The 6 Biggest Challenges Tech Recruiters Face in 2022

Recruiting leading talent continues to be a problem within tech in 2022. With more open positions than qualified talent, technical recruiting grows even more complicated as the year unfolds. For any organization looking to hire developers, it’s a complex landscape.

In this environment, recruiters and employers compete for top talent. At the same time, highly-qualified job seekers have the leverage to choose positions with the strongest incentives: stock options, healthcare, and high pay rates, for example. If you’re constantly struggling to attract, retain, and hire top talent, it could be a sign your tech hiring strategies are no longer working.

There are many options a company may consider when recruiting candidates for technical positions: recruiting talent from competing companies or reaching out to colleagues for referrals. However, these approaches may not always produce the desired candidate reach you require. Chances are you might find yourself encountering many of the same candidate profiles as you perform your candidate search.

As your explore your options, consider seeking out an already established tech-focused talent pool. A technical recruitment agency with a specialty in finding diverse and pre-screened talent can help you address the biggest challenges tech recruiters face in 2022. Companies hire differently now, and these changes will remain with us into the future.

Challenges Recruiters Face in 2022

Demand Is Outpacing Available Tech Talent

Recruiters must find the right talent for open positions. That’s a difficult task when there’s more positions available than qualified talent to fill them.

A recent survey from CompTIA found that there were about 4.9 million tech position openings and almost 400,000 openings in Februrary of 2022. The problem is a shortage of qualified candidates to fill these positions. The US will be short 1.2 million engineers by 2026, if current trends continue, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There’s no question, the tech talent shortage is a significant issue.

Recruiters may need to be more open with what talent they evaluate. They may need to be more willing to evaluate self-taught talent, instead of classically educated developers. The other option is to seek out tech-specific talent networks like Esteemed. Recruiters can find a competitive advantage by finding pre-screened, already-sourced candidates that are part of this network.

Screening is Still a Challenge

Maintaining the necessary resources to screen talent is difficult. Let’s consider all that’s involved for a moment. A technical talent screener must be well versed in several complex and technical topics, including appropriate programming languages, disciplines, dev environments, and popular programming tools.

A serious candidate’s resume almost always proves their qualifications. Regardless, companies need to do due diligence to ensure this is the case. Otherwise, they are deciding based on the word of the candidate. This can be problematic when you truly don’t know if the candidate is the expert they claim to be.

The good news is companies can solve this problem by outsourcing screening-as-a-service. They can ask their candidates to take online coding assessments, augmented screening, technical interviews, and human-reviewed coding tests. They also have detailed actionable reports for recruiters to evaluate. With a great screening program, candidates are properly vetted for the work they are applying for, and recruiters can confidently place their candidates in their roles.

Dealing with Competing Offers

Tech candidates are in the driver’s seat when it comes to the offers they consider or accept. Employers that do more to create clear and enticing differentiators within their company do better at attracting top talent.

This environment forces companies to become more creative in what they offer to candidates. Several factors might come into play when they make a decision. Some factors candidates may consider before they accept an offer include: interesting problems to solve, salary, flexible hours, company culture, and advancement opportunities.

Creating Strong Enough Incentives

Recruiting top technical talent is a competitive challenge. It requires putting together an enticing and comprehensive employment package. This means emphasizing workplace culture and benefits. You are working to draw the attention of top-level talent. For full-time developer positions this might mean perks like: the ability to work on attractive projects, the ability to work remote, flexible hours, and a competitive salary. Incentives to contract developers may take more creativity. But some ideas might include: gift cards, virtual courses, or a bonus.

Companies need to consider the independent factors a candidate might consider. We often look at branding as a marketing objective. These factors are the part of your brand, however, which a potential hire will see.

A robust social media presence with posts that clearly convey the company culture or talk about client projects will look good to candidates. That’s critical when you’re trying to position your company as attractive to work for.

Recruiter and Hiring Manager Misalignment

Talent recruitment and hiring managers must work together. Hiring managers might paint an unrealistic picture of the ideal candidate. For example, they might want a front-end and back-end developer with experience in emerging technologies that have only been around for a few years. This can make the position challenging to fill.

A general skill set may still work in some circumstances, even when the job is specialized. It’s important to understand when two, five, or ten years of experience may be necessary for the role. When the hiring manager and recruitment have the same ideal candidate in mind, it becomes easier to fill the position.

Recruiting Against the Clock

In the current competitive hiring landscape, recruiters are forced to work in accelerated conditions. As candidates receive multiple offers on LinkedIn and in their inbox, they grow impatient with slow recruitment processes. At any time during the hiring search, a candidate might choose to work with whichever company is faster to close the position, creating even more pressure for organizations to act fast during the recruitment process.

When candidates drive the process, technical recruiters must collect precise candidate data faster than their competitors. One option is to screen candidates to better understand the talent. Understanding their skill level and programming knowledge early in the process can save you significant time. You can either do this internally or outsource it. Making sure that your technical recruiters have the appropriate background to fill the position can also help you speed the process and help you hire the right candidate.

Slow These Challenges by Reducing Your Turnover Rate

The tech industry experiences the highest turnover rates of any business sector at 13.2 percent. Intense competition, lack of growth, and company culture all play a part in the churn. Your company can buck that trend by managing the challenges above. This will slow down the need to constantly recruit talent. When you can attract and retain top talent, you can succeed into the future.

Finding the Top Tech Talent in a Competitive Environment

Talent sourcing allows companies to bypass these common hiring challenges. It concentrates highly qualified technical talent into a single network. This allows you to connect with highly skilled professionals and build lasting professional relationships. You can nurture your talent network and turn candidates into promising job applicants.

With this approach you’ll be able to future proof your workforce, pursue talent from a wider demographic, and speed up candidate searches. You can gain full access to qualified professionals in hard-to-hire specialties. Talent sourcing is your chance to create a full funnel of highly talented applicants.

Want to learn more about Talent Sourcing at Esteemed? Learn more by reading our blog or fill out the form below to get in touch.