?’ or ‘What are you looking forward to in the next year?’ will allow passive candidates to visualise their own success there.
Demonstrate an active company culture on social media
Leading on from employer brand, social media plays a big part. If you think about your LinkedIn company followers, how many could be passive candidates? Quite a few we suspect! That is why your social channels should not be ignored when it comes to internal hiring strategy. Not only can you share team updates, but also discuss industry trends to show you are up to date and value innovation. Passive candidates will slowly come to take notice of regular updates, keeping your company in their mind.
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