The secret to hiring (and keeping) top tier tech candidates

The secret to hiring (and keeping) top tier tech candidatesThe secret to hiring (and keeping) top tier tech candidatesThe secret to hiring (and keeping) top tier tech candidatesMore and more, tech professionals cant be categorized as either passive or active candidates. Theyre just always on. They always have an ear to the rail theyre aware of their own value and are ready to take the next opportunity at a moments notice.There is so much opportunity, its hard for tech talent to turn it off, says Rod Adams, talent acquisition leader at audit and consulting firm PwC. For recruiters, theres good and schwimmbad news in this trend. The good news is that literally millions of coders, software architects and CIOs are out there right now with a never say never attitude to new career opportunities.The bad news? Yur next placement isnt closed until its closedand it could still unravel on the candidates second day on the job if something shinier and newer comes along.Heres how extreme tech turn over has become Googles median employee tenure is 1.1 years, while Amazons is just one year, placing both tech giants near the bottom for employee retention among Fortune 500 companies, according to a study by Payscale.Many of these tech pros are satisfied with their jobs, but feel little or no motivation to stick with them. Theyre always on simply because they can never escape the glare of recruiters attention.They make a hard decision to stay or to take a new opportunity, says Adams, and then theres an element of debating internally, Did I make the right choice?So how can you succeed in the era of the always-on candidate? We asked expert recruiters for advice on how to woo those candidates and continue to win new clients.Develop a sourcing strategy that engages candidates effectivelyIn 2019, a successful tech recruiting strategy must engage these cherished candidates. Theyre solid gold prospects, but many are jaded by a job market that makes them feel like nothing more than a pric ey commodity. The trick to differentiating yourself as a recruiter is to meet candidates on their own territory.We go where the talent is, says Karen Gardner, chief learning officer at ManTech, a government contractor that hires out its own tech employees to various federal agencies.One way that ManTech engages contract talent is by creating and maintaining communities of practiceforums for interaction with experts and resources in hot specialties like wolke technologies and offensive and defensive cybersecurity practices.Two of ManTechs communities of practice are called Network-Centric Solutions and Insider Threat Program, a cybersecurity forum.Our professionals really like getting together to hear about different contracts, says Gardner. Our communities of practice serve all of ManTech, providing the forums in which our professionals discuss best practices and common implementation patterns to deliver solutions that solve our customers most challenging needs.Recruiters must get m ore technical than everThe latest tools for recruiting can help you identify always-on candidates before you make contact.For example, there are AI apps that can predict whos more likely to leave a job based on their update activity on their social media profiles, says Sean Dowling, partner and manager of recruiting strategy at search firm WinterWyman Now theres software that can aggregate all these little clues. Entelo is one such application.Recruiters also need to be active in the verbunden forums where tech professionals live, by posting articles and updates on industry news, for example, Dowling says.I have shared commentary about new technologycomparisons between Angular 1 versus Angular 2, or software or new product releases, he adds. (Angular is a Java-based platform for building web applications.)Granted, you probably wont master the technologies that candidates live for, but you can at least demonstrate technical literacy.Some of our recruiters are as technical as the tech nical guys, and they get smart on emerging technologies just as quickly, says Gardner. Dowling adds Lots of recruiters dont know how to look at code samples. If you dont know how, you should learnperhaps from a candidate youve worked with for years.Recruiters may need to invest time to identify the forums where candidates in a given specialty hang out. You might recruit for a full day and find this one site thats really niche to your client, says Dowling. When searching the other day for React.js developers, I found a forum called Hackr.io, a group of React developers that pose questions to each other. In addition to user forums, Hackr.io features programming courses, meetup listings and tech industry news.Get personalfastto build alliancesTo succeed in the long term, tech recruiters need to dig in to build strong alliances with candidates. How? By showing candidates that youre invested in their future, not just the gig at hand.ManTech does this with a big education and training per k. Were the only employer in the region that offers free tuition to our employees, says Gardner.ManTech partnered with Purdue University Global to close talent gaps in cybersecurity. Fringe benefit For ManTech employees who are hired out on contract, turnover is 45 percent lower among those who take advantage of the tuition offer.In the long game of tech recruiting, it pays to keep in touch with candidates whether or not youve hooked them up for their current gig. We do have a focused alumni strategy, a team that drives engaging with alumni, says Adams of PwC. We provide continuing learning opportunities, so that we may be able to hire them back.